Does this have a name?

Basically, I feel like a child. I was an extremely naïve and innocent child who was determined to cling on to childhood throughout my teens. It was only when I started the world of work that I started to mature a bit but I still have a number of child-like traits. My recent bit of maturing has suddenly meant this is bothering me as if I suddenly am seeing myself with a more adult perspective and realising quite how child-like I am. I am an adult person with an adult life but inside I seriously am a child.

I had a difficult childhood. My father was a very controlling, volatile and verbally aggressive (rarely physically although I often felt he would be) man who liked his drink and my mother as innocent person as you could possibly get who did everything for me – she was still washing my hair at 14 and I slept in the same room as her even when I would come home from university (I suddenly became terrified of my room when I was about 9 and so would not sleep by myself in my room). I am still scared of the dark and think someone is going to attack me in the dark. I went to school obviously but socialised very little with other children outside of school because of my home environment. I was also bullied at school. Probably at around 10 years old I became absolutely dead against growing up or seeing myself as a sexual being. I was completely in denial about any physical development. I bought clothes in men’s sizes to hide any development despite being a a little girl and didn’t want anyone to touch me, even hug me. This continued well into my teens. I secretly found men attractive when I was 15 but in the way that someone in junior school would – thinking they looked nice rather than thinking they had great abs or feeling sexually lustful about them/wanting to do anything physically with them. I didn’t even know what French kissing involved in theory. I basically lived in this little fantasy world of my own.

I don’t want to make this next part the focus of my post to sidetrack it but when I was 16 the only friend I had made made some sexual advances/comments and kept persisting with that even though I said I did not want to do these things. I ended up going along with what they wanted and this went on for some time as they made the behaviour seem normal. The way in which I went along with these things was in the way that children play kissing and touching in the playground. Not seeing their actions as sexual. I did not have any sexual interest in the person or in doing sexual activities or experimenting or anything like that. I did not see these things as sexual actions because of my complete lack of being a sexual being but now, with my adult glasses on, I see that they were and it makes me feel sick what they did to me. I have been trying to make sense of this situation and why on earth I was so child like. Is there a name for such a developmental condition?

I have no idea what to classify this. Is there a name for it? I would really appreciate if someone could suggest some term I could search on Google to come up with relevant information for this kind of development issue as I really want to try to understand what on earth was wrong with me so I can make sense of my past and try to address the child-like qualities I still have.

I assume you are an only child?

Your father's aggressive attitude would have done some damage created insecuritys. Maybe staying childlike is protection against having to having to deal with adult males.

Being an only children can bring it's difficulies. There isn't the normal rough and tumble that occurs with siblings. The play, arguments, petty fights and comradary.
It's harder to be confident and make friends it's like you don't know the rules. (At least that's how I felt)

Sounds like mother was caring maybe she was reliant on you for company?

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I was an only child and I know you are right that has some impact. My mother did rely on me for company and I was always the one supporting her and protecting her when necessary in arguments.

I fully agree those factors will have contributed to this but I just feel that there must have been something actually mentally wrong with me rather than just those factors to be so developmentally backward. The sexual thing in particular bothers me as it meant I got into an abusive situation which is causing its own issues.

I'm an only child too and had a very similar childhood. I'm now in my late 40s and only just started therapy, which I've found extremely helpful. I don't have a clinical term or diagnosis, but have covered aspects of this under words like regression, life span integration - try these in Google Scholar. I have to say that my approach is to embrace it rather than force myself to be an adult in ways I don't want. I work full time, drive, own my house, cook and clean and so on, but I don't want to date or do certain adult type things. Acknowledging and acting on that has been liberating. I don't mean I wear little dresses and play with dolls, but I do colour, read and watch Disney and things I miss. I don't care - it's fun!

Little Cat, I think what you are describing is what I should have done with my life. I think that is what I was meant to do but it has not ended up being the path I am on as I got married when someone asked me even though he had never been my boyfriend, just my friend. An example of my child like nature that I didn't think about what marriage would mean for my life or whether it was right for me. I just said yes without thinking and now the adult consequences are hitting home. I just go through life doing whatever it is someone else wants me to do so I think it is great that you have done what you know is true to yourself.

I wouldn't say I'm well adjusted, but I think it's better for others that I stay this way. I wouldn't have made a good life partner or parent but a year of therapy has worked wonders. It's been hard because people always assume/ ask and it makes some social interactions tricky, but I'm a carer for my elderly mother and old enough now not to care what people think. Good luck to you on your journey!

Hi,

It could be the case that you have "Child-like Aspects of Borderline Personality Disorder".

Maybe try searching this for more information.

Hope this helps!

This form is sooooo dead on to what I'm going through.

I heard it called The 'Peter Pan Syndrome'

The ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’ affects people who do not want or feel unable to grow up, people with the body of an adult but the mind of a child. They don’t know how to or don’t want to stop being children and start being mothers or fathers.
The syndrome is not currently considered a psychopathology, given the World Health Organization has not recognized it as a psychological disorder. However, an increasingly larger number of adults are presenting emotionally immature behaviors in Western society. They are unable to grow up and take on adult responsibilities, and even dress up and enjoy themselves as teenagers when they are over 30 years old.

Humbelina Robles Ortega, professor of the Department of Personality, Evaluation and Psychological Treatment of the University of Granada and an expert in emotional disorders, warns that the overprotection of parents can lead children to develop the Peter Pan Syndrome, given “it usually affects dependent people who have been overprotected by their families and haven’t developed the necessary skills to confront life.” The ‘Peter Pans’ of present society “see the adult world as very problematic and glorify adolescence, which is why they want to stay in that state of privilege.”

It's like, when a baby bird gets enough feathers it has to learn to fly. It has to leave the nest.
So many youngsters these days are over protected, materially spoilt, cosseted. They do not have to grow up or fly the nest. So they don't.
Infantilised they end up too scared to leave.

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