Effects of Growing Up With Emotionally Immature Parents
Lower Sense of Self (Self esteem, Self worth, Self confidence, Self love)
Since you were most likely responsible for your parents/caregivers’ emotional well being and support, you did not receive consistent and adequate support yourself which was crucial during these developmental years toward building a cohesive and strong sense of Self.
Not knowing who you are
Feeling empty inside
Shame
Feeling like you aren't good enough no matter what you do
Deep feelings of inadequacy
Feeling broken
Having the thought that there is something wrong with you
“If you really knew who I was inside, you would/wouldn’t…”
Negative and extreme self talk
“I’m so dumb…”
“I’m not worth anything…”
Motivating yourself through negative self talk and pressure
Engaging in intimacy avoiding behaviors like
Working in excess (over 50-60 hours)
Exercising in excess
Shopping addiction
Substance misuse
Sex, porn and love addiction
And more
Difficulty With Interpersonal Relationships
Because the neglect and abuse occurred within an interpersonal relationship (your parent/caregiver and you), this will also impact your relationship not just with yourself (Self), but with others and how you relate to them (trust, intimacy, esteem, identity). This can be both platonic and romantic, but is more challenging with romantic relationships due to how intimate it is.
Dependent on others’ validation and approval
Dependent on external forms of validation and approval (e.g. how you look, money, status, goals achieved, career/job, etc.)
Difficulty taking and receiving compliments
Deflecting when the attention is on you
Sabotaging healthy relationships
Difficulty trusting others
Having mistrust of certain types of people
Mistrusting everyone
Difficulty with intimacy and vulnerability
Avoiding, distancing or distracting yourself when the relationship deepens and is more vulnerable
Having extreme and/or negative thoughts related to intimacy and vulnerability
And more
Difficulty With Boundaries
Since boundaries were either extreme/rigid, too loose/porous, or a mixture of both which was inconsistent, you struggle with healthy boundaries as an adult.
Enmeshment
Relationship dynamic where personal boundaries are blurred, leading to excessive emotional involvement and interdependence, often within a family
Covert emotional incest
Parentification
Role reversal where the parent is the child and the child is the parent
Puts stress on the child who has to grow up quickly
Is not developmentally appropriate for the child (they skip crucial developmental stages)
Codependency
Extreme reliance on others
Excessive emotional or psychological reliance from others
Counter dependency
Extreme self reliance
Not asking for help and doing everything yourself
Learned helplessness
Believing you have no control over the outcomes of your life experiences, often resulting from past traumatic or stressful situations
And more
Difficulty with Emotions
Since your emotional needs weren’t met consistently growing up, you might struggle with receiving emotional support from others and also feeling/processing your own emotions in the present day.
Difficulty with vulnerability
Having more access to your emotions and being easily overwhelmed
Difficulty managing overwhelming emotions
Emotional dysregulation
Roller coaster of emotions
Feeling deeply and intensely
Being more closed off emotionally or detached
Indifference
Pushing down emotions
Minimizing emotions
Rationalizing emotions
Feeling like a robot
Others telling you that you are a “cold” person
Difficulty accessing and feeling emotions and sensations
And more
Increased Likelihood of Having Mental Health Issues
Depression
Anxiety
PTSD
Insecure attachment styles
And more
Positive Effects of Growing Up With Emotionally Immature Parents/Caregivers
Increased empathy and care for others
Greater capacity to self reflect
Greater self awareness
Daniel J. Siegel, Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive
“We are not meant to live in isolation, but are dependent on one another for emotional well-being.”
“Children are particularly vulnerable to becoming the targets of the projection of our nonconscious emotions and unresolved issues.”
“Taking time to reflect opens the door to conscious awareness, which brings with it the possibility of change.”
“When we become parents we are given an incredible opportunity to grow as individuals because we ourselves are put back into an intimate parent-child relationship, this time in a different role.”
“All of this research have further demonstrated this crucial parenting from the inside out principle: making sense of your life is the best gift you can give your child, or yourself.”
“When parents don’t take responsibility for their own unfinished business, they miss an opportunity not only to become better parents but also to continue their own development. People who remain in the dark about the origins of their behaviors and intense emotional responses are unaware of their unresolved issues and the parental ambivalence they create.”
“How we treat our children changes who they are and how they will develop. Their brains need our parental involvement. Nature needs nurture.”
“When we are preoccupied with the past or worried about the future, we are physically present with our children but are mentally absent.”
“It is confusing to children if their reality of an experience is denied or misunderstood by their parent or another significant adult, because those are the very people with whom they most need to connect.”
“Making sense of life can free parents from patterns of the past that have imprisoned them in the present.”
“History often repeats itself, and parents are vulnerable to passing on to their children unhealthy patters from the past. Understanding our lives can free us from the otherwise almost predictable situation in which we recreate the damage to our children that was done to us in our own childhoods.”
Pete Walker
The worst thing that can happen to a child is to be unwelcomed in his family of origin - to never feel included. Moreover, many survivors have little or no experience of any social arena that feels safe and welcoming.
Chronic emotional abandonment devastates a child. It naturally makes her feel and appear deadened and depressed. Functional parents respond to a child’s depression with concern and comfort. Abandoning parents respond to the child with anger, disgust and/or further abandonment, which in turn exacerbate the fear, shame and despair that become the abandonment mélange.
Perfectionism is the unparalleled defense for emotionally abandoned children. The existential unattainability of perfection saves the child from giving up, unless or until, scant success forces him to retreat into the depression of a dissociative disorder, or launches him hyperactively into an incipient conduct disorder. Perfectionism also provides a sense of meaning and direction for the powerless and unsupported child. In the guise of self-control, striving to be perfect offers a simulacrum of a sense of control. Self-control is also safer to pursue because abandoning parents typically reserve their severest punishment for children who are vocal about their negligence.
Emotional neglect, alone, causes children to abandon themselves, and to give up on the formation of a self. They do so to preserve an illusion of connection with the parent and to protect themselves from the danger of losing that tenuous connection. This typically requires a great deal of self-abdication, e.g., the forfeiture of self-esteem, self-confidence, self-care, self-interest, and self-protection.