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I Have ADHD Podcast
368 The Hidden Wound of ADHD: Emotional Loneliness at Home with Dr. Lindsay Gibson
01:03:19
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- [00:00]
Kristen Carter
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- [02:19]
Sponsor Voice
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- [02:19]
Kristen Carter
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- [03:06]
Kristen Carter (Podcast Host Intro)
Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast where it's all about education, encouragement, and coaching for adults with adhd. I'm your host, Kristen Carter, and I have adhd. Let's chat about the frisky humor and challenges of adulting, relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder. I'll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential, and move from point A to point B.
- [03:38]
Kristen Carter
Hey, what's up? This is Kristin Carter, and you are listening to the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, caffeinated, regulated, ready for Christmas and ready to roll. Yes, I said ready for Christmas. I'm recording this on Christmas Eve Eve, so as Phoebe Buffet would say, happy Christmas Eve Eve. And I am prepping this amazing re release episode for you. You're gonna love it. Okay, I know it's January. I know the holidays are long gone, but for me, I am still stressed. I am still trying to prep and get ready, and thank God I have a team of neurotypicals. Literally make me work in advance or I would never do it. I would never do it and you would just go without a podcast this week. And that's not what I'm looking for. Okay? That's not what we want. But today you're in for a re release that I know will change the way that you understand yourself, your family, and a whole lot of the why am I? Like this question that goes on in your head over and over that you're carrying around, because my guest today is Dr. Lindsay Gibson, author of Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and Rookie Recovering from Emotionally Immature parents. Now, if you have been on the Internet at all this year, you've seen Dr. Gibson everywhere. If you follow self development, like therapy type content, you've seen Dr. Gibson everywhere. She's been on the big podcast. She's been making the rounds, the big name podcast, huge audiences, people quoting her work left and right. Most recently, she was on Oprah Winfrey's podcast talking about family estrangement. Okay, she was just talking to Oprah. And I just want to say, respectfully, you heard her here first. Okay, like, respectfully, Oprah, you're a little late to the game. In fact, you're like two and a half years late. Because my conversation with Dr. Lindsay Gibson originally aired in March of 2023, two and a half years ago, and I'm bringing it back today because her work continues to land like a lightning bolt for adults in dysfunctional families everywhere, but especially for adults with adhd. And before I get into it, I'm just gonna just sweetly, kindly, gently give you a little content note. This episode will likely stir some things up for you. Okay? Not because we're here to bash parents. We're not. This is not a parent shaming episode in the least. It's an episode about clarity and about reality and about naming and understanding your upbringing so that you can stop spending your adult life trying to solve the problem that was never yours to carry alone. And here's why this matters so much for adults with ADHD. I've been coaching ADHDers for years. You know that. And I started noticing a pattern over and over. My clients would describe childhoods where they were physically cared for, but emotionally alone. They had parents who showed up and paid the bills and put food on the table and got them to school. Maybe even looked great from the. We call those billboard families, you know, the kind of family that looks great and they belong on. On the. On a billboard. But inside the home, there was a missing ingredient that a child needs in order to develop secure attachment, emotional safety, and a stable sense of self, including self trust. And that missing ingredient is what Dr. Gibson helped me put language to, which is emotional maturity. Now, I've developed a working theory that many adults with ADHD were raised by emotionally immature parents. It is really clear to me that this is the truth. ADHD is hereditary. We already know that. But I believe it's pretty clear that not just ADHD gets passed down in families. Emotional immaturity gets passed down in families, too. Not necessarily through genetics, but through modeling attachment, nervous system patterns and the way that emotional development gets disrupted generation after generation after generation. So what happens is you end up with this cycle, neurodivergence plus emotional immaturity handed down until someone decides, this stops with me. Now, maybe we can't stop the transference of neurodivergence. That's okay. We certainly, we certainly can stop the transference of emotional immaturity when we say, enough, I'm done. This is going to stop with me. And maybe that is you. Maybe that's where you are right now. One of the clearest markers that Dr. Gibson talks about is something that so many adults with ADHD have trouble naming because it's invisible, and that's emotional loneliness. It's the experience of being surrounded by people, being provided for, included, even loved, but not feeling emotionally seen. Like, I know my parents loved me, but I don't really know if they see me. It's like the experience of not feeling safe to be your full self and not really fully being understood. And there's a line in this conversation that I want you to listen for because it really captures the wound so precisely the difference between being someone's child and being psychologically real to them. In other words, did your parents see you as a unique individual with an inner world, or did they mostly see you as a role, as an extension of them, a reflection of them, a responsibility or a problem to manage? In this episode, Dr. Gibson lays out what emotional immaturity actually looks like. And this part is so helpful because it's not vague. It's very specific. Emotionally immature parents often fear genuine emotion. They pull away from authentic closeness. They have poor empathy, not because they're evil, but because they can't or won't imagine the inner world of another person unless it serves their practical purpose. They also tend to treat feelings like facts. If they feel criticized, then you are attacking them and suddenly you're not having a conversation anymore. You're in a courtroom where their feelings are the only evidence that's allowed. Emotionally immature parents resist reality. They don't self reflect. They rarely apologize. And they can be emotionally inconsistent and unreliable. And here's the thing that hits home, that, like, hits us right between our eyes. Your needs disappear the moment that their agenda activates, the moment that their nervous system is dysregulated, the moment that they have emotions that feel overwhelming or that they don't know what to do with. Your needs disappear. So a child comes for comfort, connection, reassurance. And the parent experiences that need as pressure or criticism or threat. And instead of the parent regulating themselves and attuning to their child, the parent tries to shut the child down. Stop crying. Stop being so sensitive. You're making me feel like a bad parent. Why are you doing this? And in that moment, the child learns a brutal trade off. I can have love or I can be myself. I can be authentic or I can be approved of. And that's where so many of our adult patterns are born. People pleasing, caretaking over functioning, walking on eggshells, rejection, sensitivity, hypervigilance, feeling responsible for everyone else's emotional state. I'm telling you, this episode is Fire. Fire. Dr. Gibson talks about people pleasing as a survival strategy, and I love how she frames it as paying the price of admission to our most treasured relationships. I understand that this episode is a little bit old, and so you might be like, eh, is it worth it? And I'm telling you, yes, it is. If it's good enough for Oprah, it's good enough for us. Okay? Do you know what I'm saying here? Like, we've got to listen to Dr. Lindsay Gibson because she comes with a wealth of knowledge. We get into talking about parentification, which is a role reversal where you show up with a need and instead you end up comforting your own parent. You become the emotional support for the parent that is that is supposed to be supporting you. You learn to shore up their self esteem and regulate their nervous system. And then you grow up and the relationship doesn't magically change just because you're 30 or 40 or 50. Dr. Gibson explains that the adult version of this often has one main rule. The parent is still the most important person in the relationship. The whole family organizes around keeping them stable, keeping them happy, keeping them from unraveling. And when you start setting boundaries, if you dare, reasonable boundaries, you can expect backlash. Guilt, shame, accusations. Phrases like after all we've done for you, or you must not love me, or I must just be a terrible parent, or you're so ungrateful. Which brings us to one of the most powerful moments in the whole conversation. I can't wait for you to hear it. Dr. Gibson says guilt in these situations is often a sign that you're being emotionally coerced. Not guilt because you did something wrong. That's moral guilt. But toxic guilt. Guilt because someone is trying to control you through your tenderness, through your conscience, through your sensitivity, through your desire to be good. And the freedom on the other side of this often requires learning how to tolerate that reactive, toxic guilt when you choose a different response. And this is what she calls emotional disengagement. Disentangling she's going to walk us through the whole thing. It's the practice of stepping back, observing what's happening, and using your adult brain to decide, what do I want the outcome to be here? Not. Not, like, how do I keep them calm? How do I make them happy? Not, how do I avoid being the bad guy? But what's true here? What's fair? What do I need? What does my inner child need? What does my life require? And the big aha that a lot of us never got growing up is this. You are allowed to have space for yourself. Oh, this episode. I can't wait for you to hear it. You are allowed to have space for yourself, space for your needs, your preferences, your boundaries, space for your own inner life. So if you've ever felt like you're the problem in your family, if you spent your adult life trying to earn closeness, that never quite lands. If you feel guilty, listen, if you feel guilty for wanting basic respect in your family, if you're exhausted from managing everyone else's emotional storms, this episode is for you. I'm telling you, adhd, there is a connection here. There is a connection here between neurodivergence and emotional immaturity. And we have to be the ones to say, okay, this is going to end with me. I'm going to stop the cycle. I'm going to raise my kids differently than how my parents raised me. And that will come at a cost. But I am telling you, 1 million percent, it is a price worth paying. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Enjoy this episode with famed Oprah podcast star Dr. Lindsay Gibson. Where I'm going to start is just welcoming you and saying thank you for being here.
- [15:21]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Kristen.
- [15:24]
Kristen Carter
It is such a joy to be able to speak with you, and I've already gushed so much. I will try to tame it just a little bit. But I am just so thrilled because your two books, Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents, have been so helpful to me, to my clients. And as I work with more and more adults with adhd, I see this as something that we are all struggling with. And your work has provided so much clarity for us. So thank you. Thank you.
- [15:59]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Oh, well, I'm so glad that it's been helpful to your listeners because when I wrote the book, I was writing it on the basis of my psychotherapy clients, and it really has been surprising how many groups resonate with this. So, yeah, this is really exciting for me, too, to be in on this with Your group.
- [16:20]
Kristen Carter
That's so neat. What I have found. I have a theory that most people with ADHD were raised by emotionally immature parents. And obviously that is just a working theory that I'm kind of gathering evidence for anecdotally. But I do support hundreds and hundreds of people in my coaching program. And I did a seminar on your book and it resonated with so many people. And it's interesting as I look at some of the characteristics that you lay out of emotionally immature people, it really is very similar to characteristics of people with adhd. That's very interesting. So I just wanted to read a couple of those as we get started. So rigid and single minded. Well, adults with ADHD can be really rigid and single minded. Lots of black and white thinking, low stress tolerance. We really have trouble managing our emotions, especially stress. We do what feels best. Well, that's so fascinating. There are a couple here that aren't really like egocentric, maybe really difficult times, self reflecting, that is, you know, self reflection is impaired by our executive functions and so our deficient executive functions. So it's just fascinating to read some of these and say, you know, ADHD is hereditary. I wonder if that emotional immaturity is a hereditary component as well. Have you had any experience with the ADHD community in that way?
- [18:06]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
No, I've not had direct experience with enough people, enough clients with ADHD to make any guess about that. But maybe I could shed some light on how what you've just said adds up to me, because the question about it being hereditary, I think is a good one. Of course, it'll probably be decades before the answer to that question. But if you look at what happens to a child's ability to modulate stress, to deal with their emotions, to keep on track, to feel calm enough to focus. If you look at that in the light of the quality of their emotional attachment and their sense of emotional safety in early childhood, there can. I think this is strictly my theory, but what I've observed with my clients and what I've read about suggests that, that when you don't have a parent who can resonate with you empathically, who sees you as psychologically real, who looks into your eyes and sees a person there, not a daughter, not a son, but a little unique individual in their wholeness, and they love that individual child, not my child, not a child, but you, when you get that from an emotionally mature enough parent, you feel calmed, you feel present. A lot of the characteristics that you're describing have to do with an impairment and feeling present. That the present moment is totally safe and totally welcoming of your being. Not your activity, not what you do, but just being, being here. So, you know, I wonder if you know, how you would ever sort out the effects of heredity from that early effect of having a very egocentric or self absorbed parent on board when you're forming your sense of self and when your brain is building those executive functions because it needs to be embodied in a relationship where you are seen and you feel completely safe to be yourself with that parent. Now, the parent may discipline you, the parent may get mad at you, all that, but the fundamental sense that they see you and that you're not a thing to them or a bother or, you know, some abstract category to them, I think that's what can lead to a lot of distractibility, a lot of unsafety because the kid is scanning. Right. They're constantly scanning for the thing that's going to help them kind of consolidate and feel safe.
- [21:21]
Kristen Carter
Yep, yep. Fascinating. So let's start at the beginning. How do you define an emotionally immature parent? What is an emotionally immature parent? And how would someone even know that they had an emotionally immature parent?
- [21:39]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Let's start with the last one first. I think the most reliable indicator of possible emotional maturity in a parent, because, you know, you want a lot of additional data in order to make that, that diagnosis, so to speak. Although it's not a diagnosis, it's a category that, that, that I've come up with that seems to capture it. But the feeling of emotional loneliness is the number one characteristic of adults who have grown up with emotionally immature parents, in my experience. For instance, I had a woman who came into therapy, we'd only met a few times, and all of a sudden she stopped talking and she leaned forward and she looked at me and she said, you really see me? I was like, yes, I do. I really do. And I knew what she was talking about because I was listening attentively, I cared about what she was saying and I'm sure that she felt connected with me. Yeah, because of not only the behavior, but my mindset. And she was, as I said, psychologically real to me. To me, she had an inner subjective experience that was real and I was learning about it. And so, yes, indeed, I did see her. Okay. But that feeling of not being seen for who you really are and not feeling a connection between who you really are and what that parent sees in you leads to a sense of loneliness. It's like, just think about adults in an unsatisfying marriage where they're with the Person, maybe it's okay, things are going pretty well. But there's this intense dissatisfaction when you feel emotionally lonely with someone that you know you're supposed to be close with. Yeah. And then your only conclusion can be, is there something wrong with me? Why can't I feel what I'm supposed to be feeling toward this person who's my husband or wife or mother or father, and that's where kids go first, is of course, what did I do wrong? What's the matter with me?
- [24:02]
Kristen Carter
Absolutely. What I loved at the beginning of your book is where you talk about the experience of emotional isolation and how then we internalize that as kiddos and we look and we say, well, my physical needs are met and my parents are present, so I really should be grateful. But there's just something missing.
- [24:27]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yes. And we know it. I mean, physiologically, I think. I mean, there's psychological component, of course, but that kind of connection is physiological. We feel that with our whole body. And we can tell that something is off because we're all born, I think, with this ability to read the emotional situation. And we all know when we feel healthy. Right. I mean, when you're feeling good, you know it. When you're feeling like something's missing, like I'm hungry or I'm too hot or, you know, you can tell that. And it's the same thing with this emotional connection with parents or people who are close to you. We detect that and it won't go away. You can't rationalize your way out of it. Yeah. So it's very, very primal. It goes back to not only bonding, which is kind of more of a familiarity and proximity phenomenon, but it goes to the heart of attachment, which is a psychological experience with the parent.
- [25:35]
Kristen Carter
I want to read a quote from your book because I think it just encompasses all of this. You say emotionally immature parents fear genuine emotion and pull back from emotional closeness. They use coping mechanisms that resist reality rather than dealing with it. Like poignant pause there. Because that's a big deal. They use coping mechanisms that resist reality rather than dealing with it. They don't welcome self reflection, so they rarely accept blame or apologize. Their immaturity makes them inconsistent and emotionally unreliable. And they're blind to their children's needs once their own agenda comes into play. I feel like that encompasses all of it.
- [26:25]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Well, it really does. And you just said everything that would be on my list. Yeah. The only thing I would would add to that for characteristics of emotionally immature parents or people is a couple things. One would be their poor Empathy, which was implicit in what you just said, but they just don't. That imaginative functioning is not great. They don't understand imagination unless it's for the use of something. Like they could use imagination in their job. They could use imagination for, you know, putting on a show at school with their kid. They can use imagination if there's a use for it. Okay, like a pragmatic use. But they don't use imagination for empathy, which has the sole purpose of understanding and making connections with other people. That's not something that occurs to them as, as a primary orientation to the child. And the other thing is that they tend to use feelings as their guide to reality. Okay? They don't. It's not a combination of I get a sense of something, now I'm going to check it out with my rational brain and then I'm going to quickly come to a conclusion about what the reality is. They just go with the feeling. Okay, so if I feel like you don't love me, it's a fact that you don't love me. And now I'm going to proceed from there to tell you how much you don't love me and how much you mean you are to me. And you can't reason with it because they're convinced that they know what is going on on the basis of their feeling. And that's something that's called affective realism. It's a term that was devised by Barrett and Barr in an article. But yeah, so that plus the dismissal, denial and distortion of reality, their egocentrism, their very poor self reflection, which as you mentioned, you know, wreaks havoc on the ability to apologize or take responsibility for your actions because yeah, you don't think about it. And that fear of emotional intimacy, that all makes up what I would say is like the five cardinal characteristics of emotional immaturity. And then there are lots of little, you know, sub things that come from that, but those are the ones that you would, you would want to see before you thought somebody was emotionally immature. Hmm.
- [29:05]
Kristen Carter
Can you speak to this part just a little bit, where you say they're blind to their children's needs once their own agenda comes into play? What, what might that look like for a child, let's say like a 10 year old? What does it look like for a parent to be blinded to their child's needs once their own agenda comes into play? What does that mean?
- [29:32]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yeah, so what it means is that the child has a need to be understood or has a need to be comforted, has a need to feel connected at all times has need to feel unconditionally loved. And that's not some pie in the sky thing, by the way. Unconditional love means that I feel like my parent continues to see me and my goodness and who I am, regardless of what I've just done. They continue to hold a little image of me inside that they continue to be in love with, even if I'm doing some things they don't like. That's what I mean by unconditional love. So let's say the child has one of those needs, and let's say that maybe the child is distressed or not in a good place, and they're looking for comfort. That's their agenda. They're looking for comfort from that parent. But let's say that the parent's agenda is that when somebody is upset and maybe pushing them away or maybe acting angrily toward them, they don't think any deeper than that. Yeah. And it activates. What I mean is they don't say, gee, is my. Is my child hungry? Is my child tired? Is my child unhappy about something? No, that all involves empathy. Right. So we don't go there. Instead, what they do is they will have their own agenda, which is, ooh, I'm not feeling like a good parent right now. I'm feeling criticized by this little kid who seems to be very unhappy with me. And so they need to stop it because this is distressing to me. So they might tell the child, stop crying, you know, stop doing that. Stop making me feel like I'm not a good, effective parent. Just quit it.
- [31:41]
Kristen Carter
Yeah.
- [31:42]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
And the child then, of course has to choose between emotional safety, which would be staying in good with mom.
- [31:50]
Kristen Carter
Right.
- [31:51]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Or staying true to themselves because I'm upset. Right.
- [31:56]
Kristen Carter
Yeah.
- [31:57]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yeah. So that's a terrible choice to have to make between love and self awareness. But they make that choice over and over again.
- [32:07]
Kristen Carter
It's interesting to me because it sounds like that's how people pleasers are born.
- [32:12]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, it's so tragic, Kristin, that people get down on themselves for being people pleasers. I mean, it's such a derogatory term. I think, you know, people will say, well, I'm a people pleaser and I, you know, let people get away with murder and I don't stand up for myself. And they feel bad about themselves for being people pleasers. Right. But when you think about that choice that I just described, between I can have my parents love and approval by acting a certain way or by, you know, stopping my tears or stopping My, My upset and being true to yourself, even knowing yourself, even staying connected to your experience of yourself, not. Not cutting that off or dissociating from it in order to fit with the parent. Yeah. And so that is a terrible choice. And people who become, quote, people pleasers have had, the way I look at it is they have had to make that choice, which is a tragedy. Nobody should have to choose between the love of the person they depend upon and being themselves. There ought to be a way to work that out.
- [33:30]
Kristen Carter
Yes.
- [33:30]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Okay. And you can if you have an emotionally mature enough person on the other end of that interaction.
- [33:39]
Kristen Carter
Yeah. And now a word from our sponsor.
- [33:45]
Kristen Carter (Podcast Host Intro)
Hey, Kristin here. I'm the host of this podcast, an ADHD expert and a certified life coach who's helped helped hundreds of adults with ADHD understand their unique brains and make real changes in their lives.
- [33:58]
Kristen Carter
If you're not sure what a life.
- [33:59]
Kristen Carter (Podcast Host Intro)
Coach is, let me tell you. A life coach is someone who helps you achieve your goals. Like a personal trainer for your life, a life coach is a guide who holds your hand along the way as you take baby step after baby step to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish. A good life coach is a true trained expert who knows how to look at situations, all situations, with non judgmental neutrality and offer you solutions that you've probably never even considered before. If you're being treated for your ADHD and maybe even you've done some work in therapy and you want to add to your scaffolding of support, you've got to join my group coaching program. Focused. Focused is where functionality, functional adults with ADHD surround each other with encouragement and support. And I lead the way with innovative and creative solutions to help you fully accept yourself, understand your ADHD and create the life that you've always wanted to create, even with ADHD. Go to ihaveadhd.com focused to join and I hope to see you in our community today.
- [35:12]
Kristen Carter
I want to read this excerpt from your book. You say these children may learn to put other people's needs first as the price of admission to a relationship, which I thought that phrase, price of admission was so spot on. Instead of expecting others to provide support or show interest in them, they take on the role of helping others, convincing everyone that they have few emotional needs of their own. And I think that's exactly what you just described.
- [35:44]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
When you think of what a person, what a child has to do in order to please that parent, when Maybe they're feeling 180 degrees differently from that, you can imagine the amount of inner strength, stress tolerance, ability to delay gratification, self control. You can imagine how much of that a person has to have in order to adopt a people pleasing defense. Wow, right? That's a very high order thing to be able to turn yourself when you're upset, when you have a need, in spite of that, turn yourself into what the other person wants to see in you. That is tremendously energy draining. And it also is a really high order of functioning. Now, children who don't have the ability to show that kind of inner complexity and strength, maybe they start acting out, maybe they can't contain it. Maybe they begin to burn off that distress by racing around and distracting themselves. Maybe that's what happens. So you get these two very different responses to that kind of situation where the parent is in effect making the child choose between the relationship with the parent or the relationship with theirselves.
- [37:18]
Kristen Carter
And so many of the clients that I speak to talk about this phenomenon where, you know, when they had a need, instead of having their needs being met, they actually had to show up in the role of caretaker. So they come with a need and the parent says that needs offensive. That need makes me feel scared that I'm. I can't. You know, obviously the parent's not expressing that explicitly, but you know, you have a need for connection, but I can't connect and stop making me feel like a bad mother. And then the child becomes the role of the caretaker. You're not a bad mom. I love you so much. You're a good mom. And all of the sudden, instead of the child having their need met, they are. It's a role reversal, which you also talk about in your book. The role reversal of the child being the caretaker of the parent's emotional needs.
- [38:11]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yes. There's the parentification that happens with the child where they end up really functioning as the comforting parent to that parent's inner child, so to speak.
- [38:24]
Sponsor Voice
Yes.
- [38:25]
Kristen Carter
Wow, that is so fascinating. So if someone is really resonating with what you're saying and describing and beginning to contemplate like, wow, I did experience massive amounts of loneliness. I do think that I was unseen in my childhood. I do feel like maybe I was the caretaker for my parents and that there was very little empathy and now they're kind of transitioning to. And I'm still in a relationship with my parents now, and it's very much the same. Can you talk about what that relationship might look like now between an adult parent and an adult child? What are kind of some of the.
- [39:09]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Pillars of those relationships yeah, it's very similar. Although in an adult version, first of all, the parent is the most important person in the relationship. That's, that's pillar number one of that, that adult relationship, the parent is number one, is the most important person in the relationship. And that's something that everybody buys into in the family. It's just agreed that, you know, we keep mom happy, we keep dad calm, you know, whatever it is. Because that's what leads to safety and less stress within the family unit is keeping that person stabilized. Because a relationship with an emotionally immature person demands that you contribute to that person's emotional stability and you shore up their self esteem. Because without adequate emotional maturity, your self esteem has always got one foot on a banana peel. You, you can lose it very quickly. And so the, the, the adult child is expected to continue in this role throughout their adulthood as well. Okay, now one of the interesting things that happens though is that when the adult child becomes a parent, sometimes there is conflict over how that grandparent now is handling the child, the, the grandchild's needs, how they're relating to them. The child, the adult child begins to look at the interaction between their parent and their child and oh my goodness, they see all this stuff going on and how that child is being responded to that. Yeah, talk about triggering. There it is, right in front of you. What happened to you? And so they really can begin at that point to say, look, nothing is as important to me as my child's well being. I have a life to run. I have responsibilities. Now as a parent. I can't let this person's needs overshadow everything in our little new family. I've got to protect myself and my child. Not from what we ordinarily would call abuse. Right. But it's the stress. It's the stress of having little children. And then a parent comes in acting like another little child. Except for this little child you can't comfort because emotionally immature people are practically immune to you trying to give them love and comfort and what, it's never enough?
- [42:04]
Kristen Carter
Yes.
- [42:05]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
You never did it right enough.
- [42:09]
Kristen Carter
A bottomless pit.
- [42:11]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Bottomless pit. Yes. You never, you never quite hit the mark with them. So. Yeah. But it's interesting how the adult child begins to make the transition from the parent being the most important person to their own duties as a parent. Their own life begins to take on its own importance to them, which is just amazingly wonderful. Okay, and then. Yes, you're clapping.
- [42:42]
Kristen Carter
Yes.
- [42:43]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
And then, you know, they begin to set some boundaries and limits because that's what's needed for the good functioning of their family. Like I'll give an example of a father who wanted to come visit. And as emotionally immature people often do, he just gave the weekend that he was coming, didn't ask if that was good or not. Just you know, we're going to be there, you know, on this weekend. And that was the weekend of my clients child's birthday. Okay. And this is like a little five or six year old. So birthdays are a huge deal. Right. And so the, the client asked his father, what time will you be here so we can plan the birthday party? And the father says, well, I don't like to be tied down like that. We'll, we'll get there when we get there. I hate to be rushed around traveling. So, so now that adult child is faced between do we sit around all day waiting for dad to show up before we go on the birthday thing or do we plan the birthday thing and then tell dad that, you know, he can show up when he shows up. So out of love for his child, he decided on the second one. Yes. Thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up. Yes. Set that boundary. Ask for an accommodation from the dad. Well, the dad hits the roof, he says, well, if you don't love us enough to let us come when we can get there and this, this trip is a sacrifice for us and all that, we're not coming. And so my client says, well, sorry you feel that way dad, but I understand your position totally. We'll leave the door unlocked if you change your mind and you all can come in whenever you come and we'll be at the bouncy house at 3:00 or whatever. Wow. Applause, applause, applause. Yes.
- [44:47]
Kristen Carter
So it's really interesting when we talk about setting boundaries or limits with emotionally immature parents because as you just described in that story, the parent went immediately to guilt, right? Immediately to the guilt and shame. You don't love us. We're not important. And I think that it seems that that tactic is so effective on children especially. And then there comes a time maybe, hopefully where the adult child can recognize it, right? So the actual child, when you are a child and you might hear that, the response is like, no, no, no, I do love you. You're amazing. Let me change everything. Let me deny my own needs, let me deny myself, my wants. But I love how you described the responsibility now of having a family. And it doesn't always have to be that, Right. It might just be like you're evolving and you're going to therapy or you're in Relationship with people who have really healthy parent child relationships. And you look at that and you say, oh, that's so different from what I experience. Right. But to be able to not give in to the guilt is so difficult for most people, I believe. What are your thoughts on that?
- [46:11]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yes. No, it's very difficult because if you're at all self reflective, which the internalizer type understands things by internalizing them, processing them and self reflecting.
- [46:28]
Kristen Carter
Okay.
- [46:29]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Which by the way, is a huge coping advantage over the emotionally immature person who just reacts off the top of their head.
- [46:38]
Kristen Carter
Yeah.
- [46:39]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Okay. So if you can take stuff in and process it, you have an immediate advantage in a situation because you're going to be dealing with more data, basically.
- [46:50]
Kristen Carter
Yeah.
- [46:52]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
So people feel guilt when they feel like they've done something wrong. And it's very important to develop your objective thinking to the point where you can ask yourself, have I done something wrong? Was that unreasonable to want you to be here by 3 o' clock so that we can plan on our son's birthday party? Was that, was that a crazy, selfish thing to do?
- [47:23]
Kristen Carter
Right.
- [47:24]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
So you can think that as an objective adult, but you may not be able to think that and certainly aren't able to think that as a child. Sure, yeah.
- [47:34]
Kristen Carter
One of the things that I've been working with my clients on regarding guilt is sometimes guilt is very valuable because it can show us when we've crossed one of our own boundaries, when we are out of alignment with our own values, when we are, you know, when we've done something that deserves an apology, like guilt can be really useful. But that objective thinking is so critical to ask yourself, am I out of alignment with my own values? Have I crossed someone's boundary, you know, that they've already explicitly laid out for me? Have I broken the law? Have I broken a rule? And if you can just like take 30 seconds, seconds to kind of file through and decide, is this guilt here to teach me something or is this guilt here to hold me in line with somebody else's expectation?
- [48:29]
Sponsor Voice
Yes.
- [48:29]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
And hold you back. Yeah, hold you in line and hold you back. What actually was happening with my client, she was getting ready to individuate even further from her father as true individual in her own right. And this thing with the birthday party was one step on that road. Okay. So the emotionally immature parent, in a way doesn't want you to individuate. They want you to stay in their little orbit of the way it's always been. And so they do things to bring you back into that kind of entangled relationship with them. Yes. And so it's very important when you make these steps. Yeah, you'll probably feel some reactive guilt or they probably will succeed in shaming you for a moment. But thank goodness we have our adult brains now that have objectivity that can say, well, really, was that something that I should have felt ashamed about or guilty about that I was trying to preserve my 5 year old son's birthday? Like, is that a bad thing? No, it's not. That's ridiculous. And so we reach the point in our own individuation, in our own construction of our, of our true selfhood, our true individuality, where we can look at something like that and say, that's absurd. That makes no sense at all. Except if you realize that that parent at that moment in their defensiveness is functioning as a five year old themselves. Okay. Once you get the key of emotional immaturity and acting like a toddler or a preschooler, it all makes sense because that's what a little kid would do. They would say, you don't love me because you won't let me have dessert before dinner. Yes, it's that kind of extreme.
- [50:37]
Kristen Carter
Oh my goodness.
- [50:38]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Completely emotionally mediated response.
- [50:42]
Kristen Carter
My son, yesterday, I told him no about something and he's 8, he went into our mudroom closet, laid on the floor, covered himself in all of the coats that were in there and just started screaming. And like that's very appropriate eight year old behavior.
- [50:59]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Right.
- [50:59]
Kristen Carter
But when you're dealing with your 75 year old parent, it's a little bit of a different story.
- [51:06]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yes. And plus they're in a grown up body.
- [51:09]
Kristen Carter
Right.
- [51:09]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
So we don't read that as a tantrum. We read it as, oh my gosh, I have totally been mean to this nice old lady. We read it as, you know, they're entitled to respect, they're entitled to honor. And here we are, we've done something awful to make them upset. Yeah.
- [51:31]
Kristen Carter
So I think that's really an important thing that you just pointed out. Because as adults with adhd, I believe that in a neurotypical society, we've been groomed to believe that we are always the problem. Our behaviors are the problem, our emotional explosions are the problem. Our inability to sit still is the problem. Our reactivity is the problem. We are the problem. We are always the problem. And as my clients begin to grow and mature, it can be very difficult for them to look outside of themselves and say, maybe I'm not the problem here. Like, sure, there are things that I need to take responsibility for. And there are things that I need to, you know, we all need to be working on. But in this relationship with my parents, is it possible that I'm not the problem? And I think that that can be so hard, especially for adults with adhd, because we are convinced that we are the problem. We've been told that we're the problem. It's been very convenient for parents to tell us that we are the problem. And it's really fit the narrative, and it's made us into, you know, caretakers and people pleasers. And then when you begin to interact and reflect and look objectively at behavior and think, is it possible that I'm not the problem here? That can be a complete Turnaround, a complete 180 from what we're used to and actually really unstabilizing. So when you look and you identify like, oh, I think my parent is throwing a temper tantrum, it actually can make you feel really, really unsafe because you're used to being the problem.
- [53:18]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
That's right. And you know what's the scariest thing in the world for a kid? It's watching the parent unravel.
- [53:25]
Kristen Carter
Yeah.
- [53:26]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
I mean, that is horrifying for a kid. You know, here's my parent who is coming apart. They're. They're losing their stuff right in front of me. And this is the person that I count on to mediate reality, to protect me, to provide structure for me to know everything, because I don't know anything as a little fate. My fate is in their hands. The whole family's fate is in their hands. And here they are coming apart, emotionally unstable. And that is a horrifying thing for a child. So no wonder they jump in to try to repair that. And they also find out that when they do jump in to repair it, actually things do get better because they're parenting their parent. And that's what the parent is asking for with that unstabilized behavior.
- [54:27]
Kristen Carter
And as they begin to individuate in adulthood, that's when the parent throws a temper tantrum and the child just allows it to happen. Yes.
- [54:37]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yes.
- [54:39]
Kristen Carter
You say here in your book that guilt is a small price to pay for your freedom. Can you speak a little bit to that?
- [54:48]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yes. Because if your guilt stays in a reactive unconscious mode, that is, it doesn't even pass through the higher centers of your brain to be analyzed or to be thought about. It just goes, you know, input guilt output. We use it to guide ourselves without thinking too much about the situation. But when you are able to say to yourself, yep, there's that reaction. There's that conditioned reaction. It's like, you know, Pavlov's dog experiments where he got them to salivate at the sound of a bell before you even gave them food. Right. Well, we can feel guilty at the sound of a parent's displeasure, and we haven't done anything wrong yet. We're just conditioned to have that guilt response. So once you learn that the guilt response is, in a sense, not true, it's not true in 2023, okay, it may have felt true, you know, 30, 40, 50 years ago when your parent pulled that on you. Right. But it is kind of like an artifact. It's like an archaic kind of a response that's kicking in because your brain got conditioned to do that. And if you can just live through the guilt, label it correctly. This is, this is an old reaction of mine. I can't get rid of it yet. It's going to be there for a while until I override it enough. Because fortunately, you can undo conditioning by overriding it enough. So if you have that take on it, then you can put guilt in its proper place, which is, it's a signal that I've been emotionally coerced.
- [56:49]
Kristen Carter
Ooh, say that again. That was so good.
- [56:51]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Guilt is a signal in these situations that I have been emotionally coerced. In other words, somebody was trying to get me to feel something that was going to be to their advantage, that they would get their way. And when guilt is hijacked for that purpose, you can learn to spot it that this person is trying to emotionally coerce me or force me into a certain kind of a response. Once you get that idea that maybe guilt is not a conscience thing really, or it's not a morality thing, it is a sign that someone has tried to emotionally coerce me, then you can decide, do I want to be coerced? Do I want to make dad the most important thing? And say to my son, well, sorry, honey, dad didn't come today until 6 o', clock, so we missed our reservation at the bouncy house. Is that what you want to do? The difference here is that you have to reach the point where taking care of your child and their birthday is. It's important. And something that affects you emotionally is just as important as that child's birthday party. See, my. My client was able to do that because, you know, weighing the alternatives, disappointing my son, disappointing my father. He decided, you know, correctly, that he was not going to disappoint his son. But if it's something having to do with yourself and your needs or something that's important to you. You have to reach the point where it's just as important to stand your ground and ignore that guilt signal when it's for yourself as it is when it's for somebody else that you love. Yeah, that's a very important transition there.
- [58:50]
Kristen Carter
That's, I think, really hard. That's really hard.
- [58:53]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yeah, it is. But you can do it by being aware of what's going on and then practicing it. It's not easy. It's not automatic, but gosh, I don't know if anybody's ever, you know, started a new habit or stopped an old habit, you know. Yeah, it's not easy because our brains are made to be habitual and they're very routine oriented. But you can change it. You just have to keep being aware of what it is that you want to change.
- [59:26]
Kristen Carter
So you say that emotionally disengaging from toxic parents is the way to restore peace and self sufficiency. And I think that's what you're speaking to a little bit when you are talking about practicing just feeling guilty and prioritizing yourself anyway.
- [59:46]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Right.
- [59:47]
Kristen Carter
Can you say a little bit more about what it means to emotionally disengage from immature parents? What does it mean?
- [59:56]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yes, it's really, that's really an important point. In fact, the name of my next book is Disentangling from Emotionally Immature People. Oh yeah. So we get emotionally entangled with them in the sense that, you know, we, we accept the idea that they are the number one important person in the relationship. We accommodate ourselves to that by dissociating from our true feelings, thoughts, needs in order to serve the other person. And I use that word serve advisedly because it is like sort of the master servant kind of relationship that you can get into. You start acting like an appendage of that person so that your reactions are not cleanly separate from what they're doing. Instead, your reaction is based on their reaction and it's just gets into a ball of confusion. The cure for that is to be able to stand back and see what's going on with your higher adult mind. Okay? The disengagement is that you stop reacting blindly and automatically to having your buttons pressed. Okay. And instead you start thinking about the outcome that you want, which is, I want to be an individual who can make up her own mind or his own mind in this situation and has the right to be me. That's what I want and that's what I'm heading for in this interaction. With my parent. And that is the best way to begin to disentangle and, and emotionally disengaged from the really unfair influence of the parent. Now emotionally immature parents, because they are so self preoccupied and they're so egocentric, they want you to mirror them, they want you to be like them and then there's peace in the kingdom. Okay, but your job is, in order to become a full fledged adult person, your job is to think about whether or not that call for mirroring is really what you want to do or what you really feel at the moment.
- [62:34]
Kristen Carter
Right.
- [62:34]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
That inner separation between. Yeah, I can feel the pull to please them or take care of them or reassure them, whatever.
- [62:44]
Kristen Carter
Right.
- [62:44]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
And yet I know that that's not me because that's not how I feel about. That's not the outcome I want from this interaction. Right. So yeah, it's very important to do that emotional disentangling, not only in that moment, but because it's a step on your road to becoming an individual who knows herself or himself very well and can keep up the boundaries that preserves a space for you to be yourself. You've got to have space.
- [63:22]
Kristen Carter
You say that everyone should just know that, but when you say it to me, I'm like, oh really? I should have space for me? I think that for most of my listeners that is actually a novel concept.
- [63:40]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
I know, I know. Yeah, it really is. Because that's not something that an emotionally immature parent can grant to a child.
- [63:49]
Kristen Carter
Right.
- [63:51]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Because that would mean that they could see that child as separate from them. They could see that child is psychologically real. They could view the inner world of that child as actually. Yeah. Is actually real and important.
- [64:07]
Kristen Carter
Valid.
- [64:08]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Invalid. Thank you. Yeah. And they can't do that.
- [64:11]
Kristen Carter
Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. I just appreciate you being here so much and I really highly recommend that everyone read both of your books. Adult children of emotionally immature parents and recovering from emotionally immature parents. And when do you sit suspect that your new book Disentangling will be coming out?
- [64:33]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yes, that should be out in July. Just finished doing the final galley proofs on that, so it should be out in July.
- [64:40]
Kristen Carter
That is so exciting. Do you have a website that people can go and get more information, maybe pre order your book?
- [64:48]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Yes, my website is Dr. Lindsay with an A L I N D S A Y Gibson and that'll take you to my website which has the books and also a blog and some articles in there. And as far as pre ordering the book, it's always best to do that not through the third party of me, but to go directly to the whatever bookstore or bookseller you want to use.
- [65:15]
Kristen Carter
Oh, amazing. Okay. We'll definitely link your website in the show notes so people can find you really easily.
- [65:21]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Thank you.
- [65:22]
Kristen Carter
Dr. Gibson, thank you for being here. I appreciate you so much.
- [65:25]
Dr. Lindsay Gibson
Oh, thank you. It's been a wonderful conversation. Just loved it. Thank you.
- [65:30]
Kristen Carter (Podcast Host Intro)
A few years ago, I went looking for help. I wanted to find someone to teach.
- [65:35]
Kristen Carter
Me how to feel better about myself.
- [65:36]
Kristen Carter (Podcast Host Intro)
And to help me improve my organization, productivity, time management, emotional regulation. You know, all the things that we adults with ADHD struggle with. I couldn't find anything, so I researched and I studied and I hired coaches and I figured it out. Then I created Focused for you. Focused is my monthly coaching membership where I teach educated professional adults how to accept their ADHD brain and hijack their ability to get stuff done. Hundreds of people from all over the world are already benefiting from this program and I'm confident that you will too. Go to ihaveadhd.com focus for all details.
- [66:19]
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