Your Mom’s Fine… Until She Isn’t: A Therapist’s Guide

What if your nervous system learned that love required self-abandonment? We unpack emotionally immature parents with therapists Cristine Seidell and Taylor Strong, tracing how limited capacity, stress, and intergenerational patterns shape attachment—and how those early adaptations like fawning and freeze follow us into adult relationships.

We start by defining emotional immaturity as a chronic struggle to regulate, reflect, and hold a child’s feelings without collapsing or retaliating. From there, we explore intention versus impact, why siblings remember homes so differently, and how “capacity” fluctuates with resources like sleep, workload, and support. The heart of the conversation is repair and accountability: what it sounds like when a parent owns harm, why that takes resourcing, and how to move from blame to compassionate clarity about needs.

Cristine and Taylor offer practical steps for building self-trust and boundaries rooted in nervous system safety. You’ll hear how to identify fawning and freeze in couples dynamics, set “access levels” with family, and decide if limited contact, structured engagement, or a season of no contact fits your current capacity. We talk grief for the parent you needed, the self you postponed to belong, and the path to authentic connection when repair isn’t available yet.

Along the way, we share tools, scripts, and recommended reads—Lindsay Gibson’s Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and Meg Josephson’s Are You Mad At Me—for naming patterns and reclaiming your voice. The aim isn’t to punish the past; it’s to meet present needs with clarity, regulate through hard moments, and choose relationships that reciprocate. Press play for a grounded, nonjudgmental guide to healing attachment wounds, setting aligned boundaries, and creating space for real repair. If this resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and share your biggest takeaway with us—what boundary are you practicing this week?

Thank you for tuning into And Still WE Rise! If you would like to learn more about me or the work our practice is doing, feel free to follow us on Instagram at:

@atltherapygirl and @risetherapycenter

Or check us out at www.risetherapycenter.com

Disclaimer: And Still We Rise is meant to provide perspective and meaningful conversations around mental health topics. It is not meant to provide specific therapeutic advise to individuals. If anything in these podcasts resonates, ASWR recommends consulting with your individual therapist or seeking a referral from your primary care physician.

Transcript

Setting The Stage: EIP Defined

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello and welcome back to Instill Rise. I'm your host, Christine Seidel, and we are returning with the lovely Taylor Strong today. Welcome, Taylor.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

It's great to have you back. And today we're going to continue a conversation that you've probably been hearing in social media. We've had a couple of videos, but it is the chat about emotionally immature parents. And that's right, Oprah was not the first one. We've been talking about this for a hot minute as therapists. So to begin, we kind of want to talk about what an emotionally immature parent actually is.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah. Okay. So yeah, much like Christine said, this is very timely. This has been a big conversation. I feel like a lot of people are talking about this on social media. What is the emotionally immature parent? So we're talking about parents who really struggle to regulate their own emotions. Um, are parents who struggle to, you know, be present for their kids and have the capacity and show up for them in a way that, you know, really develops that kind of secure attachment.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Yeah, so ultimately, you know, when we look at kids, you know, they come into this world really seeking attachment.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

And so their number one place for attachment is their parents, and you can kind of develop different attachment patterns through your parents' emotional availability. So, how do emotionally immature parents kind of come about? Because I know some of our listeners or watchers who may have children might be like, Oh my gosh, am I an emotionally immature parent? Yeah. So, like, how does a parent kind of evolve into that place?

Generational Patterns And Capacity

SPEAKER_00 1:39

So typically, you know, there's obviously different ways that this could come to be, but what we see a lot is parents who grew up that didn't have an emotional connection that was modeled for them in a way, or they experienced trauma or neglect, or they lived in a household where emotions really weren't allowed and nobody connected with them on that, right? We're talking about like intergenerational patterns oftentimes, right? Like we're not talking about, you know, this just comes out of thin air, which is why I think like, and I think we're gonna introduce this into the conversation, is like this blaming factor, right? Like, we're not talking about where does the blame lie? We're talking about identifying patterns that have been, you know, passed through generation to generation, and what is the capacity that some people have versus what they don't, and how does that show up in parenting?

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Yeah, and I think that word capacity is so huge because like as a therapist and a mother, as a therapist and a mother, like it would be immature to not assume that in some way, shape, or form we have not, you know, done some type of harm to the relationship with our children by just not having the capacity in that moment. Maybe we're stressed or we're you know overwhelmed, or we're, you know, we've got a thousand things on our mind in that moment. We may not have had the emotional availability and may have hurt our kids' feelings, or may not have you know met them where they were at. So to have the maturity to recognize my actions, my availability may have hurt or harmed my child in some way, shape, or form is part of the nuances we have to hold as parents. This isn't about right or wrong, good or bad. And and we're seeing so much of that on like YouTube and and on social media, so many parents being like, well, I guess I wasn't a good parent, then you know they're they're wanting to be in this like certainty of if I if you have any complaints, then I must be, yeah, must have been a bad parent. Right. So that's not what we're saying. We're emotional maturity is really about having the capacity to sit with other people and understand the nuances of relationships.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

And for some parents, for whatever reason, you know, from their own childhood, and and you know, again, a lot of these parents were from generations where it's like children are to be seen and not heard, you know, they themselves haven't had a chance or an opportunity to be witnessed from their own grievances, yeah, their parents or the parent-child relationship. So we understand like that generationally this could be an issue, but this is not about like passing blame and and and you know, telling clients to go no contact, that actually doesn't happen in our therapy sessions, and we'll kind of get into that. Yeah, but it really is recognizing that that emotionally immature parent kind of label, and we don't like to use labels, but that you know, this topic is really about the capacity to hold the nuance of the parent-child perspective versus the certainty of right or wrong and being able to tolerate tolerate the conversation that a child or adult child may need to have with a parent.

Repair, Accountability, And Resources

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, and I think you hit on something really important too about like the difference in capacity and just continuity of behavior, right? Like, because when we talk about capacity, it looks really different all the time. Like you're a mom, I'm a mom. I know that sometimes my resources are high, right? I am sleeping well, I'm, you know, getting my exercise in, you know, life is life is pretty good. I mean like in some form of homeostasis, right? When that does not happen, when my resources are not online, right? My capacity looks different and it reflects in my parenting, right? Yeah. And I wrote a blog, I believe it was probably like six months ago at this point. We'll put a link to it. Yeah, we'll put a link to the blog. But so this is like where we talk about repair, right? And like when we talk about capacity in a relationship with a parent who is fully emotionally disengaged or immature or whatever, however you want to say it, there is they lack the capacity to recognize that okay, like I'm having a hard moment, right? And I may have engaged in parenting or acted or responded in a way that wasn't ideal and was emotionally immature, but I'm willing to engage in repair. I'm willing to say, hey, like that was not the way that I wanted to show up there. I'm sorry, I will do better. And that's that accountability piece, right? Where we acknowledge, hey, like I didn't exactly show up. And that takes emotional maturity, right? But that also takes being a parent who has the resources and the ability and the space to do those things, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Which I think is a great point to talk about capacity because sometimes it is not just about like their own experiences, it could be about like you know, what is the dynamics of how many, you know, children you're taking care of at any one time. And that's why I think a lot of siblings can have very different experiences in childhood and why it's important to hold the sibling relationship in a different space than the parent-child relationship. Yeah. Um, but it can do it can be a lot of things. It could be, you know, them having to navigate, you know, demands of working and being a parent andor taking care of aging parents. So capacity can shift and change, but is is the maturity there to be able to hear somebody else's emotional experience? That's huge.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Like stepping outside of yourself and attending to someone else's emotional experience, right? Because we talk about intention versus impact, right? So we can intend to say or do something good all day long, but what is our impact? Yeah. Like what actually happened there, and can we hold space for it?

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah, and I think that's a that's such an important piece to note is like I don't think there's really any parent out there that does not have some level of psychopathology that doesn't have good intentions, right? Like they genuinely did the best they could in the moment with what they had, yeah, and understand that it could have impacted children differently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Right. Which I think brings that part of the conversation in is like, what does that actually look like, right? Because I think you and I, we see adults, and you know, that is a conversation that comes in a lot where it's like, you know, we I find myself saying oftentimes in session, you know, you have this experience and it's valid, yeah, right. And there were things that you needed that you didn't get, right, from your parent. Right. And sort of deconstructing that can be really difficult, especially for a child of an emotionally immature parent, because you are so hardwired for that self-abandonment.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Right.

Intention Versus Impact In Parenting

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Yeah. And just and just really as a child needing that attachment for survival. Yes. You know, what it's not like, you know, we we see it all the time with like a lot of you know children that have been raised in an orphanage. It doesn't matter if there's somebody there to change their diaper to make sure they have food, if there's not this emotional attachment and the basic fundamental ways, they don't they don't survive. You know, they they end up having something called failure to thrive. And it's a real thing. Like we're hardwired to seek attachment at whatever cost because it really is about survival and safety. Yes. And so children are so primed to be conditioned to have a connection or an attachment regardless of the availability of the caregiver. Um, so tell us what that kind of looks like, you know, for kids of emotionally immature parents, like what starts developing, you know. Again, we work with a lot of adults, so we do see this a lot of times in adulthood in romantic partnerships, but also still in the dynamics of the parent-child relationship. Um, and like we, you know, Taylor was saying, like when we start validating their experience, it can sometimes be pretty mind-blowing, and they can really grapple with like feeling like they're doing something wrong by acknowledging. Yeah, you can feel really uncomfortable for them. So, what are some of the patterns you see?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, so I see a lot of just like so with kids, I think they sort of develop this narrative. And I do I incorporate narrative therapy in my work, but it's like I'm too much. I'm too much, there isn't space for me. Oh, yeah. I need to make myself smaller in order to be loved. I need to just kind of go along because because I feel safer, right? And we cut we talk about, and you touched on this, is like what feels safe to our nervous system, right? Is it becomes safe to live within that pattern of self-abandonment. It feels safer. And so oftentimes with my clients, like when we start identifying that pattern, right, and how they engage in relationships and and romantic relationships, friendships, workplace, all of these things, these all of these places that we find ourselves in relationship with people. And you know, we start doing this thing which is essentially called fawning, right? And that's like people pleasing, and we are bending over backwards to kind of make everyone feel comfortable. We are abandoning our authentic self, right? And so when we start identifying that in session, it does feel really uncomfortable for people to incorporate for people to confront that, yeah, right, and to say, okay, like this is how I've been showing up, and this is how I have been continuing to perpetuate this pattern. But and you know what's interesting too is like most of the time people are like, I don't even know how I I wouldn't even know how to connect back to self and I I wouldn't even be, I can't even begin to tell you who my authentic self is.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Oh, 100%. Like that is like such a foreign language when adults come to therapy and therapists start beginning this processing with them. Is it's it's such an abstract way of connecting to self because there was never really space to develop that in childhood. And and likely if they've maintained a relationship with that parent, there hasn't been space for them to explore that within their own individual relationship with themselves or their parent. And relationships like doing couples work, it's like woo, yeah, that'll be a place where stuff starts coming out.

Adult Patterns: Fawning And Freeze

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Like that is where when I'm like, all right, you know what? And and oftentimes, and and you know, Christine is a mentor to me and she's been great, like, you know, this is where when couples come in, oftentimes it's like we will need to really do some self-work before we really start engaging in the couples' work. And it's not to say that this work won't be effective within your relationship because you identifying patterns and how you show up within the relationship is just helpful therapy by osmosis, right? Like, and if both of you are doing it, all the better. But really, this is like where we start to see a mirror of our patterns.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yeah, yeah. And I think fawning, especially in adulthood, you know, I've gone through my own, you know, work with my own family of how much I became what I was supposed to be, like just compliant with the family system in order to be accepted, in order to be, you know, to belong. And that that was a lot of just like really significant work that I had to do. But there's also like that freeze response to and we see that a lot of times in couples work. I'll I'll see couples where you know one of the partners is like, hey, like we need to identify and address something, let's say your your mother or your father, and it is like unable to actually start addressing that if there's this avoidance, like I sometimes call it the fainting goat. Yeah, where it's like either of conflict, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Because if you are constantly in childhood met with a parent who cannot hold space for your emotions and or you know, is overtly, you know, combative. Yeah, like there's a punishment if you have any. Yeah. So your nervous system is automatically going to go into that freeze response where there it's like, okay, in order to keep myself self-I will not engage in this. Yeah. And that is how I maintain safety. So that is how that will show up in a relationship.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Which is just it's it's so so interesting to watch in real time because especially couples work. You have like a partner here who is fundamentally sitting with you on the couch, right? And they're like, I want to work on this relationship, and and you know, we need to address these things with like your parent. And the other partner is like terrified of, you know, they're they're like, I don't know, you know, and sometimes they start doing the fawning for a parent too, or trying to defend the parent. So it's such it's such a complicated relationship when it's been able to be in the unconscious. Yeah. When it's been something that we have just been on autopilot navigating away from, we tend to not know how until somebody kind of becomes a mirror for us, or we start seeing these patterns in our own life that we're like, uh, that fundamentally is not bringing about the relationships and situations, the regulation that I want within myself. And that's when we start exploring some of those early experiences with a parent and child, parent and child. And eventually mature parents, I think, is unfortunately a lot more common than a lot of young people have have believed it to be because of the generational influence on you know parents being with the authority and the child being, you know, being you know subjected to whatever authority was in their environment. So I think it is a lot more common. But again, it's not something that as therapists we you know draw drive the narrative of like if there's any behaviors that look like an EIP, then you like totally cut them off, right? So talk about like how to start working with that awareness that you may have be an adult, child of an emotional nature for.

Finding The Authentic Self

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah, I mean I I do love what you said too, just to touch on because I think that was that's been part of the conversation lately, specifically. It's like, you know, and I I see often that I think there's like a real going around, you're the worst person you know with their therapist. And it's sort of like this this idea that people come into therapy and and we're just validating everything, right? So, but like the idea is for someone to come into therapy and for the therapist to really start deconstructing and sort of like understanding their this the person who's in therapy, their engagement in their own patterns, right? And you know, it's we do it in this compassionate way, right? But it's it's like I like to call it this compassionate accountability, right? Where I'm leaving you where you are in safety, and we're trying to understand together, you know, what is the reality here of this relationship? What was this person's capacity, or what is this person's capacity that you're actively in a relationship with? And it and usually people don't come to therapy because they don't want a relationship with someone.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Yeah. They are coming because they want to work on a relationship or salvage a relationship. But it's like when we start this work together, like as therapists, that is our job, right? To to mirror you and to reflect back and for you to be able to really understand all of those things. So within the process, I think what's really helpful for people is to just begin to identify those patterns. Because, like you said, a lot of people come in and they're just like, I didn't realize that wasn't normal. I didn't, I didn't realize that that was, you know, like that. That's not what other people's parents don't. And I think like sort of helping the person to shift that blame, right? That like to come out of that, this is all my fault, because that seems to be a very common thread. It's like, well, if I was just different, or if I'm just nicer, or if I just overextend myself in this way, right? And we start talking about and having the conversations of, okay, well, what do you have the capacity for? What feels comfortable for you, yeah, right? And like what does that look like while we're still working towards the objective of figuring out what roles we all play in this relationship?

Couples Work As A Mirror

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Well, and I think that that's such a huge piece. It's like awareness is not blame. Like, this is not again, like remember relationships are in such a state of nuance, right? So not the duality has to coexist, right? Like I have to be aware of what my emotional needs were and what level they were met at, and that my caregiver had the capacity that they had, right? You know, it is not like I had these emotional needs and you didn't therefore no contact, you know, you're evil, all the things. Because ultimately, like really this journey is about understanding what our emotional needs. You know that's so much of adults coming in and parents bringing their children in. Like, what does my child need? What do I need? We have done such a poor job as a collective talking about emotional needs. We talk about mental health, yeah. But really fundamentally, it's at such a deeper level of what are our fundamental emotional needs in order to have a sense of regulation and safety in this world. And when we can come to that place and even just know what those potentially could be based upon developmentally where we're at, then we don't have to blame somebody who just acknowledge that that was a place in my development that those needs were not met, which leads into why my heavy's hard. Right. And you know, ultimately we would hope that prepared to be done for our relationship, but that's not fundamental to the work, right? Um, which is something to explore, but ultimately we do have to come to a place of acceptance that if these are my original needs, what do I need to take responsibility for in this moment at this point, yeah, in order to have them that appropriately within myself and within the relationships that I chose to have.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Yeah. No, I think that that's a great point. And I think like just getting to that space is hard, right? Because I think even taking it back a little bit, like even I think when you have an emotionally amateur parent, you operate from a place that it's more difficult sometimes to access emotions, right? Yeah. And it's hard to really start verbalizing and feeling what it is that you're feeling. And I think that as clinicians are holding space and safety for people to really kind of explore what it is that they're feeling and allowing them and reminding them again, this isn't this isn't second nature for you. This is something you had to suppress. This is something that we don't just have unlimited access to because in in order to keep ourselves safe, we had to basically push it away. So let's just allow space for that reality to be true, right? And I think people that really resonates with a lot of people because they're like, you know what? That's just that personal blank, right? And that brings in that self-compassion where it's like, okay, this makes sense that I show up this way. And I think even just that can be so helpful and feeling for people.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

I mean, and I think like what a different space to be as a profession, to be able to be a part of that, because that in and of itself is a form of helping the client prepared for themselves. And just like being an adult that can hold a space for somebody to have their own feelings and to actually be able to because it does, like especially if there's that emotional neglect, the availability to tap into what do I need, what do I feel, is so difficult for them. And even just being able to hold space for a client to explore that, it's it's an act of compassion, an act of reparenting, and it's a beautiful thing to be able to do as a partnership. Yeah, a place where deep grief starts coming out.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

You know, we've talked about this a lot. Um, you know, I think our last podcast was on on grief, and you know, grief isn't always just centered around a death, right? Like we we grieve relationships and people and the people that we wish they could be for us or the version of them that could show up for us in a way that we need or feel connected.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

And that is real. Yeah. That is absolutely real and it's valid to grieve that. Because I think that you know, in this sacred work that we do with people, ignoring that is really doing people a disservice because I think that that is part of the pieces that have to come together, that there is grief, and two things can be true at once. Many things in this scenario can be true at once, but we can hold space for the fact that you know it isn't fair that that that you didn't you you weren't held emotionally, or you felt like you know you had to show up in a way that wasn't authentic to you, and you know, that comes way later, right? A lot of times, but that isn't fair, and that you do feel a sense of grief with that.

Validation, Needs, And Self-Trust

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Yeah, and I think that that's something that's so complicated about attachment work is like no matter how much we like process through some of this unconscious conditioning that we have developed into adulthood, like there is this deep longing for connection and belonging to our biological parents. I mean, you know, even working with you know children of adoption that have these beautiful, loving families that you know would choose them a thousand times over, there's oftentimes this core moon around that, and so that attachment is such a powerful thing, and I think the grief comes in so many different seasons that you know it's kind of like that complicated grief. There's not one single way to grieve through kind of the loss of the parent you needed, yeah. The loss of the parent you desire to be loved by, you know, and sometimes even the the you you feel like you would have been. You're still you, right? Like she's in there, she's definitely in there. But like, you know, grieving, you know, the you you wanted to develop into and the path that you wanted to have. Like that that is you know another layer of the grief that sometimes shows up. And you know, a lot of clients who get stuck a little bit in this work tends to be in that awareness. Like when they start seeing things for what they are, yeah, they want to desperately for that parent to change. Right. They're like, well, if I just say this, right? Or if you know, like, I cannot bring them to therapy with me, and I'm like, we shall see. Yeah, we'll be we shall see. Yeah, but I think that like they that there's a place that once you kind of see this for what it is, you know, people will go into that blame. Yeah, but the grief really is where like the space has to occur so that you know how to come to a place within yourself and then in what direction to move. Because sometimes that awareness can be a place of blame and we cycle in this, like, but I want them to do this, but I want them to do that. Why won't they do this? You know, we can get very stuck in the patterns of injustice that we had in childhood.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Absolutely. Um, and I I do hear that a lot. I hear that a lot, like how how different my life would be if this wasn't my experience. And the reality is it's again that's true, it's valid. It's a it's you know, it's I think it's important to acknowledge and validate that that could be true. It in and in some cases it might not be true, yeah. But regardless, it is a authentic, valid thought and feeling that you're having, and I think just you know, looking at those feelings and allowing space for them again is a super is is is super helpful for a lot of people, and I think you know, just reminding people that they're not to blame for their experience, right? And sort of shifting them out of that can be really really helpful.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah, and I think reframing is really good work, especially as clinicians working with with especially adults in this space, is you know, reframing and and sometimes doing a little reparenting with them. And sometimes I get a little woo-woo with them, and I'm like, you know, I've I've learned in my own experience, like my core wound, yeah, you know, and attachment has led me on this journey to do the work that I'm doing. Yeah, and so sometimes it helps to be in that container of safety to be a reflection of like purpose and goodness and like the wisdom and learning, and you know, the way that they can understand themselves leads them to understand others, you know.

Grief For The Parent You Needed

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Absolutely, them being so adaptive, right? Like, I mean, we touched on that too, but just this was your nervous system's way of protecting yourself. That that's brilliant, right? Like that is you showing up in a way that keeps you protected within that relationship, and you know, although it was a lived experience and and a part of you that you know you might change and and and is something that you have to work through. I think focusing on some of these micro bits of positivity that come out of that experience can be really helpful, right? Yeah, and I think it takes again that it takes some time to get there. I think we need to allow space for everything that exists with that, but in in parallel with that, yeah, I think having some space for the good things that your your body and your nervous system did in order to protect yourself can be really helpful.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Yeah, and I think a lot of times, you know, adults who kind of begin to to do this naturally even before they they come to do therapeutic work are oftentimes like you know, I I am thankful that like what I've learned, like I've been able to shift that in my own parenting. And you know, so that is something that you know when we are in that healing cycle that we can find those little micro bits of positivity to be like, well, wait a minute, like I am still moving in my greatest good, like I'm still you know a person of love and of light, and and I can use this for something better. Yeah. So what about the people who are like, should I go no contact with my parents? So, how do you start working with clients who are trying to navigate what to do, what action to take from the place of recognizing their relationship with their parents?

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Yeah, no, I mean, like I I do see a lot of people who are have complicated family systems, right? And there's these really kind of complicated dynamics. And you know, first and foremost, if someone were to come to me and say, you know, I'm looking to go with no contact, right? Like that's a conversation that they're bringing into you know the process then, and and that's fine. Like I am absolutely open and willing to have that conversation, but you know, not a conversation that I would just introduce on my own, right? Um, most people are not at the point where they come in and are saying they completely want to go no contact. It's not to say that it doesn't happen. Um, but I think we ultimately just begin with, you know, where are you? Where are you in this? And you know, essentially, what right now, as we sit, do you have the capacity for? Because we can, you know, start having conversations again around access, right? What what level of access do you have the capacity to allow for for this person or this relationship in your life right now? Because it might not look like what it looked like five years ago or even a year ago, because there are you know components of that that don't feel safe, yeah, or they might be overextending you in a way that are is not helpful, yeah. Right. So it's like we start introducing this conversation of access, and I think that that can be really helpful for people because I think it's really empowering. It is, yeah. I think it's like, you know, okay, actually, I have the ability to say, and I think you know, wasn't included in this, but like I do think that there's this component of the emotionally immature parent and the lack of power. Oh like you just have to kind of placate to their emotions and their experience and and all of those things, and and no matter what their you know intentions were, you know, you just have to sort of deal with the impact, right? Right and just kind of the unfairness of it. And I think it can be really helpful to talk to clients about okay, well, you know, you do have some agency here. You can, you know, decide what you're willing to give. And it and it, you know, if going fully no contact feels really scary or not something that you want to do right now, we don't have to do that. Yeah, there are different ways that we can approach this.

Awareness Without Blame

SPEAKER_02 30:54

Well, and I love you know, like it goes back to the nervous system, right? Like, what is going on within your nervous system when you are activated in a state of like I gotta go no contact, right? Yeah, is this the you know fight, flight, free, spawn response that you're trying to navigate? You know, and sometimes we do have to go no contact. Sometimes we have to recognize like if there is something exceptionally harmful that's coming towards us, yeah, that we don't have the defenses for ourselves for, like, we do have to protect ourselves, you know. Absolutely. Whether it's a romantic relationship, a parent-child relationship, friendship. Sometimes if our nervous system is like danger, danger, then going no contact is what we have to do for a period of time. But ultimately, empowerment comes when you can be regulated within your nervous system, and you know, boundaries come from us valuing ourselves and holding ourselves to the standards uh that we value, and that naturally creates boundaries. You know, I think ultimately when we do the healing work, we really don't need to block or go no contact with people because we genuinely just don't entertain relationships that don't meet us to where we're at, meet us at the standards that we hold for ourselves, and it's kind of kind of becomes this way of just navigating relationships that are aligned for you versus no contact as a form of punishment, which again that kind of goes back to that whole like when you felt powerless, you're seeking ways to be in power, but is it from a lens of trying to punish your parent? Right, or is it because you've genuinely learned what it is that you value in the relationship and you're holding that parent to that standard?

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Yeah, and as you learn that, right, like really developing that sense of self-trust. And that's what a huge part of the conversation that we have is like how do we learn how to trust ourselves, right? And our experiences, and I think part of that does come from the work that happens of identifying the patterns, right? Like you, you are valuable your experiences are valid, right? Like I we can sit and hold space, but this was a real lived experience that you had, like you're not just making this up out of thin air, and I think that that is where people are able to kind of start leaning into that. Okay, wait a minute, okay, I I can trust myself, yeah, I can trust my judgment, I can trust my experiences. So when I start engaging in setting these boundaries, right, yeah, I can do it from a place that feels more grounded and authentic to me.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

Yeah, because if you are the one that has begun doing this work, that has found that space of self-trust, and let's say a parent, emotionally immature parent, has not, even though they may want to, they probably are not going to meet you in the most grounded, regulated way, right? They're gonna have a hard time receiving some of that you know information from you if you choose to pursue you know some type of reparative relationship with them. But again, that goes to availability. Yeah. You know, when you've done this work, what are you available to to make yourself vulnerable in? And what is the parent's availability to meet you there? And you know, to be a child is very invalidating to begin with.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Right? Like we don't really support children being being children necessarily in our society. So it's already invalidating to step out there and to be, you know, to be expected to navigate an adult world. Yeah. So there is this work around validating yourself and your experiences to build that self-trust, to be able to be regulated and grounded in those conversations. And if the person that you need to have some relational repair with doesn't have that availability, it is not appropriate to go there. Right. Make yourself vulnerable in that way, no matter how much you may genuinely want to.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Right. And that's when you said, like, you know, when someone's like, bring them in here and let's have it's like, yeah, that would be great, but we this is like an important factor that we kind of have to explore before that happens, because that will end up feeling really unsafe and not be productive. What you're seeking to get out of that is not something that they have the capacity for, right?

Agency, Access, And Boundaries

SPEAKER_02 35:13

Yeah, and as clinicians, like it's always important to make sure that we are kind of like being protective of the work that has been done, because that is, you know, again, acting as a frame for this reparenting, like that is oftentimes something we needed in childhood. An adult to be like, this is not safe, yes, this is not appropriate, right? And so let's wait, or let's let's let's be a little bit more curious as to what it is that we're trying to explore, this, that, and the other. So I think that like seeking repair with an emotionally immature parent is not always the end goal. Yeah, it's really more to know like what is the emotional need or needs that I have that were unmet that I can be responsible for now. And then if or when my parent is available for that, how can I be safe enough to seek that repair and relational, you know, um restoration? And that also mirrors, like, you know, in romantic relationships too, or friendships, like knowing that about yourself, feeling some of those wounds through that parent-child relationship really sets you up for healthier relationships in general.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yeah, no, I think that's absolutely 100% true.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Well, anything else you think we should share about emotionally immature parents?

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Um, I feel like we kind of we hit it. I mean, a lot of it, but I mean, I think like it's it can be a really arduous, difficult process to engage in. It can be really, really difficult for people to come in here and really confront that and again confront something knowing that you may not be able to get that external validation, that the real deep work comes from self within the self, right? So I think knowing that going into it can be really helpful for people that you know just take that externalization piece out of it because there is so much of that with this and the emotional and emotionally immature parent, and knowing that you know, a lot of this starts with that really deep self-awareness and self-work that's going to have to occur within the relationship.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Yeah, yeah, and I think that like being patient with yourself through the process, you know, it's something that we often needed in childhood and didn't receive it. But just knowing that, you know, there we you know, as clinicians, we've been doing this work for years, and you know, it's beautiful work, regardless of what the end result is with your biological parent or your caregiver, it is ultimately about you know healing through that within yourself, and as much as it may be a trendy topic, it really is worth you know investing in that work. Um, and I know you mentioned like I talked about um Lindsay Gibson's book, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

But do you have a book that you think would be a good thing? So one of my favorite books is Are You Mad at Me, um Meg Josephin. She's an LCSW. She writes a book just essentially about the fawning response and you know how that kind of comes to be, that self-abandonment piece that occurs in childhood. What does that look like? She she goes through, she beautifully kind of illustrates a couple of vignettes that you know. I think most people who have this sort of lived experience sort of can just identify themselves in some piece of it, right? And I have recommended it to multiple clients, and you know, the feedback I get is like I've never felt more seen. And I'm like, well, that's the idea, right? Exactly. So it's are you mad at me? And it's it's fantastic. I can't recommend it enough.

No Contact Or Nervous System Safety

SPEAKER_02 38:55

That's great. And we'll put a link to that book as well, as well as link some of Taylor's other conversations with us, and of course, you can be looking forward to her being back on the show and the not to distant futures. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing your listen today, and we'll see you guys next time. Okay, thank you. Bye.