Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson

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107 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2025 last heard May 2025

Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Mel Robbins Podcast · 4 Signs of Emotionally Immature Parents & How to Heal · 15 May 2025 podcast

And the grief comes in when we realize what that did to us, what that did to the child we were, and how impossible it was for us to understand why this was happening other than to blame ourselves. And that understanding is poignant. It tugs at your heartstrings to realize that this little kid that you were was stuck in this situation.

None of us likes to feel that we're stuck or that we were out of control or that even that something bad happened to us. It's amazing to me that one of the predominant reactions to trauma is shame. It just seems to go with it. You don't have to have somebody even actively shaming you about it. It's almost as though if this bad thing happened to me, somehow that means something bad about who I am.

And don't ask me how or why that is, but it seems to be the human condition. So when you feel the grief about it, it's like... acknowledging the shame, the pain, that you got the short end of the stick, you didn't get what you need. All of those things in the unconscious psyche tend to equate with I didn't deserve it or something along those lines.

So it's often hard for us to get to the grief because we have to pass through the shame that had happened to us in the first place.

The drained part. Not the having a relationship part. Well, say more about that. I appreciate you saying that. Yeah, because I think they're tiring. And I think that they're often emotionally exhausting. So we have to realize that that's going to be their experience. And to not expect it to be any better than that.

So one of the things that we want to do in therapy, for instance, is we want to lower people's expectations. That sounds so depressing, but I agree. Yep.

Yes, and it also takes the onus off of you for being able to somehow change this reality. Mm-hmm. That you should be, you know, if you find the right communication style, if you find the right approach. But really what I encourage people to do is if you're going to have contact with the emotionally immature person, Try to go into it aware. Try to stay objective.

Pretend you're an anthropologist and you're there to investigate this new tribe of people and how they conduct themselves and whatever. So you get your intellect in the foreground and you try to stay objective in a way that keeps you from being sucked in emotionally into what I call the emotionally immature relationship system, which is the deal is...

you are responsible for my emotional stability and for my self-esteem. Okay, that's the deal. If you go in aware that that's what you're dealing with and that's what's going to happen, you have a chance of avoiding it.

Yeah, I suggest a little mantra that which is detach, detach, detach. I mean, every time you get the urge to explain yourself further, or maybe this is the time that, you know, dad will listen to my political views or whatever. It's like detach, detach, detach, because that's where you're power is, is in how you're going to, like out of your book, you know. Let them. Yes, exactly.

Is how you're going to behave or how you're going to approach the situation. That is your point of power because there's no way that you're going to find this secret method of turning an emotionally immature person into someone who cares what you think. okay, or cares how you feel. So I suggest that technique and the anthropologist fantasy. Also to stay very connected to yourself.

And by that, I mean, we tend to dissociate when we're with difficult people. We just kind of zone out, you know, because it's too hard. So when I tell people to, you know, maintain their self-connection, it's like, keep up a running dialogue with yourself. Keep up an active commentary. Rub your arm, cross your arm, squeeze yourself.

Something to bring you back into your body so that you exist just as surely as they do, because you will feel erased. when you get pulled too far into their orbit. The other thing is to find the optimal distance for visits or social contact that allows you to stay in yourself. Like a two-day rule or a no overnights.

Yes. When you go back into your parents' home, I'm sorry, you've just stepped into a time machine. Okay, and you're going back to your childhood self whether you want to or not. So we have to be aware of that susceptibility, that vulnerability, and create for ourselves a set of boundaries or circumstances that we are willing to engage in because we know we can stay in touch with ourselves.

I'm a big advocate for journaling. Now that's, you know, an introverted solution.

What do I wish I hadn't done today?

Yeah, what do I wish I... If I had a do-over, what would I change? Now, you don't have to know what the preferable behavior is yet, okay? Because not all of us know what that is. But we do have a little thing, a little bell that rings inside when we do or say something to someone that we love that really matters to us that is off or wrong or hurtful to that person. That is there.

So if we ask ourselves that simple question, what do I wish I hadn't done today? And then we think about what could I do next that would make that slightly better? Not fix it, not erase it, just what would be the next best thing to do given that I did that? What are my options? That's the royal road to profound change right there.

It would be that you matter, that other people are not more important than you. It would be that other people can affect you emotionally, whether you want them to or not. That's very important to know because people, especially with emotionally immature parents, get down on themselves because there's been this thing promoted that other people can't make you feel things. Well, they certainly can't.

I mean, we are designed to be emotionally affected by other people. That's what's put us at the top of the food chain. We can read and get messages from other people like that. So we don't get a choice about whether or not something's going to affect us. It will affect us. What we get a choice about is how we're going to respond to that or

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