One of the most common issues I hear from people is that their emotional, physical, and cognitive responses to stress and anxiety mirror how they felt and responded when they were children or teenagers.
Under stress, it's almost as though they become stuck in their younger sense of self. This often has a significant impact on their day to day lives, relationships, and how they manage stress and anxiety.
I’ll give you an example here. A work colleague is being tricky and self-serving. You may find yourself kicking off or being passive aggressive in response, or alternatively, you may retreat and allow the colleague to trample all over you.
If you investigate this response, I can guarantee that you will find parallels with how you responded to stress as a child. The child part within you has come foreground and is now steering the situation.
Many people rely on their ‘professional persona’ at work to overcome this, and without doubt that goes quite far. But there are limitations. A persona - which is a Jungian term - can come across as a mask or a bit false. I would argue that whilst applying a persona at work is pretty common and can be helpful - it can be described as professionalism. In intimate, personal relationships it works less well.
A more useful way of being is to be aware of, and to develop, your adult sense of self, being mindful of your cultural and neuro-developmental experience - which I will come on to later.
We all have an adult sense of self, but we have to consciously apply it - create a new habit if you like - and be aware of what it feels like and does. We have to allow it to come foreground, whilst not cutting off our younger part. Often in therapy we explore the interrelation between the child and adult sense of self, because of course the nuance is different for everyone.
When thinking about the adult sense of self there are some fundamentals:
An adult sense of self understands boundaries.
Rather than being angry or judgemental, an adult sense of self is assertive.
Rather than being over-helpful or self-sacrificing, an adult sense of self offers support when asked for and needed.
The adult sense of self respects others' ability to think for themselves.
The adult sense of self does not obsess about what other people think of them.
The adult sense of self is aware of their own self-agency, and actively develops that, asking for support rather than automatically going to a place of helplessness.
The adult sense of self knows the difference between a thought and a feeling, wants and needs.
The adult sense of self is strategic rather than manipulative.
The adult sense of self is aware when they are catastrophising.
The adult sense of self is pro-active in developing vulnerability. Vulnerability is not a weakness. Far from it, it is a strength. Vulnerability is about candour, the ability to be open, honest and direct. Vulnerability can feel counter-intuitive, and if it does that is often a good sign.
All of this is a work in progress and we are never going to get it right all of the time, but an awareness, and a commitment to our adult sense of self is a good start.
It is important not to ignore or disown our child part.
Being aware of our younger part when it emerges, listening to it, and seeing what it is trying to tell us is key here. Our younger part may need to be looked after, but our response to stress and relational difficulties does not have to be ‘child’. Sometimes we need to say to ourselves, ‘I can hear your pain child part, but right now I am going to let my adult part come foreground to deal with this.’
Our child part is also much needed. It represents our playful, creative side. Allowing wonder, silliness, and curiosity into our lives can help develop meaningful connections and supportive networks. Anyone for a weekend of cosplay at Premier Inn?
I’m also aware that there is a cultural and neuro-developmental part to all this.
We live in an age where the 'eternal adolescent' rules. We are all bombarded with TikTok, ‘me me me’ culture, girl squads, Marvel, and online personas. Instant gratification and ‘likes’ are encouraged. Pop culture is cartoonish, cutesy and kitsch. The lines between what is real or fake are blurred.
Of course, many people feel the world is increasingly unsafe and unbalanced. Maybe, cutesy nostalgia and Harry Poter merchandise offers a sense of continuity and familiarity. We've been through a destabilising pandemic during which disconnection was mandatory. The collective scrambling of our synapses has led to a mass regression. People walk around the street having loud conversations on their hands-free phone, or tear down the pavement on an electric scooter - the transport of choice of the eternal adolescent - and whilst this might be self-absorbed and inconsiderate - the shadow of the eternal adolescent - it kind of makes sense within the context of the times we live in.
From a neuro-developmental perspective, the eternal adolescent and ADHD go hand in hand. Put simply, the lack of dopamine and noradrenaline neurotransmitters associated with reward and focus mean that people with ADHD can be drawn to the reward of instant gratification, thrills, shopping on Temu, and things that are sparkly.
And so, inhabiting our adult sense of self is not always straight-forward, but being aware of it, and seeing how it intersects with our neuro-developmental experience and socio-cultural context may be helpful.
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