A rare phobia – a teenager is terrified of growing up

It is quite normal for children to remain children at six or ten years old and develop according to their age. However, the reluctance to grow up becomes an alarming signal for those children who have already entered adolescence or, moreover, have lingered in it.

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The reasons for this reluctance worry many parents. Educator and psychologist Alfiya Myachina focuses on the main problems and gives advice on how to cope with them.

Symptoms

Ephebiphobia occurs in the form of generalized anxiety disorder. Since a person cannot completely protect himself from meetings with teenagers, the psyche gradually learns to close itself off from traumatic events. This means that when meeting one teenage person, the person with the phobia does not experience a panic attack, but there are clear symptoms of an anxiety disorder.

As a rule, acute symptoms manifest themselves during an unexpected encounter with a group of adolescents.

Psycho-emotional symptoms and behavioral characteristics

Psycho-emotional symptoms of ephebiphobia

A person begins to overthink himself and invent something that actually does not exist, which negatively affects his rest.

Any phobia changes a person's behavior. In the case of ephebiphobia, the patient begins to avoid places where one can meet a group of adolescents. So, a person chooses a route that is far from educational institutions, avoiding youth clothing stores and nightclubs. He carefully selects films to watch, because cinema for teenagers causes anxiety.

When confronted with young people, a person with a phobia experiences strong destructive emotions - fear, anxiety, fear for his life.

Psychologists associate ephebiphobia with the fear of death, arguing that patients see teenagers as a potential threat to their lives.

A person considers teenagers unpredictable and uncontrollable, and when meeting a group of young people, he admits the thought of an attack. As a result, patients face constant anxiety that only leaves them at home. Any movement on the streets is associated with the fear of meeting a group of teenagers. However, one teenager is usually not perceived as a threat.

If a person has a child, the patient thinks with horror about the process of growing up. This may cause a prejudiced attitude towards your own children. Often, parents with ephebiphobia raise their children too strictly and keep them in fear in order to protect themselves from possible problems in the future. True, more often than not, this approach to education has the completely opposite effect, and in adolescence, children declare real war on their parents.

Ephebiphobia may be accompanied by obsessive thoughts. As a rule, they occur before bedtime. A person may mentally imagine various negative scenarios in which he becomes a victim of a teenage gang. Against this background, the anxiety disorder only progresses, causing various complications from the psyche and nervous system. In severe cases, ephebiphobia causes nightmares, insomnia, and paranoid thoughts.

Physical manifestations of a phobia

Physical manifestations of ephebiphobia

Unpleasant emotions contribute to excessive sweating

Bodily symptoms appear at the time of exacerbation of the phobia. As a rule, this happens at the time of an unexpected meeting with a group of teenagers. Exacerbation of psychopathology occurs in attacks of the type of panic attacks, which are accompanied by the release of adrenaline and an increase in vascular tone, which explains the vegetative symptoms.

Signs of an attack:

  • severe trembling in the hands;
  • increased heart rate;
  • jump in blood pressure;
  • tension headache;
  • dizziness;
  • tachycardia;
  • chest pressure;
  • lack of air, shortness of breath;
  • feeling of derealization;
  • chills and cold sweat.

All this is accompanied by growing anxiety and uncontrollable panic, horrifying the patient. The duration of the attack can vary from several minutes to half an hour. As a rule, the attack passes at the moment when the patient feels safe. In severe cases, a panic attack may result in fainting.

The exacerbation of a phobia is closely related to a person’s general well-being. Acute symptoms usually appear during periods of psycho-emotional tension and stress. Aggravated ephebiphobia makes itself felt after serious illnesses, nervous strain, and also against the background of severe physical fatigue.

In severe cases, a panic attack can occur when seeing a group of teenagers from a window, or even while watching a movie or news reports.

Why choose them

As can be understood from the psychological portrait, Peter Pan is an unattractive person for girls. Why do so many smart, beautiful representatives of the fair sex spend years on a man who constantly betrays? As a rule, this occurs due to low self-esteem and fear of being alone. This type of man knows how to lie masterfully and skillfully gives compliments. Under the influence of this, girls believe that everything will change, it will get better, they just need to be patient, they need to help. After all, yesterday he was nice again and talked about how wonderful it was to live together.

peter pan movie 2003

What is Peter Pan syndrome?

CONTENT:

Peter Pan syndrome is one of the types of psychological disorders that is extremely difficult to combat. It is diagnosed as a diagnosis for men after 25-30 years of age, who, despite their physical development, have the mind of a young boy. Emotional, impulsive, childish.

Even if they have a family or a serious relationship, or a prestigious job, men with Peter Pan syndrome do not realize their responsibility, preferring to hide from problems.

The story of Maria Consuela

Maria Consuela was only 27 years old and in perfect health. Money was found in her home - about $600. Why didn't she just go and buy herself food - especially since the store was in the same building as her apartment? Only six years later, psychologist Marcia Blake suggested that the young woman suffered from agoraphobia: apparently, Maria Consuela chose to die of hunger rather than leave the walls of the apartment... Most likely, agoraphobia developed in the girl suddenly, and she had no one to turn to for help ...

Psychological portrait of personality

Abnormally prolonged boyhood is characterized by several signs, including:

  1. Psychological paralysis. How does it manifest itself? Such a person cannot control his emotions. He rejoices loudly and is furiously angry. Acts under the influence of impulse. He is lonely, although he wants to have friends. Doesn't draw the line between "good" and "bad". He takes little interest in the lives of loved ones and demands attention only to himself. If he is cold with his family, then he is able to charm strangers.
  2. Ostrich behavior. This is what else characterizes the “Peter Pan” syndrome. When solving problems, he tends to hope for a miracle. Such a man is incapable of taking responsibility, does not admit mistakes and shifts responsibility for actions onto other people.
  3. Dependence on mother. The essence of this relationship is that the young man wants to break away from his mother, but is afraid of hurting her with his decision.
  4. Difficult relationship with father. He longs for closer communication, but is unable to believe in his love for himself.
  5. He is childish in love relationships, so he wants to appear cold and indifferent.
  6. Another characteristic feature is the constant change of job. A man-boy is not able to sit in one place for a long time.
  7. This man is passionate about electronics and fashionable gadgets, even if they are beyond his means. His chosen one handles all the bills, she fulfills all the duties and lives for him while he satisfies exclusively his own interests.
  8. Don't expect flowers and gifts if there is no benefit to him. What for? He lives in his own Universe, in which he is the center, and the people around him only fulfill his whims and satisfy his needs.

This guy admires himself. In communication, he is distinguished by some cruelty due to the fear of being rejected. Having reached a certain age, such a man forces himself under pressure to become an adult, but the reluctance to grow up remains. He is not able to make decisions and bear at least some responsibility for them. In adulthood, such a husband can easily go in search of young girls, dress in teenage style and lead a relaxed lifestyle.

Why don't we want to grow up?

The causes of infantilism are often hidden in early childhood, when parents:

— they overprotect the child and do not allow them to make their own decisions;

- they show strictness towards the child and deprive him of love, a deficiency he strives to “get” as an adult;

- they teach their son or daughter to discipline, and he tries to escape from the grip.

Infantilism is also used as a shield when one does not want to get involved in serious matters. “Adult children” strive to prolong a carefree childhood.

Why are we so afraid of growing up?

Sooner or later, we all have to face the realization of an important fact that can easily make us depressed: time flies faster as we get older. Days and years rush past us with ever-increasing speed, and the reason for this phenomenon can be explained mathematically. For a one-year-old child, one year is a whole life, but for a forty-year-old adult, one year is just one fortieth of a life. Essentially, this means that we are accelerating towards the grave. But there is no need to make a drama out of it.

Age begins to feel new at about 34 years old. 33 is almost like 31, 31 is just a couple of fun summers older than 29, and 29 is probably the ideal age that everyone would like to stay longer. 34 becomes a milestone of a fundamentally different order. Very soon it will be 35, and one presidential election later - already 39, that is, almost 40. Around this moment, life reaches its zenith and begins to decline, although it is still very, very early to talk about old age.

However, the numbers don't mean anything. They are needed to mislead us. It is because of this property of the human mind that retail prices end in 99, the Monty Hall Paradox continues to be relevant, and statistics open up ample opportunities for fraud.

If you forget about the numbers for a while and try to objectively assess the changes that occur in the process of so-called aging, the results will turn out to be very positive. As people age, they become calmer, happier, wiser and more confident. They learn to derive more pleasure from the most ordinary phenomena, become less susceptible to crises and are less likely to succumb to fears. The number of problems remains more or less the same, but solutions to them are found faster. As you age, it becomes easier to cope with difficult tasks.

“However, the numbers don’t mean anything. They are needed to mislead us. It is because of this property of the human mind that retail prices end in 99.”

Nevertheless, society constantly imposes on us the idea that we should be afraid of aging. Supposedly, the older we are, the worse it is for us, and every birthday after the 29th should be perceived as a small tragedy.

At 34, we are just beginning to comprehend the processes of aging, which will truly make themselves known around the age of 64. But there is every reason to believe that the above positive phenomena will only increase with age - right up to death.

Naturally, some concessions have to be made. At the age of 5, you could fall and not hurt yourself, have ice cream for lunch and feel great after that, your skin always remained clean and smooth. Ahead of us are pain in the joints and other ailments - but despite this, with age we gain more than we lose.

After all, what do we really have to lose? And why do we tend to think that this is bad?

First of all, we need to understand that we are not afraid of old age, but of what comes after it. We confuse old age with death, but in fact they are two different phenomena. It is foolish to believe that only old age brings us closer to death. The fact that life will end one day becomes known to us at a very early age, and it can end at any moment, thereby immediately making all problems associated with aging irrelevant.

Over the years, the body becomes physically weaker. But our well-being and level of physical fitness in the future directly depend on how much attention we pay to them today, at this stage of life. Even if you start doing fitness from scratch at 30, you will feel stronger and more resilient at 35 than at 25. And believe me, there will still be 65-year-old characters who will pump up their abs better and be able to do more push-ups than You. The body's physical reserves decline with age, but the vast majority of us do not need them to their maximum extent.

In modern society there is age discrimination. It's disgusting, but not completely unbearable. This phenomenon is not a function of old age, but rather a side effect of living in a culture that overvalues ​​youth. In other words, you can overcome age discrimination not only by miraculously becoming younger, but also in other ways. In many cultures, both in the past and to this day, age commands reverence and respect.

We are gradually losing physical beauty - at least in its most mundane biological manifestation (we are losing hair, getting wrinkles). But with some work on yourself, this can be compensated by progress in other aspects: becoming more pleasant in communication, starting to formulate your thoughts more clearly and learning to immediately win over others (if you, of course, have such a goal). Even if your beauty fades at the most superficial level, in return you can develop charisma and attractiveness in any other sense. However, external beauty can be maintained or even increased in the medium term. If you share these values, invest in your own health and exercise.

“We are gradually losing physical beauty. But with some work on yourself, this can be compensated for by progress in other aspects.”

Women have a unique problem associated with age: the ability to give birth to healthy children is lost quite quickly. So the task of acquiring a biological family is one of those few things that you need to deal with as soon as possible (again, if you are pursuing such a goal).

Personally, I readily accept the fact that my physical qualities are gradually fading away, but at the same time I am becoming more educated, good-natured, skillful and wise. There is no reason to believe that I will lose these wonderful properties simply due to age, unless I am already very close to death.

Of course, annual progress is impossible without the intention to progress annually. Self-improvement does not happen by chance, on its own. Much of what age supposedly takes from us—health, opportunity, optimism, confidence, strength of personality—we actually give away voluntarily. If progress in meaningful areas becomes a permanent priority for you, then each birthday will mark the growth of your abilities and skills, rather than atrophy and loss.

However, if you tell yourself that your fitness train has left, then it has truly left. The same thing will happen with trains in terms of your dream job, and traveling around the world, and writing a great novel. You didn’t miss these trains, you just stopped perceiving them as your own.

Many people feel the loss of opportunity especially clearly. The range of what you could potentially do with your life gradually narrows as you become embroiled in the many responsibilities of the moment.

Perhaps it's not a matter of age, but the cultural norm of allowing your habits to stagnate once you hit 30. What follows is a gradual decline from progress mode to maintenance mode. If you've been committed to your career for 5 or 10 years, switching to something new and better will be more difficult because it usually involves a pay cut. We take on family and work commitments that can easily drain all of our energy if we once allow ourselves to remove self-improvement from our list of non-negotiable priorities.

If you live your life in maintenance mode, then every year you step back one step. If you simply grow old without improving, familiar things and events become more and more difficult.

The passage of time is not a problem for someone who is determined to improve every important aspect of their life over the years. Yes, sometimes you still have to make concessions. But it's easier to say goodbye to smooth skin and Olympic ambitions when you know you're moving toward wealth, wisdom, skill, personal freedom and self-control.

“He who tirelessly improves himself always arranges his life in such a way that it constantly brings dividends of freedom and joy.”

If you have long-term goals, age will provide you with excellent consolation prizes. For example, if your goal is to get into marathon shape or double your income in three years, would it be bad to be three years older? Diseases and physical problems are inevitable, but they can be delayed by long-term care of your health. And when they finally arrive, you can learn to cope with them with the help of wisdom and spirituality - if, of course, the development of these qualities has previously become part of your lifestyle.

A person engaged in self-improvement creates freedom for himself—long-term freedom. Spending five years transitioning to a job that doesn't drive you crazy may seem difficult in the short term, but will be much easier in the long term. Sweating during a workout is harder than skipping a workout, but if you look at it in terms of not just an hour spent exercising, but a lifetime, working out leads to greater freedom.

One who tirelessly improves himself always arranges his life in such a way that it constantly brings dividends of freedom and joy. It's just a matter of taking the right course and living each year, developing your skills, increasing your wealth and gaining wisdom. And then each next birthday will not be a recognition of another loss, but a transition to a new level.

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Image source: shutterstock.com

Path as priority

Freedom of movement and travel are not just important, but of great importance for millennials around the world. This was shown by a global survey conducted by marketers from GfK and the accommodation booking service Airbnb.

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Photo: depositphotos/lightpoet

For 70% of the generation, travel is part of their identity. For these millennials, exciting trips are a top priority, ahead of the need to save for their own home, car, or even pay interest on a loan.

"Young people live in a virtual world"

The head of the Mosfilm film concern Karen Shakhnazarov talks about the analogue of the Soviet Goskino, the quality of modern films and the problems of the new generation

They say that this generation doesn't know how to save money? He even knows how to do it - if we are talking about a trip to the country of dreams. A Merrill Edge report found that millennials save 36% more than other generations. But the main goals are “frivolous”: tourism, restaurants and fitness.

A generation that doesn't want to grow up. 4 dangerous symptoms

Sometimes old age seeps into the soul before maturity sets in, infecting the worldview of young people with a spirit of pessimism and hopelessness. Dull eyes, grumbling and reluctance to change oneself to suit circumstances - this is the virus of the new generation, which is afraid of the freedom it has received, and with it the heavy burden of responsibility. Being an adult, what's so interesting about it? Mortgages, loans, routine, lack of sleep, spoiled character and a planted liver? Many, faced with similar problems, turned out to be unprepared to accept such a turn, and turned into “young old people” hunched over and dissatisfied with life.

Those who don't want to grow up: how do people run away from age?

If you don't think about old age, it won't come! If you remain an irresponsible infantile, perhaps the grayness of the adult world will bypass you. This is what people think who are afraid of real life, and therefore escape from growing up by any available means. Some continue to be promiscuous in the hope of getting rid of the threat of a “serious relationship.” Someone fancies himself a creative genius, in his 30s working part-time where he can, eating beer and weed, hitchhiking around the world. Someone decided in advance that he would live a short but bright life and die young, and therefore there was no need to worry about bank accounts, you need to live in the moment! Everyone has their own unique avoidance style.

The most popular pastime of people who are not ready for life is belief in the end of the world. Judge for yourself, why plan, mine and build something if we are all going to die soon? We must live in pleasure and preach the cult of hedonism - free love, debauchery and rock and roll. And when the end does not come, fear squeezes the throat with renewed vigor: what to do next, what direction to move in, what guidelines to follow? A person cannot accept his age and the obligations that society imposes on him, so he gives up and fades away, turning into an old man.

4 symptoms of premature aging of the soul

• Eternal whining and dissatisfaction

“Young Old Men” revel in their suffering, because if life does not live up to the expectations placed on it, then there is no reason for fun. Young people, stingy with emotions and embittered at the world, do nothing but grumble and whine about how unfair the law is, how bad everything is, and what a big drama they have in life. Depression, despondency, quarrelsome temperament and vindictiveness are the emotions that form the background of their lives. Disasters are necessary so that existence does not seem insipid.

• Nostalgia for the past

What is characteristic of youth? She lives in the belief that all good things are yet to come. While old age revels in regrets about past joys that cannot be returned. Instead of building a life now, young people decide that their best opportunities have already been missed, which means they can only feel sorry for themselves and prepare for the worst. If it were possible to choose another specialty, not to rush with his family, not to give up playing football, then he would! But it's too late to change anything...

• Unhealthy suspicion, rigidity

Youth is open to the world and opportunities, she easily takes on the craziest projects and flexibly adapts to unexpected changes in the schedule. Old age is the opposite of all of the above. If a person does not want to accept responsibility, he can cover up his immature worldview with paranoid ideas - belief in conspiracy theories and the machinations of ill-wishers who want to prevent him from living well. For example, such people often explain the refusal of children by the idea that the need for reproduction is artificially imposed by the state in order to produce ideal consumers. Or they refuse medical services on the grounds that pharmacology was created to pump money out of naive slaves. It’s easy to use paranoia to cover up what you’re afraid to do or don’t want to do.

• Belief in omens and superstitions

Have you paid attention to the thinking of old people who believe in all sorts of fables in the style of “finish a piece of bread, otherwise you will not have strength”, “don’t throw away your hair so that your head doesn’t hurt” or “show a coin to the new moon to attract profit”? Belief in magical rituals that control a person’s life helps to avoid responsibility and allows one to think that happiness depends little on one’s own efforts. The younger generation similarly hides from mature thinking, relying on the power of feng shui, good luck mantras and positive thinking. Why get over yourself when you can just think positively and read affirmations? However, reality is not a fairy tale; it can be completely unpredictable and unfair.

What happens to people who don't want to grow up? They grow old early because they skip over the most interesting part of life. In order not to fall into the trap of premature aging, you need to learn to accept life and its lessons, to be independent, critical, active, not to be afraid of the everyday routine, and to look for the positive in it. Who said that maturity cannot be wise and harmonious? Only by accepting the flow of life do we learn to live in harmony with ourselves and retain our unique individuality and energy.

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How gentle we are!

The fear of “going out in public” may be associated with physiology, namely with the peculiarities of the structure of the child’s nervous system. For highly sensitive people of all ages, being in large open spaces with lots of strangers is a big stress. An adult and self-aware person understands how to cope with it: he can both prepare for such a load and give himself a break in time. This is difficult for a teenager, he is usually not confident in his abilities, and therefore may prefer not to go out “in public” rather than take risks.

What to do? A highly sensitive teenager needs to learn to monitor moments of fatigue and avoid excess information in order to protect himself from nervous and physical overload. A calm atmosphere at home and the support of his parents will help him with this.

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Under mom's wing

Hyperprotection is cultivated by society today. The pendulum reversed after the generation of so-called “children with a key around their neck” grew up. Now parents have become more restless, much later they decide to let their children go somewhere alone or entrust them with some tasks. Children, on the one hand, experience more parental control, and on the other, they receive an involuntary signal that the world is dangerous. This causes unnecessary fears and disrupts the natural progression of growing up. For a high school student who has had no experience of independence at a younger age, the transition from childhood to adulthood can be too abrupt and cause too much stress.

What to do? Let the child go gradually, expanding the range of his opportunities as he grows, without waiting until he goes to the last grade. So, a junior schoolchild can help his parents with simple housework. It’s quite possible to let a high school student go to the store alone. By high school, a teenager is usually ready to move around the city on his own and solve some of his problems without the help of his parents.

Article on the topic Transitional age. How to help a teenager find the meaning of life and himself

Work can wait

25-year-old New York publicist Sarah Solomon and 29-year-old sales manager Tim Mason from New Jersey met at a surf hostel in Nicaragua. Before that, both left more than cushy jobs, feeling at a dead end in life.

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Photo: depositphotos/stokkete

“Everything was fine with work: great company, good money. But I thought, “Why spend your best years in an office? People retire at 67, and this age continues to rise. Who knows what time I will be able to leave - maybe 70? I thought it would be stupid not to leave. I was the top seller for three years and did like Michael Jordan - I ended up at the peak of success,” says Tim.

Dynamic and ambitious

Sociologist Alexander Shatilov - about the generation of graduates 2018

In three years he traveled to 30 countries. He makes a living by teaching scuba diving to those interested. Naturally, earnings are much more modest than before, but freedom is more valuable to Tim.

The American’s friend, Sarah, thinks in much the same way. The only difference is that the girl managed to stay in the profession. True, now she no longer attends social events in the Big Apple, but sits with a laptop in the tropics. The income has suffered greatly, but the girl is happy.

“I wanted to travel more and didn’t want to beg for every extra day off,” Solomon explains. The employer could give her only two weeks of vacation a year, but now she decides for herself how much rest she wants. In the 10 months after her dismissal, Sarah lived in Hawaii, visited the volcanoes of Guatemala, and swam in waterfalls in Bali. Naturally, you have to save money.

Posted by Sarah Solomon (@wanderingpublicist) Jul 1, 2020 at 3:23 am PDT

Tim says he is thinking about children, but for now this issue is not a priority for him.

The most active generation of Russian graduates has been named

How to help him and is it worth it?

Is it possible to cure Peter Pan syndrome at home, or is it better to seek help from a psychologist? Many girls, falling in love with this type of man, think that they can encourage their chosen one to do truly masculine actions. But is it possible to help someone who did not want to grow up earlier? The idea of ​​re-educating, changing an adult and already formed personality is doomed to failure in advance. You either accept your partner as he is, or look for a more reliable partner. At times he will surprise you with a desire for change, and maybe even decide to change his lifestyle, but, unfortunately, this will not last long. But such a man can torment her with promises of eternal love and the life that is attractive to a girl endlessly.

reluctance to grow up

A person with Peter Pan syndrome sincerely believes what he promises to do when he says it. A man can even formulate a plan of action, but he does not have enough willpower and patience for anything specific. Strong shocks can change his attitude towards money or towards girls, but an eternal boy is simply not capable of a long and stable relationship.

Be prepared for him to leave, come again, promise and ask. For some time everything will be fine, but, alas, it will not last long. It's not your fault, there's nothing wrong with you, it's just his lifestyle. Assess the situation soberly, without emotions. Abstract from words to analysis of his actions. If he left and came many times for a short time, and again vows to change, most likely the man will leave again as soon as he gets tired of it. An exception is possible only if the partner himself admits that there is a problem and tries to solve it on his own or with the help of a psychologist. Re-education and “training” of an adult man will do nothing.

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