Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents ~ Lindsay Gibson. PsyD

[zachira]

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents Author: Lindsay Gibson. PsyD Publisher: New Harbinger Publications; 1 edition (June 1, 2015) Paperback: 216 pages ISBN-10: 1626251703 ISBN-13: 978-1626251700

This morning I was reading "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents", and I found myself breathing a sigh of relief when I read several passages, particularly the part on holding onto the dream that things could be different, if we (the children of the BPD) only did some things differently.

Your heartbreak and frustrations are understandable and it really hurts when you continue to be the best person you can be, and nothing changes with your mother. We want to help our mother, yet we have to protect yourself at the same time.  

[Teno]

I read the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. This book explaines why some people can just switch off and forget.

I'm an interniliser and think things through before I say it. Wife says what she thinks and then she thinks it's over and problem solved.

Externalisers can't understand why we are still struggling with past issues. For them the problem is over once they said it and they have moved on and pushed it away while we are still hurting.

[Wicker Man]

Has anyone read a good book on the subject of parentification of children?

Parentification --role reversal whereby a child is obliged to act as parent to their own parent.

"a disturbance in the generational boundaries, such that evidence indicates a functional and/or emotional role reversal in which the child sacrifices his or her own needs for attention, comfort, and guidance in order to accommodate and care for the logistical and emotional needs of a parent and/or sibling."

Wicker Man

[isilme]

Never read one, but would like to see if anyone has a good recommendation.  I was my mother's mother.

[livednlearned]

I read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. My T recommended to me.

I remember the author writing something about how, if you find yourself getting emotional, your distress is a sign that your healing fantasy is activated. Meaning, if you go NC in the hopes that your mom will change and become the person you always wished she would be, then NC may end up hurting you.

[isilme]

if you go NC in the hopes that your mom will change and become the person you always wished she would be, then NC may end up hurting you.

I might still believe in Santa Claus (I like to think he's the embodiment of giving during the holidays and might very well be a fat man with a beard and reindeer that fly with magic cornflakes), and I might like to entertain the idea that all fiction exists in the land of Fantasia from Neverending Story, including the Marvel MCU, but I've known better to believe THAT fantasy since I was like 15 years old.  

[isilme]

But then, neither Santa nor Atreyu have ever let me down 

[Turkish]

I remember the author writing something about how, if you find yourself getting emotional, your distress is a sign that your healing fantasy is activated. Meaning, if you go NC in the hopes that your mom will change and become the person you always wished she would be, then NC may end up hurting you.

This is interesting.  I was reading the amazon reviews about this book after I saw Wicker Man's post this morning.  Sounds like a good next read after I finish Silently Seduced.

[Woolspinner2000]

I read Silently Seduced and found it applicable to my own situation, yet for me it didn't go quite deep enough. It was good and helpful though, and I think it would be helpful to others as well. The book helps to define what emotional incest is.

Like Turkish I think this one recommended above will be a necessary 'soon to read.'

Zachira, I find this to be particularly interesting for one more reason.

... .the part on holding onto the dream that things could be different, if we (the children of the BPD) only did some things differently.

Your heartbreak and frustrations are understandable and it really hurts when you continue to be the best person you can be, and nothing changes with your mother. We want to help our mother, yet we have to protect yourself at the same time. 

This most definitely applies to the relationship I had with my uBPDm, and I didn't live with her for the last 30 plus years. Yet for me right now in my current place, it transfers over very directly to my situation with DH and my marriage, living with him everyday. I recently read a quote by the author Susan Forward in which she said that it can often be said that we marry our parents, but for a daughter, she marries her mother [in the husband she chooses].  Intriguing to see how much what we learned as children becomes so much a part of who we are, who we learned to be, that those principles bridge across the years to keep us connected when perhaps we shouldn't be. It's that whole principle that what we learned in childhood from having a BPD parent and the ways we learned to deal with it are not necessarily helpful in our adult life.

 
Wools

[Lady Itone]

This book very much resonated with me. Neither parent was mentally ill, but they were only 20, and had only been on 2 dates when mom got pregnant with me. They were literally immature, and they were busy trying to bond with each other and make enough money to survive. My childhood can be described as a state of benign neglect. I was usually left to my own devices, or occasionally went to live with other relatives when my 'rents were overwhelmed.

Now, I struggle to find relationships with other people fulfilling.

[zachira]

Letting go of the dream that our family members with BPD will change if we become better people is a form of acceptance. I believe that once this happens, we are less likely to be attracted to people who are like our family members with BPD, and are prepared to let go of relationships with people with BPD in our present life. For me, the attractions to men who were like my  family members with BPD, was all about trying to heal my wounds from being raised by a BPD mother and being the family scapegoat.

[Mutt]

This was worth definitely work 1 audible credit after coming here to check on a recommend book on a similar topic. The author is Lindsay C. Gibson PsyD and the narrator is Marguerite Gavin for the audible version. I have heard better narrators and worse ones.

The author does not mention personality disorder ( I'm on chapter 4 ) or mental illness but does mention anxiety and depression and discusses emotional immaturity and states and says that categorizing mental illnesses is for insurance purposes. That resonated with me.

What also resonated for me is the explanation of simplified thinking ( black and white thinking ) in correlation with more complex thoughts like dilemma or ambivalent feelings which requires more complex processes to deal with those feelings therefore if you quickly labelling it you don't have to deal with such complex feelings.

Dr Spock's philosophy in 1946 where children's emotional needs should be met where as generations up to that point didn't do that - that makes me understand where my father's generation came from. I'm enjoying the booking so far it has given me things think about that I had not thought of.