Adult Child Syndrome
It is my belief that it is nearly impossible to escape the effects of childhood experiences and events as we grow up and become adults.
If you have experienced adversity in your childhood, you may have begun to notice that you continue to be affected in ways which are causing you pain, confusion and difficulty, in many, if not all areas of your adult life.
Adverse childhood experiences include growing up in a dysfunctional family where alcoholism, addiction, mental illness, abuse or neglect were present. This certainly doesn’t cover everything and I think it is summed up very well in the following quote:
‘Something happened to us a long time ago. It happened more than once. It hurt us. We protected ourselves the only way we knew how. We are still protecting ourselves. It isn’t working anymore’. (Friel and Friel, 1988, p.22)
As an adult, you may notice that you:
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Repeat unhelpful patterns in your life (even when you feel like you did it differently this time)
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Feel overly responsible for others, change yourself to meet someone else’s needs or only feel worthy when you are meeting someone else’s needs (this may have developed into codependency)
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Are afraid of being abandoned or rejected and make decisions based upon this fear