Book Worm

Book Worm
So many books to read, so little time.

Books to read in 2018

Books to read in 2018
So many books to read, so little time.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Reading: Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Important excerpts from the book that I want to remember:

CHAPTER 1: How Emotionally Immature Parents Affect Their Children's Lives.

"Emotional neglect in childhood leads to a painful emotional loneliness that can have a long-term negative impact on a person's choices regarding relationships and intimate partners."

"Emotionally immature parents fear genuine emotion and pull back from emotional closeness. They use coping mechanism that resist reality rather than dealing with it. They don't welcome self-reflection, so they rarely accept blame or apologize. Their immaturity makes them inconsistent and emotionally unreliable, and they're blind to their children's needs once their own agenda comes into play."

Fairytales 

Children = abandoned and seek aid from other people

Parents = careless, clueless or absent

"Children must take their survival into their own hands" 

"By grasping the concept of emotional immaturity, you can develop more realistic expectations of other people, accepting the level of relationship possible with them instead of feeling hurt by their lack of response."

"The loneliness of feeling unseen by others is a fundamental a pain as physical injury, but it doesn't show on the outside. Emotional loneliness is a vague and private experience, not easy to see or describer. You might all it a feeling of emptiness or being alone in the world. Some people have called this feeling existential loneliness but there's nothing existential about it. If you feel it, it came from your family."

"When the children of emotionally immature parents grow up, the core emptiness remains, even if they have a superficially normal adult life. Their loneliness can continue into adulthood if they unwittingly choose relationships that can't give them enough emotional connection."

"You might have thought that feeling empty and alone was your own private, strange experience, something that made you different from other people. As a child, you have no way of knowing that this hollow feeling is a normal, universal response to lacking adequate human companionship."

"Once you start listening to your emotions instead of shutting them down, they will guide you toward an authentic connection with others. Knowing the cause of your emotional loneliness is the first step toward finding more fulfilling relationships."

"Lacking adequate parental support or connection, many emotionally deprived children are eager to leave childhood behind. They perceive that the best solution is to grow up quickly and become self-sufficient. These children become competent beyond their years but lonely at their core."

"Classic confusion of a person whose physical needs were met in childhood while emotional needs remained unfulfilled. [They] often feel guilty for complaining. Men and Women alike will list the things they have to be thankful for, as if their life were an addition problem whose positive sum means nothing can be wrong. But they can't shake the feeling of being fundamentally alone and lacking the level of emotional intimacy they crave in their closes relationships."

"Emotionally disconnected parents don't suddenly develop a capacity for empathy just because a child does something to please them."

"Emotional connection is a basic human need, regardless of gender."

"People who lacked emotional engagement in childhood, men and women alike, often can't believe that someone would want to have a relationship with them just because of who they are. They believe that if they want closeness, they must play a role that always puts the other person first."

"Feeling trapped in taking care of parents"

"Their experiences with their parents have taught them that relationships mean feeling abandoned and burdened at the same time. To these people, relationships feel like traps."

"Fortunately [she] summoned the strength to establish her own independent life. In the process, she discovered that guilt was a manageable emotion, and a small price to pay for her freedom."

"Not until she was nearly fifty did she begin to understand how her relationship with her mother fueled her underlying feelings of anxiety. That was one of the most meaningful discoveries of her life."

"A lack of emotional intimacy creates emotional loneliness in both children and adults."

"Even adult success doesn't completely erase the effects of parental disconnection earlier in life."

"Understanding how your parent's emotional immaturity has affected you is the best way to avoid repeating the past in you adult relationships."

Finally done with Chapter one! 

This book totally talks about how childhood trauma can affect us in adulthood. The book's approach is more on psychodynamic theory on personalities. I think I need to go through my theories of personality notes and read again about psychodynamic psychologists. 

From the unconscious to the subconscious and out in the surface of the conscious. 



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