Reclaiming Relationships: Healing from the Impact of Emotionally Immature Parenting
By: Anna Vargas, LCMHC
If you read my previous blog post “What does Childhood have to do with it anyway?” and the term emotionally immature parent resonated with you, you may be wondering what to do next. You’ve identified that your parents aren’t sensitive to your needs, blame others rather than take accountability for their actions, are self-absorbed/have narcissistic tendencies, or are emotionally unpredictable in a way that leaves you with whiplash and feeling frazzled. Now what?
How do you manage these relationships?
In helping folks navigate relationships with their emotionally immature parents/people in their lives, here are a few things that I believe help in the process of shifting how you relate to emotionally immature parents from overwhelmed, exhausted and fed up to empowered and resilient.
Making Space to Grieve: You’ve lost the version of your parents that you wanted, the version of them that you deserve but don’t get to experience. This can come with a lot of sadness and anger that can’t be resolved by communicating your hurt feelings to them. In an ideal world, when we have hurt feelings about how others have treated us, we go straight to the source and tell them how we feel. With emotionally immature parents (or people), this isn’t possible. They are not able to receive your message, take accountability and change behavior, no matter how many “I” statements and effective communication skills you use. Coming to this realization is painful and a process. Be patient with yourself. You don’t have to figure it all out today. You can simply start with acknowledging and exploring the hurt feelings that have gone unrecognized. Find spaces to express, explore and validate your experience. Over time, in processing grief, we begin to find peace and acceptance of what we cannot change.
Boundaries: One of my favorite quotes about boundaries is by Prentis Hemphil: “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” It sums up so simply and beautifully what boundaries do for us: They give us the space we need to be in relationship with others and ourselves. This looks different for everybody and shifts according to our own capacity. For some of us it may be a little bit of distance from our emotionally immature parents and for others it may be a lot of distance. It’s about what works best for you. Boundaries can also be internal and unspoken ways of interacting with parents. This may look like taking an emotional step back during a conversation - not getting “hooked” by the bait; a provocative comment or question intended to pull you into their narrative or cycle of toxicity. It may look like not sharing information that can later be used against you. It’s a practice of operating from a place of “detached observation:” objectively monitoring your emotions, breathing and staying calm, not trying to change/convince them, and not reacting impulsively to their immaturity (easier said than done, I know).
Creating Support: Navigating emotionally immature parents means there will be a need for a robust support system in your life: a network of people who are emotionally mature. So, what do these relationships look like? Our body is going to feel safest around people who are able to regulate their emotions, be honest, empathetic, reliable and responsive to our needs. No one is perfect and ruptures are inevitable, but emotionally mature people will care about how they impact you and make efforts to repair and change when necessary. They will consistently show up and invest time and energy into the relationship. They will be flexible when needed. A good litmus test for relationships: As you're with someone, notice how you feel. Do you enjoy their presence and walk away feeling heard, understood and excited for more or do you walk away feeling judged, irritable, exhausted or stressed. Listen to your nervous system and get curious about what you're feeling and where it’s coming from. It’s providing valuable information to you about what’s working or not working, how you're doing and what you're needing.
We deserve relationships where the norm is support, compassion, respect and reciprocity. We deserve to surround ourselves with people who can meet our emotional needs. Investing in relationships with people who actively show us this and protecting ourselves in relationships that feel pricklier provides us with a path back to balance. It gives us the opportunity to reclaim ourselves and our relationships.
Written at Half Moon Mental Health and Wellness - https://www.halfmoonmentalhealth.com/
