Healing from an Emotionally Immature Parent: My Journey Toward Understanding and Empathy
I don’t want to live my life fixated on blaming my mother or walking around with anger.
The decision to become estranged from my mother wasn’t impulsive. It came after years of confusion, hurt, and emotional chaos—a slow-burning realization that maintaining the relationship was costing me my peace and sense of self.
Estrangement, while necessary, didn’t erase the pain. Her voice still echoes in my mind—critical, unpredictable, and cold—even six years later. The internalization was so deep, I no longer needed her to hurt me. I was doing it to myself.
And yet, despite all of this, I’ve always wanted to heal.
Not just to feel whole—but to break the cycle.
To stop walking around with emotional bruises I didn’t cause.
To make peace with my past—not by pretending it didn’t matter, but by understanding it.
That’s what led me to Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson. I didn’t pick it up to justify resentment. I picked it up to better understand—myself, my mother, and the emotional dynamics that shaped my upbringing.
This post is a reflection of what I’ve been learning—through that book and through the deeper healing work I’ve been doing. I’m sharing it in the hope that it helps someone else find language for an experience they’ve been carrying in silence.
What Is Emotional Immaturity?
According to the American Psychological Association, emotional immaturity is “a tendency to express emotions without restraint or disproportionately to the situation.” Emotionally immature individuals often struggle to regulate their emotions, especially in stressful or challenging situations. They may lead successful lives on the surface, but in relationships, they often leave a trail of hurt and confusion.
To recognize emotional immaturity, it helps to first understand what emotional maturity looks like.
Emotionally Mature People:
Think objectively while maintaining deep emotional connections
Are independent but capable of meaningful intimacy
Pursue their goals without exploiting others
Know themselves well and accept their weaknesses
Communicate openly and directly
Show empathy and regulate their impulses
Are interested in others’ inner lives and share vulnerably
Handle conflict constructively
Cope with stress in realistic and healthy ways
Emotionally Immature People:
Often appear rigid, defensive, and closed off to differing perspectives
Have low stress tolerance and react impulsively and strongly
Use denial or distortion to avoid reality
Struggle to admit mistakes, often blame others
Overreact emotionally and expect others to soothe them
Escalate conflicts through yelling or intimidation
Display childlike behaviors like name-calling or tantrums
Seek constant attention, even inappropriately
Avoid adult responsibilities
Lie to escape discomfort
When emotionally immature individuals become parents, they often remain emotionally stunted. Parenting, ideally a time of selfless care, doesn’t automatically inspire emotional growth. The result can be a home where a child’s emotional needs go unmet.
The Impact on Children
Children raised by emotionally immature parents often grow up feeling emotionally lonely—without understanding why. They may receive physical care and material support, which makes it harder to identify emotional neglect.
Because the emotional harm isn’t necessarily overt, these children often blame themselves. They feel "too needy," ashamed of wanting attention or connection. But what they’re experiencing is real. Emotional loneliness is a fundamental kind of pain, even if it doesn’t show on the outside.
Emotionally immature parents often:
Are too self-preoccupied to notice their child’s emotional experience
Discount or minimize feelings
Avoid emotional intimacy or vulnerability
Punish or shut down their child when emotions arise
Expect the child to meet their emotional needs
Explode over minor issues or avoid accountability
Become enmeshed or remain emotionally unavailable
Children in these environments often internalize the dysfunction. They may pull away emotionally, not understanding what’s wrong—just sensing that something is. To cope, many become people-pleasers, focusing on others’ emotions to earn affection and avoid conflict. They learn to hide their needs in exchange for connection.
This adaptive strategy often persists into adulthood. They become self-sufficient far too young and carry those survival mechanisms into relationships—seeking love while expecting emotional rejection. They tolerate unhealthy dynamics, struggle with boundaries, and question their own feelings and worth.
I didn’t realize this was my story until I was in my mid-twenties. With the support of therapy, I began to name what I had felt my entire life: the aching loneliness of never feeling emotionally seen.
Long-Term Effects in Adulthood
If you grew up with an emotionally immature parent, you might:
Feel responsible for other people’s emotions
Struggle to trust your own feelings
Avoid conflict—or overreact to it
Experience guilt when setting boundaries
Question your worth in relationships
Mistake your desire to be loved as selfishness
Unaddressed, this childhood loneliness can manifest as:
Anxiety
Depression
Nightmares
Difficulty forming secure relationships
A persistent sense of not being “enough”
One of my biggest fears, and I don’t mean this to sound harsh, is to become like my mother. That fear motivates me to do the work. Reading Dr. Gibson’s book, I recognized not only my childhood experiences but also some of the behaviors I’ve carried into adulthood.
These patterns are adaptations. They were survival strategies, rooted in our biological need for attachment. But as adults, they can leave us feeling stuck, anxious, and unsure how to connect—either to others or to ourselves.
Healing starts with self-reflection. Understanding emotional immaturity—how it shaped the people who raised us and how it shaped us—allows us to begin breaking the cycle. It allows us to grow into emotionally mature adults who can show up for ourselves and others with compassion, boundaries, and presence.
If you’re reading this, chances are you already have the curiosity and self-awareness to begin or deepen this work.
How Empathy Is Helping Me Heal
Understanding what emotional immaturity is — and how it shaped both my mother and me — doesn’t erase my pain. That’s not the objective. But it is helping me loosen the grip that pain has had on my identity.
It’s helping me take off the heavy armor of self-blame, anxiety, insecurity, and anger — piece by piece.
I can stand firmly in my decision not to pursue reconciliation with my mother, while also seeing her more objectively: not as a villain, but as a hurt person, likely deprived of emotional nourishment herself. I can start seeing her behavior not as proof that I was unlovable, but as evidence of her own limitations.
This shift — still fragile, still unfolding — is allowing me to hold space for two truths:
That her inability to nurture me harmed me deeply.
And that she may have been doing the best she could with what she had.
Empathy, in this sense, doesn’t mean excusing harmful behavior. It means releasing the belief that I was to blame.
Instead, I’m choosing to show up for myself — with softness, with self-respect, and with a commitment to growing into the kind of person I needed back then.
I want to walk in compassion. I want to become someone who can offer others the safety, presence, and care I once longed for.
We all deserve that.
If you’re navigating a strained or estranged relationship with a parent, know this:
Your pain is valid.
Your effort to understand and grow is seen.
And your healing matters — not just for your well-being, but for the life and legacy you're building.
You are not broken.
You are becoming.
