On Emotionally Immature People
This term has gained attention a lot lately, even abbreviated to EIPs.
And there are a lot of EIPs in the world. Many of us were raised by them. They aren’t bad people, but they—for whatever reason, sometimes childhood trauma or other adverse childhood experiences, perhaps because they too were raised by children in adult bodies (other EIPs), they weren’t learned to regulate their emotions, to process them, to communicate maturely with others and acknowledge other’s feelings. EIPs also tend to not be able to own up to their own mistakes.
But, a lot of times it is the result of mental health issues or even attachment issues.
In some ways both of my parents had emotionally immature tendencies - my father’s stemmed from his own alcoholism, and even before then, his own trauma of losing (and seeing) the death of his brother in a car accident. My mother’s was the result of abandonment from her own mother, trauma, and depression.
My parents modeled to me two very different ways of address anger - my father was volatile and would blow up and scream and swear, becoming verbally abusive. Whereas my mother would completely shut down and give the silent treatment, sometimes for days.
I recognize that neither of which were healthy displays of anger.
Neither of my parents were bad people; they caused harm. But they were also incredibly wounded people.
In light of my previous posts, EIPs do sound an awful lot like narcissists. I heard Dr. Ramini, expert in narcissism and narcissist abuse (and survivor herself) say that ‘while all narcissists are emotionally immature, not all emotionally immature people are narcissists’ and that’s an important distinction.
I also tend to think some of us — who love narcissists, who were raised by them, who see their redeeming value because they too are wounded children in adult body suits, tend to deny the personality disorder sometimes of people who are or may truly be NPD.
NPDs don’t have a great prognosis. And they can be so very, very cruel.
But many of us don’t give up on them for a very, very long time - and can cause a lot of harm to ourselves and our own sense of self worth, and to our families, etc.
Narcs do try to choose those who are nurturers, enablers, co-dependents and those who are traumatized in relationships. This is because they know they will stick around. They know that they will see the wounds and want to help.
Or - sometimes, narcs raise their children to be like this.
Because narcs need an emotional supply from people.
At the heart of both, it is truly sad, because they are children who were harmed and who didn’t get the help that they needed, with emotional and psychological development, to fully form into adults with adult emotional maturity.
Both can be extremely hard to deal with though and can cause harm and feelings of banging one’s head up against the wall sometimes.
The hope —I think—is that I see some hope. My brother was a sensitive person, always, even as a child. But he was not modeled how to manage feelings or even to address that he had them. My father’s only recourse for addressing any type of feeling was through anger.
I see differences in the way my cousin is raising his son - both acknowledging and allowing his kiddo to claim his ‘big feelings’ in times of frustration, sadness, anger.
I’m not saying that this is all there is to raising a more emotionally mature person.
But it seems like a pretty good place to start with a 5-6 year old.
After all, how many of us have tried to repress and stuff feelings down - ones that we didn’t want to address? Where did that get us?
Some of us turn to abusing substances, some of stew in rage and bitterness and resentment, others develop inflammation and auto-immune disorders which have been linked now in studies to repression (I can’t/don’t want to/won’t think about that).
Just all attempts to —shut it all down.
Emotionally immature people can also be deflective, projective, and do a lot of gaslighting, etc.
Because they weren’t taught/aren’t used to being accountable and owning up to their own issues.
But with EIPs—it seems that they can evolve, with therapy, with self-reflection, growth, accountability, etc. I think the difference is the willingness to evolve - doesn’t it always come down to that?
With anyone, not matter what our issues -
At the heart of it all is the hard, truth-seeking question: Are you willing to work on yourself and do the work it takes to grow?