Troy Terwilliger’s Reviews > Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents > Status Update

When you ask for what you need, you get closer to getting what you want.

As an independent adult, you can function without their understanding… you don’t need their approval.

For an Internalizer, "guilt" is often the final tether used by an enmeshed system to maintain control. But when you reclassify certain behaviors not just as "immaturity," but as malevolent or sadistic, the moral obligation to maintain those emotional ties dissolves.

By ending the fantasy, you are essentially "firing" your parent from the job of validating your identity.

Internalizers are deeply grateful for any notice or admonishments.

Are you an internalizer or an externalizer?

She pulls from foundational concepts like Attachment Theory (Bowlby and Ainsworth) and the work of Bowen Family Systems, which looks at how anxiety and roles are passed down through generations.

This is a profound realization that connects back to your personal values of discretion and discernment. Thinking objectively about those who have hurt or invaded you is an act of internal boundary-setting; it is a private reclaiming of your reality.

“Hate is a normal and involuntary reaction when someone tries to control you for no reason.. someone is trying to get their needs met by you at your expense.”