Helena’s Disease; A potentially new mental disorder affecting parent-child bonds

This is going to be a difficult read.

This condition isn’t recognized in traditional psychology, nor am I in the position to make it so. I am not a psychologist nor a psychiatrist, I am simply observing as a layman. However, I think I stumbled on something that SHOULD have a classification of some description. Although I do not really believe in mental disorders, let alone “diseases” this is as close to genuine madness as thinking patterns go: The failure to recognize the person inside one’s child, while holding focus on the body of the child and shallow, external behavior.

There are forms to this that fall beyond the parent-child category, where one person takes such a strong ownership of the other, that they completely fail to recognize their true personality and identity as a separate individual. This has a classification of a narcissistic personality disorder, so this would fall in as a subcategory to NPD. This is a condition that is curable, however, (and I believe NPD in general is).

My child, my doll

This condition is the easiest to understand if you equate the child’s body as a baby doll and the growing personality a bully trying to steal that doll from his/her mother or father. I believe it would be equally common in both men and women, but since the doll-analogy is easiest to understand, let’s stick with mothers and their children for now. Men would equate the child as “their seed”, an extension to who they, themselves are, and the child’s personality, their soul, as the evil influence (devil?) trying to steer the child astray.

The parent feels a fear-fuelled irritation towards the child because both the child (the person/body to be protected) and the bully/demon (the soul/personality of the child) are the same person. The parent holds a keen eye on the growing and grown-up child, trying to figure out how to get the child back from the bully. This is a very primal, animalistic instinct driving this parent to protect a child, like an animal whose puppy has been stolen, or a child whose doll is stolen by bullies, as I said.

Case Study

The child was in her 40’s, the mother in her mid 60’s. The daughter was having a migraine’s attack and rolled her eyes around the extremities of the visual field to alleviate the pain. Her mother, observing her, snapped: “Stop doing that, that will give you a headache if you don’t already have one!”

The daughter reacted, completely fed up with her mother’s constant staring and observation that made her feel like she’s living in an aquarium under constant supervision at her age, and she started mimicking the tonality and feeling in her mother’s statement: “Aaach don’t roll your eyes, you’ll break my doll!!”

The mom’s jaw dropped: “That is EXACTLY HOW I FEEL! I feel you’re breaking my doll! You’re playing too roughly with my precious child!” All of the sudden, the mother realized what had been wrong, she had completely equated the child’s body as “her child” and the child herself as an evil spirit possessing her child.

Symptoms

• The parent seems baffled or angry, infuriated, constantly worried, unable to tell “what is wrong with her/his child”.
• The parent is constantly trying “to fix” “the broken” child.
• The parent seems to be looking for “where they went wrong (with the upbringing of the child)” that made the child turned out the way they did (even if there was nothing wrong with the child).
• The parent may constantly be surprised that the child’s siblings “turned out OK” with the same upbringing methods, proving that this child, is “a problem child”. In reality, this child is simply more independent and the Cat Type Thinkers thinking than his or her more the Dog Type Thinker thinking sibling(s).
• The parent feels there is “a stranger” inside the child. (The parent is unlikely to be aware of this feeling until they realize what’s going on in their own psyche (if they ever will). They are most likely completely oblivious that there is “an entity”, as in a personality other than what the parent accepts in the child.)
• The parent “edits” the child. They refuse to accept the child’s true personality but hold a strong idea of who they are, possibly completely fictitious or outdated: “When you were four, you said… Why do you now say…”
• The parent may give the child “speeches” and dictate what the child should say or do in any specific situation. They do this under the belief the child is “not very smart” and “needs more help than other children or his or her siblings”. The parent’s expectation is that the child behaves in a certain way, but when they act relaxed and “as themselves” the parent feels they are either “acting up”, “malfunctioning”, or “not learning”.
• The parent ignores the child’s attempts to talk about who they are, what they want in life and what they are like, if and when this falls under the expectation or what the parent recognizes as a trait of her/his child.
• The parent gets super excited when the child shows interest in something “approved”. Like they were praising a dog: “Good girl/boy, that is exactly what I think you should do!”
• The parent has a very narrow field of vision when it comes to the child. They focus on everything “they like” and ignore everything that they do not like about the child.
• The child’s pleas to be noticed and to be treated as an individual (or an independent adult) fall on deaf ears.
• The parent may insist the child is mentally unstable because she or he doesn’t act according to his or her expectations.
• The parent maybe obsessed with psychology books which he or she turn to for an explanation for their child’s “behavioral problems”.
• The parent usually has a good social standing, because they conform to norm and expectation to the tee. (Note that the parent may have a social standing in a culture that is out of the norm, such as say, as a mafia boss or anything with strict rules, even outside what normal society considers ‘normal’.) They are surprised when the child “is incapable” of doing the same and following “clear rules”. (This is a personality question, however.)
• Due to the paren’ts ability to perform in society, they are absolutely closed to the idea they would have a mental issue. They absolutely see no sense in the idea that because they hold onto a job/position easily, that there would be ANYTHING wrong with their mental state.
• The child is likely to have difficulty trusting their parent, and they will hold secrets from their parent, probably both, considering they fear one tells the other what the child is up to if it falls beyond the scope of what’s acceptable in their (sub)culture.
• The child is always compared to the norm of expectation and expected to supersede it. Once the child fails, the expectation is lowered to acceptable, but no further.
• The parent sees themselves as the creator of the child; the upbringer, as in the “programmer” or “the artist” responsible for the creation of the child. They see themselves as a complete failure if the child fails to perform. They blame themselves and look for a flaw in their own “code”, making the child feel unloved and unappreciated.

My guess, based on very little information, is that this is an extreme case: JF Kennedy’s father, Joseph Kennedy Jr. had the would-be president’s sister lobotomized, because the young Rosemary Kennedy showed interest in boys and going out partying, which didn’t fit her father’s expectations of the future president’s sister. This, I believe, was an extreme need to “fix” the “possessed doll” from her demons, which, in reality, was the girl herself. (Anyone can see from the photos, there was nothing wrong with the girl initially, who simply rebelled against the strict rules of her parents.)

The Cure

Cognitive therapy is required to make the parent “feel the spirit”. The parent needs to learn to recognize the personality in his/her child and to realize they are simply growing up and showing an independent personality. It is also helpful to convince the parent that THEY have a mental disease that need urgent care. They NEED TO feel like the patient, as they are TERRIFIED of mental illness, and in this case, it works in the favor of the required therapy.

It may be required for the parent to be coaxed to “couples therapy” with the child, under the guise that the child is the one with the issues. It must be made clear though, that the problem lies with the parent. Initially, the information must be broken gently, as they are both TERRIFIED of mental disorders AND insistent there is NOTHING wrong with them… Ever.

Depending on the severity, contact with the child must be limited during therapy. The parent should be considered an unfit parent to the “problem child” until cured, but may not have trouble parenting a child more willing to conform to rules and expectations. Consideration should be made whether the conforming children conform out of fear of the parent or out of appreciation of the certainty of the rules. It is to be stated that the non-conforming children are not too afraid of the parent to disobey (which is good) but this may be individual between the children. A good behavior of the children is not a direct indicator that the parent-child relationship is working.

NPD and Helena’s Disease

I would consider these two things different, but normally, the parent’s behavior would possibly be classified under psychopathy, narcissistic personality disorder, or Asperger’s syndrome IF recognized at all. Please read my clarification what NPD should be seen as.

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