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That thing you're talking about with your parents is exactly how I behave. I did have a big problem with admitting, or rather realizing, many things about myse

That thing you're talking about with your parents is exactly how I behave. I did have a big problem with admitting, or rather realizing, many things about myself, even while other people were telling them to me. I didn't realize until this year that I am incompetent as a parent. My oldest kid is 9. Watching her grow up and watching the consequences of my own negative influence on her is what led to realization.

DarylZero 5y ago
I wish it were as easy as awareness but it's so deep. There was supposed to be some kind of interpersonal development feedback loop accumulated over years and it just didn't happen. Now I can only sometimes get into a mood where I think I can re-develop a personality. But there is no rational basis for that hope. > Because they probably weren’t allowed to express and integrate their emotional experiences in childhood, these people grow up to be emotion-ally inconsistent adults. Their personalities are weakly structured, and they often express contradictory emotions and behaviors. They step in and out of emotional states, never noticing their inconsistency. When they become parents, these traits create emotional bafflement in their children. One woman described her mother’s behavior as chaotic, “flip- flopping in ways that made no sense.” I already figured this all out by myself. The book is only wrong when it says things like "never noticing." I noticed. > Growing up with an inconsistent parent is likely to undermine a child’s sense of security, keeping the child on edge. Since a parent’s response provides a child’s emotional compass for self- worth, such chil-dren also are likely to believe that their parent’s changing moods are somehow their fault. This is what I did. On edge. Insecure. Victim of abuse. It's visible in body language.
DarylZero 5y ago
> Instead of learning about themselves and developing a strong, cohe-sive self in early childhood, emotionally immature people learned that certain feelings were bad and forbidden. They unconsciously developed defenses against experiencing many of their deeper feelings. As a result, energies that could have gone toward developing a full self were instead devoted to suppressing their natural instincts, resulting in a limited capac-ity for emotional intimacy. The book is wrong in the same way once again. Because I remember by the time I was 16 years old I was entirely conscious of the idea that feelings were bad and had a conscious belief in the pro-active suppression of negative emotion, including through the use of drugs. I remember getting into an internet argument about the topic at that age. The only part I wasn't aware of was how completely fucked up dysfunctional it was.

DarylZero 5y ago

I wish it were as easy as awareness but it's so deep. There was supposed to be some kind of interpersonal development feedback loop accumulated over years and it just didn't happen. Now I can only sometimes get into a mood where I think I can re-develop a personality. But there is no rational basis for that hope. > Because they probably weren’t allowed to express and integrate their emotional experiences in childhood, these people grow up to be emotion-ally inconsistent adults. Their personalities are weakly structured, and they often express contradictory emotions and behaviors. They step in and out of emotional states, never noticing their inconsistency. When they become parents, these traits create emotional bafflement in their children. One woman described her mother’s behavior as chaotic, “flip- flopping in ways that made no sense.” I already figured this all out by myself. The book is only wrong when it says things like "never noticing." I noticed. > Growing up with an inconsistent parent is likely to undermine a child’s sense of security, keeping the child on edge. Since a parent’s response provides a child’s emotional compass for self- worth, such chil-dren also are likely to believe that their parent’s changing moods are somehow their fault. This is what I did. On edge. Insecure. Victim of abuse. It's visible in body language.

DarylZero 5y ago

> Instead of learning about themselves and developing a strong, cohe-sive self in early childhood, emotionally immature people learned that certain feelings were bad and forbidden. They unconsciously developed defenses against experiencing many of their deeper feelings. As a result, energies that could have gone toward developing a full self were instead devoted to suppressing their natural instincts, resulting in a limited capac-ity for emotional intimacy. The book is wrong in the same way once again. Because I remember by the time I was 16 years old I was entirely conscious of the idea that feelings were bad and had a conscious belief in the pro-active suppression of negative emotion, including through the use of drugs. I remember getting into an internet argument about the topic at that age. The only part I wasn't aware of was how completely fucked up dysfunctional it was.