Adult Child of Emotionally Immature Parents

[Star Man]

Relationships are apparently difficult for an Adult Child of Emotionally Immature Parents (ACEIP). That would be me. I am 25 years into recovery from emotional immaturity myself. I'm doing really well. ACEIPs usually fall into one or the other of two categories, internalizers or externalizers. I am an internalizer. I wonder how I can change others so I can get my needs for emotional connection made. Externalizers just act out and people pay attention to them in order to shut them up or calm them down. My parents were not emotionally aware and I was always trying to be the best child I could be in hopes that would get them to change and take notice of my emotional needs. As an senior single man I often wish other people were more aware and open and caring and less defended and could talk to me so I could express myself.
I think most people were raised by emotionally immature parents. One characteristic we internalizing ACEIPs have in common is we learned to take care of our own emotional needs. The problem is that human beings are programmed by evolution and biology to interact with other human beings. We ACEIPs may be able to appear to take care of our own emotional needs but often we feel lonely and empty because we have unsatisfying emotional connections to others.
Thanks for reading.

[Star Man]

Wow. A lot of views (N=7) in just a half hour after I posted this thread. Your thoughts? Were you raised by emotionally immature parents? Were they rigid? Did they have low tolerance for stress? Did they do what felt best to them in the moment? Were they subjective, as opposed to objective? Were they egocentric? Were they preoccupied with themselves and involved in themselves? Did they have the capacity to be self-reflective? Di they insist on being the center of attention? What was their level of empathy and emotional sensitivity? Were they impulsive? Were they often inconsistent? Were they highly defended? Did they fear feelings? Did they focus on your behavior instead of your emotions? Did they have intense but shallow emotions?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions you may have been raised by emotionally immature parents?

To learn more about ACEIPs read "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" by Lindsay Gibson, PsyD.