When we think about someone being “emotionally unavailable,” we usually think about romantic relationships.
However, did you know that this term can apply to your parents too? This concept has been eye opening for our clients.
Dealing with emotionally unavailable parents can be a challenging and complex experience.
Many of us grew up in “good” households where our emotional needs weren’t adequately met, leaving a lasting impact on how we show up at work and in relationships.
This YouTube episode with Nishi Bhopal MD and Andrew Davis LMFT explores the various aspects of this issue and offers valuable insights and strategies for healing from the effects of emotionally unavailable parents. The transcript is included below.
What We’re Discussing
- How to know if you had emotionally unavailable parents
- What impact it has on us as adults
- Different ways that people might respond to having emotionally unavailable parents
- How the impact shows up in the workplace or in relationships
- When to consider working with a therapist
Wishing you well,
Dr. Bhopal & The Pacific Integrative Psychiatry Team
If you’re in California and looking for a therapist or psychiatrist, schedule a call with our team to see if our services are a good fit.
Transcript: Emotionally Unavailable Parents
Nishi Bhopal MD: In today’s episode, we’re talking to Andrew Davis. He’s a clinical psychotherapist with us at Pacific Integrative Psychiatry. And we’re talking about emotionally unavailable parents and how that impacts us as adults. And if you want to learn more about how to improve your mental health and nutrition for mental health, go ahead and subscribe to this channel.
I’m Dr. Nishi Bhopal. I’m a physician specializing in integrative psychiatry and sleep medicine. And I’m the founder of Pacific Integrative Psychiatry. We see adults across California for help with anxiety, depression, and sleep issues. And we also provide nutritional services for mental health. And so today we’re talking with Andrew, who is our therapist at Pacific Integrative Psychiatry.
And we’re talking about emotionally unavailable parents. And this might be something that, if you’re listening, that you’ve heard of before, or if you’ve not heard of this before, this might be really eye opening. So I’m really looking forward to this conversation. So Andrew, can you share what we’re talking about when we use this term emotionally unavailable parents?
Andrew Davis LMFT: Sure. Yeah, we’re talking about parents who maybe were unable to consistently attune to the child’s emotional needs, right? That can look like the absence of positive interactions, the absence of love, of connection, of validating a kid’s feelings, of allowing space for a kid’s feelings. It can also look like a pattern of the presence of negative interaction.
So, you know, not receiving bids for connection. A kid walking in a room, sharing something that they’re excited about, and a parent not looking up from the TV, right? We’re not talking about one or single time incidents. We’re talking about a pattern, right? Not validating feelings, parents may be being too caught up in their own stuff or not aware of their own stuff.
And they’ve taken it out on other people. Sometimes it looks like a parent oversharing, kind of making their kids a therapist, pitting one of the kids against another parent, teaching either directly or indirectly through modeling that boys don’t cry or I’ll give you something to cry about, nothing accepting of a kid, whether that’s their sexual identity, their preferences, or interests.
So there are a lot of different ways this looks. I think it’s important to recognize too, we’re not always talking about people who are bad people, or bad parents, or abusive people. Sometimes parents have the best intent and are doing the best they can, and it’s not enough, or it’s lacking in certain areas that can impact a kid and their development into an adult.
Nishi Bhopal MD: I think that’s really helpful to understand that it can show up in all of these different ways, in these very subtle ways. And like you said, it’s not that the parent is necessarily intending to neglect their child’s emotional needs. There’s just a mismatch in many cases. And it can be simple things like a kid comes home from school.
Let’s say you came home from school and you’re in third or fourth grade or something. You were teased or bullied that day and your parent might say like, “Don’t worry about them. Just brush it off.” And that’s not what that child needs. That’s not what you need in that moment.
You need some validation and comfort and reassurance. Whereas the parent might think, “Well, no, I’m gonna help them learn how to be resilient and strong.” And those types of things can really have an impact on us when we grow up, right?
Andrew Davis LMFT: You know, you mentioned sometimes it’s a mismatch.
I think that’s true also. Sometimes, growing up on this planet, we all have stuff, right? We all have stuff that impacts us, trauma experiences, right? If someone isn’t aware of their stuff, whether that’s through therapy and doing some work on it, right, it’s going to come out in other ways, right?
Even with best intent. So oftentimes, right, these things can be mitigated or positively impacted by a parent going to therapy, right, or recognizing that maybe I do have some stuff, because we all have stuff, right? So I do think there might be a mismatch sometimes, but also it can be attributed to someone not being aware of how their past has impacted them and their interactions with others, which can have an impact on the kid, who needs that.
Nishi Bhopal MD: Because, you know, again, for anyone who’s listening, if you’re recognizing that, huh, maybe I had an emotionally misattuned or unavailable parent growing up, or maybe I’m a parent now and I want to make sure that I’m emotionally attuned and available to my children, it’s a great idea to talk to a therapist about it, to explore it a little bit more and see how it might impact you.
And so what are some ways that emotionally unavailable parents can impact a child? How can parenting styles affect that?
Andrew Davis LMFT: Sure. Yeah, it can impact a kid, into an adult, their ability to emotionally regulate in a healthy way, to give space for their emotions, to not use unhelpful ways of coping, with drugs, alcohol, avoidance. It can lead to internalizing some maybe negative self views, of yourself or others, right?
People can’t be trusted, I’m a bad person, I shouldn’t feel that way, I shouldn’t do this. Trouble forming and maintaining meaningful relationships, whether that’s friendships or romantic relationships. The big ones that I see are learning to caretake for other people or put other people first, right?
Prioritizing other people’s emotions over yours, minimizing your own needs and wants, all things that kind of fall into the codependency category. That’s a big one, right? If it’s not okay to be you growing up, whether that’s to feel certain things or be a certain way, it would make sense to learn to kind of pull back and withdraw and to focus on taking care of others, right?
“I’m not going to have this need, because when I do, my mom tells me this, so I’m going to keep it to the side and I’m going to focus on taking care of mom, right?” And that doesn’t necessarily mean taking care of in the way of a caretaker role, like physically taking care of. It could be, “I don’t want to upset mom, so I’m not going to share this thing. I’m going to act in a way that keeps mom okay. I’m going to act in a way that keeps dad from raging,” right?
That’s a way someone can maybe learn to minimize their own stuff and take care of others, which can be an ongoing pattern that can really make it hard to thrive, to connect with others.
So that’s one of the bigger things that I see in people who grew up with emotionally unavailable parents.
Nishi Bhopal MD: Yeah, no, that’s really helpful because those things do show up in other areas of our lives as we emerge into adulthood. They do, and they have some consequences, right?
Andrew Davis LMFT: If someone is always putting other people first and minimizing their own needs, right, there’s going to be an increase in stress, right? Whether that’s saying yes when there’s too many people, taking on too much at work, right? It’s not sustainable and it can become really difficult.
So it’s not only that the impact of growing up with emotionally unavailable parents can lead to some troubling symptoms and ways of coping. Those ways of coping can also reinforce some things that really can be difficult to work with, can be difficult to live in a way that they’re not getting in the way, right? And that’s where therapy comes in, and kind of learning to reshape some of these patterns, learning to take care of yourself and set boundaries, all these things that are super hard to do, but also super possible, super important when wanting to start to be a little less controlled by these patterns, right?
Nishi Bhopal MD: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think another thing that’s really interesting is that we’ll see this with clients and patients in our practice, that they’ll say, “Well, my sibling and I grew up in the same family, but we have totally different patterns, totally different.” And just because you grew up with the same parents, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to come out the same way, or deal with the same kinds of issues. So could you speak to that a little bit?
Andrew Davis LMFT: Sure. I think what you said is true, but it also doesn’t mean parents are going to interact with each of the kids in the same way.
Right. Whether that’s their own biases or things they’re unaware of, whether it’s due to gender, age, temperament, right, there are a lot of reasons why one kid in a family might have one experience and another kid might not. That doesn’t make each experience less valid, right? But they’re also going to have a different impact on the kid.
So, you know, that can absolutely happen.
Nishi Bhopal MD: Yeah, that’s exactly right. And even, you know, your parents, excuse me, were a certain age when you were born, and then they were a different age when the sibling was born, and they are maybe in a different financial situation.
So you can really have very unique experiences individually within a family unit. And so what are some ways that these experiences might show up in, let’s say, a relationship? Let’s say you’re in a romantic relationship, or you’re married. How might these things show up with your partner?
Andrew Davis LMFT: Sure. Yeah, some things that I mentioned earlier, kind of shutting down, isolating, withdrawing, learning to accommodate others at the cost of your own wellbeing, putting other people first, right? Developing coping practices that are getting in the way of you thriving, as a person that you want to be and who you are at your core, resentment, right?
All of those ways of coping might lead to resentment, things that are relating to connecting with others and yourself, trouble opening up, being vulnerable, advocating for yourself, right? It’s tricky in a family too, when you grow up and have a family, because as a parent, right, in some ways your kids’ needs are important, right?
So I think, too, people have a hard time sometimes hearing, like, “putting yourself first.” Well, “I’m married, I have kids, I have to,” and that’s true, right? So it’s not that we’re asking people to learn to do that in a selfish way, but in a way that’s going to allow them to show up to those relationships as an even more present, caring, and loving partner and parent.
Because if you’re not okay, it’s hard to help others be okay, right? So it is a balance, and it’s tricky, right? But that’s what we’re here for. That’s what therapy is here for, that the work that you do is going to positively impact the other people around you.
Obviously, we want everyone to be able to do the work for themselves. But especially people who have codependent tendencies, sometimes that’s a helpful one to hear, right? Like, “I’m not just doing this for me, it’s going to positively impact the people I love.” And I don’t want them to have an experience of the negative impact of the ways I’ve learned to cope.
And it is important to learn to take care of yourself and learn to develop healthier, more sustainable ways of coping that are more aligned with who you are and who you want to be.
Nishi Bhopal MD: Absolutely. Well, thank you for sharing that and for the work that you do with people in really helping them unpack some of these things.
And, learning how to improve coping skills and set boundaries and improve their communication and break out of patterns of codependency. Because as you said, when you’re able to do those things, it has far reaching impacts on just how you move through life. You can just move through life with more ease, relationships are easier, boundaries at work are easier. It’s almost like you’re lubricating the wheels of life to go through things a little bit more smoothly.
Andrew Davis LMFT: Yeah, it gets to being easier, right? I think it’s so important to accept that initially, it’s really hard. It’s really hard to make these changes, and I really emphasize normalizing that part of the process, right?
Because it is a choice to do something that might be more uncomfortable for a concentrated period of time, with the goal of getting to a point where things feel easier in a more ongoing, sustainable way.
Nishi Bhopal MD: Yeah, I’m really glad you said that, because at first it’s really hard and it’s really uncomfortable, and it can be uncomfortable for yourself and even the people around you.
Change is hard and change is uncomfortable, but the only way to get to the other side is to go through it. So, Andrew, if people want to work with you, you see patients all across California by telemedicine, by video, how can we get in touch with you?
Andrew Davis LMFT: Yep. You can reach out at the link here. You can schedule a consultation and we’re here. We’re ready to help.
Nishi Bhopal MD: Great. So, pacificintegrativepsych.com, we’ll put the links in the video description and on the screen, and you can schedule a 20-minute call with our team to see if we’re a good fit, and we’ll go from there. So thanks so much for joining me today, Andrew.
Andrew Davis LMFT: Thank you.