Взрослые дети эмоционально незрелых родителей: как научиться ценить себя и наладить отношения с родителями

Many emotionally immature people were “overpruned” early in life, growing up within a very limited range of acceptability. Their personalities are like stunted bonsai trees, trained to grow in unnatural shapes. Because they had to bend to fit their families, they were unable to develop fluidly into the integrated, natural people they might have become.

Emotionally immature people are highly self-referential, meaning that in any interaction, all roads lead back to them... As you talk to them, self-referential people will turn whatever you say back to one of their own experiences.

Young children are self-centered because they’re still commanded by pure instinct, but emotionally immature adults are commanded by anxiety and insecurity, like wounded people who must keep checking their intactness. They live in a perpetual state of insecurity, fearing that they’ll be exposed as bad, inadequate, or unlovable. They keep their defenses high so other people can’t get close enough to threaten their shaky sense of self-worth.

As long as there’s a clear path to follow, emotionally immature people can do very well, sometimes reaching high levels of success and prestige. But when it comes to relationships or emotional decisions, their immaturity becomes evident.

When people say, “You can’t have everything,” they’re really saying they don’t have what they need.

hate is a normal and involuntary reaction when somebody tries to control you for no good reason. It signals that the person is extinguishing your emotional life force by getting his or her needs met at your expense.

“I have it all,” they’re likely to say. “I should be happy. Why do I feel so miserable?” This is the classic confusion of a person whose physical needs were met in childhood while emotional needs remained unfulfilled.

by denying the painful truth about our parents, we aren’t able to recognize similarly hurtful people in future relationships. Denial makes us repeat the same situation over and over

The most primitive parts of our brain tell us that safety lies in familiarity (Bowlby 1979). We gravitate to situations we have had experience with because we know how to deal with them.