Parents you can tell anything to and be heard without judgement, or a list of all your failings in life.
Parents you're not afraid to tell that you tried for something, just in case you fail and it will be used against you for the rest of your life?
Just to clarify, I love my parents and know they love me back, but 10 minutes is literally the limit of co-existence
Mine are self-absorbed narcissists, so no. However what I really wanted to share is this book I read recently that was eye-opening to say the least (someone on Lemmy recommended it in another post):
“Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents,” by Lindsay Gibson.
Good luck out there.
I read this book years ago and was disappointed by it. It's basically a list of anecdotes shared with the author by clients mixed with descriptions of studies she'd read. She didn't sound like she has any personal experience with the subject, or any real insight. The way she portrayed her clients, and children of immature parents in general, also bothered me. There's the "good ones" who blame themselves for their parents' behavior and are always the innocent victims, and the "bad ones" who blame someone else for everything and also sexually abuse their siblings. No depth or nuance in the way she sees the people she writes about, and no sympathy for children who react badly to their parents' fuckery. The final thing I found lacking was that the book doesn't really go into how to deal with immature parents: different ways of interacting with them that can be helpful, if and how to cut contact, etc. It's all about helping people to realize that your parents treating you badly is a bad thing. Like, okay, but then what?I respect that the content is helpful to some people, but personally I regret spending $35 on it. Might be better to look for it at the library.
You might want to revisit it. She does provide a number of different ways to try dealing with them (including distancing yourself as one approach), and your own relationship tendencies. That’s what the last couple chapters are all about, actionable next steps. I personally walked away with a few new mental and behavioral approaches to try.
Nor does she characterize them (us?) into two groups, in fact she goes out of her way to explain that nearly every person this applies to has a mix of traits of differing degrees from internalizing and externalizing attributes. She also provides a number of exercises for helping to self-identify where you (and your parents) fall in the mix of various experiences, attributes, and behaviors. I didn’t take away any “good” / “bad” connotations, but rather various examples throughout the spectrum (including the extremes) of how abuse and reactions thereafter can vary greatly.
I interpreted it as her personal experience comes from her professional training, and treating many others. Granted she doesn’t say anything about her own parents, but honestly that would seem unprofessional to me if she had made it about herself.
I’m not sure what form it would take, in terms of sympathy from a psychology book, but she didn’t seem unsympathetic to me, just straightforward and sticking to facts.
Granted, I spent $0 on it since it was a library book. $35 does seem steep. I’d say like $15 would be appropriate.
From your description, it sounds like it might've been revised in the last few years. The version I bought, which was published in 2015, was rough. Maybe I will re-read it and see how it hits me now.
Additionally I read a digital copy, so yeah, entirely possible it has been through some changes. I