C. T. Suddeth

I do not pretend to be knowledgeable about Arrested Emotional Development. I have gleaned most of this from websites, and I plan to use this for writing.

Arrested Emotional Development

AKA Stunted Emotional Development

This is distinct from simple Immaturity, which simply means a person is immature emotionally for their age. Arrested Emotional Development usually begins with a childhood trauma such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, or abandonment by parents (death, desertion, prison etc.). Emotional development stops at that point, and never goes further, even through adulthood. Of course, this means they are emotionally immature throughout their life, although they will mature physically and intellectually. This is distinct from dementia such as Alzheimer’s where a person’s intellect declines to the level of a child or an infant. My late wife suffered from Early Onset Alzheimer’s and exhibited very little emotion, not even anger.

Symptoms (will depend on the age when they received the trauma): They don’t take blame for their actions, are oversensitive to slights against them, and relationships don’t last. They feel like victims and don’t understand their poor life choices. They lack impulse control or the ability to recognize behavior limits or the ability to resolve issues. They have an inability to control their anger. They dislike authority and seek independence. They are unstable with jobs and anything else requiring a commitment. They will often try to be controlling, even abusive since they don’t understand normal relationships and their limits.

I once knew a woman who had been raped by her stepfather from age 9 until 16 when she ran away. Her emotional growth had ended at age 9. She had lived in poverty all her life and flitted from man to man, saying she liked to be independent and didn’t want to get married, because she didn’t want a man telling her what to do. A desire for independence and disliking being told what to do seem like adolescent desires. She was prone to temper tantrums, which seemed like the nine-year-old in action. She termed herself mildly bipolar, which was her excuse for temper tantrums. She couldn’t keep jobs, and usually got fired, always claiming the firings unfair. When she got stressed, her twenty-some daughter complained that her mother acted child-like, which was entirely accurate.

People like this can make fascinating antagonists, protagonists, or even secondary characters. If for no other reason, you can vary your characters, make them different, more interesting. People like this make weird life choices, which means your plots can head off in directions unthought-of. I plan to include people with Arrested Emotional Development in my writing.