Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. Between 2005 and 2007 I completed an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. I worked for five years for the Canadian federal government, including completing the Accelerated Economist Training Program, and then completed a PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2023.

Gibson on emotional immaturity

This sounds like me:

In the sections that follow, I’ll briefly describe various characteristics of emotionally immature people.

They are rigid and single-minded. As long as there’s a clear path to follow, emotionally immature people can do very well, sometimes reaching high levels of success and prestige. But when it comes to relationships or emotional decisions, their immaturity becomes evident. They are either rigid or impulsive and try to cope with reality by narrowing it down to something manageable. Once they form an opinion, their minds are closed. There is one right answer, and they can become very defensive and humorless when people have other ideas.

They have low stress tolerance. Emotionally immature people don’t deal with stress well. Their responses are reactive and stereotyped. Instead of assessing the situation and anticipating the future, they use coping mechanisms that deny, distort, or replace reality. They have trouble admitting mistakes, and instead discount the facts and blame others. Regulating emotions is difficult for them, and they often overreact. Once they get upset, it’s hard for them to calm down, and they expect other people to soothe them by doing what they want. They often seek comfort in intoxicants or medication.

They do what feels best. Young children are ruled by feelings, whereas adults consider possible consequences. As we mature, we learn that what feels good isn’t always the best thing to do. Among emotionally immature people, however, the childhood instinct to do what feels good never really changes. They make decisions on the basis of what feels best in the moment and often follow the path of least resistance.

Gibson, Lindsay C. Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents. Tantor Audio, 2016. ch. 3, 8:45 – 10:44

Languishing

Even compared to recent low feelings, I am now feeling emotionally and psychologically about as bad as I ever have.

All the way back to kindergarten or before, I either had school or work to occupy and engage me each fall, and to give structure and purpose to the time ahead.

Now I am feeling utterly alone — like the ‘nowhere to go’ feeling that haunted the PhD (from knowing that I was too radical on climate to work for government or mainstream NGOs but not radical enough to work for activist NGOs) has been realized. Somehow, despite spending all the time since 2007 working or studying, I have become drastically less employable than I was when I finished my undergrad in 2005. At the same time as my own prospects feel eroded, the global picture has darkened mercilessly.

I feel like I have been in a crisis at least since I learned that I was going to lose my housing on Markham Street in early 2018. I feel like I have lost my connections with or been pushed out of all the important organizations in my life, and that anywhere I can go now is a reminder of how isolated I am, how much has gone wrong, and how bad the projections for the future are. When I stay home, I can’t help feeling insecure because I don’t have income to cover the rent. When I go to U of T, it feels like a club I am no longer part of. Out and about in the city, I feel surrounded by a society that has been told for thirty years now that our habits will be the ruin of our planet, and which has decided to plow straight ahead regardless. Every car I see driving is a reminder to me of that choice, as is every grocery store groaning with fresh produce and luxury foods, given my knowledge about how we are denying such bounty to our successors, and that people in 100 years may be unwilling to believe that there was ever such easy plenty in the world. Visiting Vancouver was often an over-busy and stressful reminder that I don’t have a refuge there either.

In part because people have pulled back on socializing since COVID, I feel like I don’t have any friends left — nobody who I could drop in on, or meet for a coffee, or even telephone and expect an answer from. Life feels divided into two camps: (a) one of people who are actually doing well, but find it uncomfortable to recognize how badly the rest of us are in crisis and so mostly choose to ignore it to stay comfortable and (b) people too much in crisis themselves to provide any aid or uplift. Indeed, my feeling of lacking the material and psychological resources to provide such aid and uplift to friends and family in difficulty is a major contributor to overall feelings of uselessness, hopelessness, and dread about what is to come.

Today more than at any time I can recall recently, I wish I could just stop thinking. Thinking feels like it’s just a conduit for more pain and fear. When you are a fly on the kitchen counter — as the shadow of the fly-swatter has you framed, and the lethal web is swooshing forward — it is better not to be able to understand what is happening.