More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Started reading
May 9, 2023
Until you grasp your parent’s psychological limitations, you may blame yourself wrongly or keep hoping for changes they won’t make.
Because EIPs insist on dominating and being the center of importance, they don’t leave room or resources for others to be fully themselves. Their me-first entitlement and self-justifications negate the rights of other people, giving them free rein for abuse, harassment, prejudice, exploitation, and corruption of all types.
When you try to share something important to you, they’re likely to talk over you, change the subject, start talking about themselves, or dismiss what you’re saying.
Because EI parents relate in a superficial, egocentric way, talking with them is often boring. They stick to conversation topics they feel safe with, which quickly become stagnant and repetitious.
Wondering if a parent will think of you or have your back can make you vulnerable to stress, anxiety, and depression. These are reasonable reactions to a childhood environment in which you couldn’t trust a parent to notice your needs or protect you from things that overwhelmed you.
They feel loved only when you let them interrupt you any time.
Even when you’re grown, they expect you to remain their compliant child or—if you insist on your own life—at least always follow their advice.
Emotionally immature people don’t regulate their self-esteem and emotional stability well on their own. They need others to keep them on an even keel by treating them just so.
Under the influence of this relationship system, you attune to the EI parent’s emotional needs instead of listening to what your instincts are telling you.
You find yourself putting their needs and feelings above your own emotional health.
As you are infiltrated by their unhappiness, you feel like it’s up to you to make everything all right.
Healthy and mature people certainly need help sometimes too. But they go about it differently. When they ask for help, they consider the other person’s circumstances.
You Feel Exhausted and Apprehensive
Before you realize it, your feelings are unimportant, and your mission becomes their stabilization.
If they feel lonely or unimportant, you might find yourself expressing a level of love and loyalty beyond what you actually feel.
What all EIPs have in common are self-preoccupation, low empathy, a need to be most important, little respect for individual differences, and difficulties with emotional intimacy.
Emotional parents are dominated by feelings and can become extremely reactive and overwhelmed by anything that surprises or upsets them. Their moods are highly unstable, and they can be frighteningly volatile. Small things can be like the end of the world, and they tend to see others as either saviors or abandoners, depending on whether their wishes are being met.
Passive parents are the nicer parents, letting their mate be the bad guy. They appear to enjoy their children but lack deeper empathy and won’t step in to protect them. While they seem more loving, they will acquiesce to the more dominant parent, even to the point of overlooking abuse and neglect.
EI parents dominate you most effectively by taking advantage of your emotions. They influence your behavior by treating you in ways that induce fear, shame, guilt, or self-doubt.
To justify being in charge, EI parents treat others as lacking in judgment and competence. This gives them license to tell you what to do and how to be.
They categorize people into either dominant or submissive roles because equal relationships make them uneasy, uncertain who’s really in charge.
They assume they are entitled to what they want and rarely look at themselves objectively.
Because they aren’t self-reflective, EI parents have poor filters and say things without thinking.
For instance, they may be blithely oblivious to how their recent behavior has made them unwelcome. They can’t see why things shouldn’t go back to normal when they are ready to interact again.
They use your feelings against you so you feel responsible for supporting their emotional security, stability, and self-esteem.
Whether it’s a violent outburst or an emotional meltdown, EIPs instinctively use whatever will scare you into the kind of behavior they want. Once you feel afraid, you’re much more willing to put them first.
Physical abuse is the biggest fear tactic. Physical fears go deep and must be consciously worked at in order to unlearn their effects.
Tragically, you learn to feel anxious as soon as you start to feel anything your parent wouldn’t like
Guilt should motivate you to apologize, not hate yourself.
EI parents exploit the coercive potential of guilt. They teach their children to feel horrible about themselves and feel the need to become perfect. Such children are not taught to forgive themselves for mistakes, and they don’t learn that there is a way out of guilt by taking responsibility and making amends. EIPs encourage guilty feelings because then you are more attentive and acquiescent to their needs.
Because guilt is familiar and easy to express, sometimes we think we are feeling guilt when we’re really experiencing shame.
You might be especially vulnerable to shame if EIPs call you selfish. There is no accusation more hurtful to a sensitive person than to be told they don’t care about others.
If you were treated this way as a child, you may still feel ashamed for having problems or needing help.
That’s why young children so often have meltdowns over seemingly insignificant things. When their subjective experience isn’t recognized or understood by their parent (Stern 2004), their inner cohesion comes apart, and they feel like they’re falling into the void.
feeling unlovable probably came from your parent’s incapacity for emotional intimacy and is not a fundamental flaw in yourself. Your needs for emotional connection were normal, not repellant nor unlovable,
