5 signs you grew up with an emotionally absent parent — even if they supported you in other ways

• An emotionally absent parent avoids or ignores their child's needs and feelings.
• A psychologist shared some of the ways this can impact children once they become adults.

In some dysfunctional families, a parent can be volatile and reactive, making their children walk on eggshells to keep the peace.

But the opposite of that — an emotionally absent parent — can be just as damaging to a child, Dr. Lindsay C. Gibson, a clinical psychologist who specializes in emotionally immature parents, told Business Insider.

Gibson described an emotionally absent parent as someone "who just doesn't respond with empathy or interest to the child's expressions — really their needs or feelings." She said these parents do this because they're not able to regulate their own emotions well, so they avoid situations involving emotional intimacy.

She said this can negatively impact the child in the long run, because children are in the process of self-discovery and crave feedback from their parents.

"They need that parent's interest and mirroring to reflect back to them what kind of person they are, how to think about themselves, and really how to know themselves as individuals," Gibson said. When a parent fails to do that, a young child may even wonder if they truly exist.

As adults, these children can run into issues in their other relationships. Gibson shared some signs you grew up with an emotionally absent parent.

You're used to expecting the bare minimum from people

According to Gibson, one of the biggest signs you grew up with emotionally unavailable parents is that you learned not to ask for too much in relationships.

Children of these parents "learn that other people are really not interested in them, and that affects their self-esteem," she said.

As a result, they might go along with a partner who doesn't react to them or give them much emotional support, because it feels familiar.

"They might not bring that up as an issue with their partner because they don't think that that's something that's even possible," Gibson said. "And they then lose the opportunity to find out relatively early in the relationship whether or not this person will come through if they ask them to be more aware of them and their needs."

You feel like you have to perform to keep someone interested

Another side effect of being raised by an emotionally absent parent is feeling like you have to "get as much as you can" out of them by doing everything to get their praise and attention, according to Gibson.

"You might turn yourself inside-out being charming, being entertaining, commanding attention from somebody who otherwise seems to just kind of drift away from you," Gibson said. You go through life feeling like just being yourself isn't enough to keep anyone around.

You can fall for more narcissistic types

Because children of emotionally absent parents learn to accept very little while also craving love and attention, it can make them a prime target for more narcissistic partners, Gibson said.

Narcissistic partners "idealize people when they're starting to date them, they build them up, they're very complimentary, they're very generous," Gibson said.

It might feel like a dream come true when you grew up with an absence of love. At the same time, it can be hard to notice when these partners are controlling or withholding affection on purpose because "it feels so nourishing and so secure to be held in the attention of someone who is so admiring of you," Gibson said.

You do the emotional work for both partners in your relationships

Because it feels so natural to tolerate indifference from someone close to you, "lots of times, the child of the emotionally immature parent will end up doing all the emotional work in the relationship," Gibson said.

Over time, this gets incredibly exhausting. "They're responsible for communication, they're responsible for emotional sharing, they're responsible for keeping things at a civil level," Gibson said. "They do a lot of work which enables the other person to coast by."

Sooner or later, you may start demanding more emotional support

Everyone needs to be seen. It's just that for adult children of emotionally absent parents, those demands might come later, Gibson said.

Oftentimes, it isn't until after they're married or in a long-term relationship that they "start to expect to get what they didn't get from that emotionally absent parent," she said.

Because you feel the relationship is locked in, you may finally feel comfortable enough to express old unmet needs and expectations. But if you've never asked for these things before, your partner "might end up being as emotionally absent as the original parent," Gibson said.

She said that if you recognize that one or both of your parents were emotionally absent, it's good to let your other relationships play out for a while before making any serious commitments like moving in together or marriage. That way, you can be aware of and avoid these potential pitfalls. So if you state your needs and are met with a blank face once again, you can finally break the pattern — and move on to people who want to support you.