[QUOTE=Yearning0723;3602137]This is what an emotionally mature parent would probably do. But my mother isn't an emotionally mature parent. Immature doesn't equal abusive, though...



Are you sure about that?

Do you know of or hear of many emotionally mature parents abusing there children? Abusers abuse to fill a need in themselves, because they have things missing in their own psyche.

The very act of being emotionally immature means you can't parent effectively. And emotional neglect IS abuse. And whether she meant to or not, she was abusive and still is. Someone can be a good person at heart but end up neglecting their children. It's not all black and white.

My mother isn't a bad person. She is loves her children, she is generally a pretty nice person with a good heart. But she is very selfish, the world kind revolves around her and she put herself before her children many times. She emotionally neglected and manipulated me to a terrible extent and still tries to. She has no idea that she does this. She does it because she's just surviving in the way she knows how. She herself is damaged and emotionally immature. But that doesn't make her any less responsible or negligent because when she had children she had a responsibility to them and she chose not live up to those responsibilities.