Why Won’t S/he Grow Up: Precocious Adulthood Syndrome (PrAS)
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2022
- I propose a new clinical entity in abnormal psychology: Precocious Adulthood Syndrome (PrAS) or adultification in people who were forced into adult roles in their childhood or adolescence.
It is brought on (etiology) via three vectors: chronic illness (including mental illness) of either the parent or the child; sexual abuse; and parentifying or instrumentalizing the child.
Parentifying (better said: adultifying) is when a child is coerced by caregivers into assuming adult, developmentally inappropriate roles as: a surrogate parent to his siblings, a referee between his parents, or a caregiver for a mentally or physically disabled parent.
The child emulates his parents and their mental issues as it assumes parental roles.
Very often the parents of parentified children are, in Andre Green’s term, “Dead Mothers”: absent, depressed, self-centred, dysempathic, capricious, dangerous, instrumentalizing, or abusive.
The child is, therefore, forced to parent itself by internalizing his parents’ disorders, dysfunctional attachment styles, and trauma bonding. As adults, they regulate their sense of self-worth by caring for others.
Later in life, PrAs leads to compensatory infantilism (“Peter Pan Syndrome”) coupled with an impostor syndrome.
Some of the studies that were evaluated as part of a systematic review of 62 studies published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in December 2019 suggested that up to 82% of individuals may experience impostor-type feelings.
But there is another reaction to PrAS, another coping strategy:
Adultified children grow up feeling responsible for everyone around them. They are incapable of having fun, never have had a childhood.
Adultified children become control freaks, are self-reliant, trust no one, and always get involved in conflicts as arbiters or peacemakers.
They feel the need to be “good, worthy, trustworthy, and reliable” even at the expense of their own needs (they are self-sacrificial).
They always feel either that their efforts are not appreciated - or that they should do more.
Consequently, some of them end up being passive-aggressive (negativistic) or even covert narcissists and “empaths”.
Adultified children resemble Borderlines in that they engage in compensatory behaviors that are not calibrated and proportionate: reckless promiscuity and substance abuse, for examples.
Some of them end up being codependent, people-pleasers, and highly sensitive people (HSPs).
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My ex worked hard and paid all the bills however on his 7 days off he would game 16 hours a day, talk like a teenager to his gaming friends and trying to be "cool".
When he would drink he again would act like a teenager that was allowed to get drunk for the first time. Even in to his forties.
My god it was embarrassing
Why do these insights make me cry like a baby when I am supposed to be an eternal mother.
I was an only child for four years, before my borderline mother fell in love with a narcissist man, whom became stepfather and produced 3 new siblings for me to look after. My mother was always working her job at the bar, my stepfather always there with her. I raised those children. I was given not only too much responsibility, but also too much power and control. I am somewhat power hungry today.
I left at 18. It was extremely painful. I felt like a mother would feel, leaving her children behind for good. I was not a good mother. Each sibling spends their time in prisons or homeless, tossing their own children to my mother and stepfather, whom have stayed together after 26 years. They may be making an army with the grandchildren.
I do not talk to them much now. It is painful. I have participated in many abusive relationships of my own. Mommying whatever man-baby I find. The role switch is the best part, causing upheaval in baby men bc I often expect to be mothered, too.
Mercedes, very insightful! I resonate with a lot.
Have you worked.on preventing the BPD manifesting in you(as it is likely to pass to children, especially females when mother is BPD)? Would you be better or worse off if she didn't have to work and stayed home? Just curious as I am trying to figure out my family and what disordered thinking they have.
Being diagnosed with a rare chronic disease as a young man, ultimately losing the ability to walk and having parents who had their own struggles that rendered them not always the best support I now KNOW I was/am adultified. For years I told myself it was ableism and ppl being bigots to my disability but as I get older I realize a huge part of it is I became an adult long before my time and Im just not fun. I struggle to relax..."let my hair down". You've managed to articulate things I see in myself in a way I dont think i could've. Thanks
Pppp BB cf v Uj
Pop LL loo l lol
Thank you for your input, I find it valuable. People in the comment section have helped me tremendously in understanding nuances and factions in psychology.
And I am sorry for the hurt brought upon you. Have a nice day!
I took care of my younger brother at the age of 10. I liked the adult role. My dad was a single parent for 2 years. Holy geez Prof. I don't know how to relax. I work everyday and been told I'm hypo-manic.
I call this the Peter Pain or Pan syndrome needing to be lost in order to feel you need to come home to yourself for an intimate connection. Growth can only be fostered in healthy states of awareness, some of these people don’t have connection to themselves internally to become aware so they aren’t conscious of the choice they are making this keeps them immature due to destabilizing childhood trauma abuse.
It’s so hard for me to find myself. I rely solely on other people to validate me. I don’t know who I am.
I love your videos and they have played a critical role in getting full custody of my daughter, and I cannot thank you enough for that!!! Please do something about the audio though, it sounds like your in a tunnel LOL.
Dr. Sam V. Nails it again!
nailed it Sam;married off at 17 after being adopted;spent 30 years care-giving to old people after my children had grown,
Omg that ending XD you never fail to make me laugh!
Brilliant video
I'm emotionally stunted and short..
Ditto - ha
This was Brilliant & I appreciate how this ties into the Covert Narcissistic dynamic with said "Mother type figure" definitely food for thought.
Another fantastic video! My whole life explained in a way I can finally understand it in only 17ish min. . Brilliant!
The good book says that at a certain point we should put away childish things. This is for our own good, as the pleasures of youth aren't the same things that bring us happiness and contentment as we age.
Love you dr.sam. changing lives with your insight everyday. Glad you have Minnie to fill you up.
13:35 - it is me. You got the origins on point. And I ended up with female narcissist relationship. However thanks to my "viligance" I cut it short. Not saying she did not hurt me in the process. One thing though - I hate "adult kids"
@@claudia-Silva well hate in terms of fed up. And please do not ask me for any pity for narcissists, those animals should be marked on the forehead. Just to save another victim
@@claudia-Silva oh yeah I know what you mean exactly. It hate/compassion and I guess this is what partly made us victims. Anyway, all the best!
I did not realize that you are so funny. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, wisdom and witty humor.
Lol you are on a roll Dr. Sam! I love how happier and happier your energy is with each new video!
Thankyou Sam ; you are the best professor ever ❤
Thank you so much! Very enlightening and learning.🙏⭐️
This is brilliant, thank you so much for sharing this! People shit on the algorithm, but I keep getting more and more answers from it!
Very interesting an precise observations, thanks for the video! The adult-kids, who know that they are not kids, but play pretend, that they are - and thus have to be hyper-performative and paranoid - I think I have seen something like that.
have the same issue due to my entire family being narcissistic and not being able to be a child due to the fact I essentially was there therapist plus violent physical abuse was dished out on me.
I love how you start your videos, always novel and always uplifting. Dynamic, yet with ritual. Thank you professor Sam
The "grow up" at the end 😂🤫
As usual an excellent video. 👍
I don't know what is it like to be a child, have been responsible for everything since I was 10...
I don't what to be but a career
Mom is parent for life and I have peter pan syndrome. An eerie scape no doubt.
So well said, as always. 👍
Thank you.
I really thought that you will conclude by "Adultified children end up(...) HSP's, and gifted people.
Loveya, Sam!!
Great ideas that you share! Could you please talk more explicitly on the topic about the empats as a type of covert narcisists? I always thought many persons identify themselves as empats in order to justify trashy behaviors, but every time I shared this opinion there were plenty of people blasting out in anger. It would be nice the topic to get more mainstream, so well intended individuals could see it as a compensatory symptom and perhaps work on it.
I like how in the end he said grow up lol
Thank you
This is my current relationship 💯. I'm an HSP and I attracted a covert narcissist, Peter Pan who has an emotionally incestual mother. I myself was born to disabled parents been my own mother and father as long as I can remember. We were going to end the relationship, and after 5 years of unprotected sex got pregnant. I don't want to continue this pattern but I also don't want to share custody.
Brilliant
ooof, yes- I was a lot of womans' good mom. all these women were stuck in some regressed emotional age. thank you for the video, I will do some reprogramming on how I provide emotional availability to make sure I'm in a relationship and not blinding myself to when my partner cannot seem to dynamically arrive at my nuanced inner dimensions, it seems to be a big flag for the eternal child variant of the term you coin here. They seem so hyper independent and competent yet... soon as real life hit- I guess they're looking for authentic mommy or daddy who can do emotions or both with my nonbinary ass 🤭🤣 Even though I've authentically owned my mom friend type vibes, this inner relational program is due for updating ☺️
As a child we didn't have the money to see the classic Disney cartoons in the theatres that my peers got to grow up with and integrate into their childhood experience. I compensated by drawing my own cartoons. Now I can see the old classics on the Disney channel. I watched half of Alice in Wonderland yesterday until I got bored and turned the TV off. sigh, too little too late. I never watched Minnie so I can't appreciate her allure although I do like coffee.
That was a shameless plug but I can't find the link for your Mini Mug (*disapproving motherly expression*)
Prof Sam, is that you in that surrealistic painting in the background
Not surrealistic. Naive art. the gifted painter is instagram.com/bdeaihe_art/
Great!
Nice new Minnie mug :-)
Thank you for that comment. I took a second look at the mug, and thought, "it appears to be an 11oz mug. How is it MINI?" 😄
Okay so what do we do about this
Good day Mr. Vaknin. As you very profoundly advised I have used to use the search bar in my curiosity in one topic that I ignored to observe you to mention. I do not seek to gain counselling from you (for now, as much as insightful you are) but I would like to know if you have an opinion on the following. There are some songs that I have identified with (because the lyrics where referring to an unhealthy environment in which I have grown up in). Example: Linkin park - mumb. I believe you are utterly genius to gosogle out the lyrics. If you have time for this I have these questions: Is this a cry out for help? Is this a move of commercialism to use someone's trauma to gain money? Has this anything to do with the culture of victimhood? If you have the time to answer this, let me pay you with this: You are great inspiration to me and the entire mankind (at least those who can comprehend you), you videos are a source great knowledge and insight for which there are no peers, and I believe you are an magnet for the gender that you prefer, I envy you and I would like to grow up to be an inspiration like you. I'm having a glass of white whine to your health and wish you best of luck on you future endowers. Thank you for your help.
All of humanity can benefit from Dr. Vaknin's expertise. I am just grateful that so many of us have found his UA-cam channel. It is a relief to have a guide book to refer to, in the form of these UA-cam videos. Dr. Vaknin explains how a narcissist functions in the world, so that we finally understand that there is nothing we can do to save the narcissist from himself/herself! We did NOT know that we will never be able to "fix" or alter the situation in which the narcissist lives. Our best hope is to remove ourselves from situations that can only worsen with time.
Very very interesting. You pose some great questions and theories which I am taking away and will be thinking about myself. Just thought I'd let you know that your comment was useful to me in expanding my own knowledge. Thanks 👍
Oh, I just remembered I should really also give you some value also instead of keeping everything to myself, especially to someone who seems to think similarly to me. You mentioned about trauma being used to make money, something I have come across is that people are more reactive to things that they disagree with. So, as an example, if someone wanted to start their own UA-cam channel and gain lots of followers who comment on videos, you would get more engagement from getting people to disagree with you, by saying something just outright incorrect, which almost 'forces' some people to engage to 'correct' the person saying the incorrect thing - which is engagement with their content, which is what was wanted in the first place. I would guess that more likely is someone saying something that is slightly not right, or saying something that gets people's angry/justice/PrAS emotions so that they almost feel like that are 'forced' to respond to the incorrect person. So if someone's motivation is purely financial, based on what you said about the traumas, I think it is very possible and even likely that there are people/companies that understand this and use it to their advantage. However, there then is also likely to be an argument that just because we think people will react to it, doesn't mean they are forced to. So, if someone happened to figure out that when you put cheese and tomato on top of a circle of dough (a pizza), and people showed you they wanted it by buying it (the act of buying is an interaction with the customer which gives the owner of the business money). And it's because this model of selling pizza (or any business wanting to make money) is so similar to a content creator putting out content that think people wanted to react to and comment on, I am personally now unclear if it's even immoral at all, or whether people should have the right to choose to do the 'wrong' or 'right' thing without being condemned and told that their specific action is 'wrong'... After all, for the parents of a PrAS person, the parents believed so much that they were correct that they actually said to the child that they were right and child is wrong. It's gaslighting on a massive scale.
I hope that makes some sort of sense. And ones again, thanks for your comment which got my brain connecting dots together.
So, lets define adulthood first. Is it taking up responsibility for things and/or playing a role in some type of institutional structure while wheighing their words carfully?
I love you. Always have. Always will.
How do I heal this as an adult? I know it’s going on, but I have no idea what to do to transform this.
I feel like I’m stuck behind glass, looking at other adults operate in the world. I’m there in that same world, I just can’t reach them.
Most peoples average age of life is about 30 years then they might live another 50 posthumously
So, what do you do if you are a peter pan now? (Female version of it). How do you cope with it?
How do you heal from this?
Rushing out to get my Minnie mug…..but have coffee first.
Yes, the fragile Narcissist parent unburdens their family "skeletons in the cupboard" on the oldest child, still don't know what was true and complete lies. It is a tool for them to keep you isolated from your relatives and it destroys the small amount of trust you have in relationships with people around you. Strangely enough (sarcasm), the "skeletons" of the one relative who I should have feared were never mentioned. Being introduced to the darker aspects of adult behaviour too soon does effect you.
Thanks but I'm good with a full size mug.
Is it possible for someone who is diagnosed with autism and ADHD to go through this. This seems to be me. Although I am now growing up at 35.
PRAS
Shalom you're the man believe me I know
As I lie in bed at 8:00am watching this, instead of beginning my work day, I’m pleased to know there’s finally a name for my condition. Does it change anything? Of course it doesn’t! 😎✨ Question: Is the adutified child almost always an only child?
Difficult to be a lonely child and parent your siblings.
Yes, it was difficult and lonely to be the adult while your parents acted emotionally like children and to watch out for and parent my much younger sibling. I was lucky I had two functional grandparents.
Professor Vaknin, Keep pioneering new ground, your insights are brilliant and sorely needed.
@@samvaknin Is there a way to turn the mother behavior off?
ending is LOL
So true!!
My narcissist ex , had no childhood, his parents suicide when he was a child and he had to survive all the time..
And as a Cancer moon, I got a strong mothering nature with everyone I meet...
Probably that's why we stayed together for 13 years..
Even after we broke up,and won't be back again even in my worst nightmare 😂
I still worry if he's eating well and taking care of himself! 😢💔
. . .The most thing makes me feel sad about narcissists ,
is their inability to Love Themselves. 😔💔
Why do people care what others are doing!? Stop dating and there is never any issues.
Yes, no dating, no babies, no humans, no problems. 😂 This is verifyable true.