Monday, April 20, 2009

Only Child Syndrome: Case History #2

I've blogged about Only Child Syndrome several times.

Every day people from all over the world come to this blog seeking relief from dealing with the Syndrome.

Whenever I blog about OCS it seems to generate a lot of interesting comments. Many of them amusing. Some, inadvertently so.

Only Children who developed the Syndrome make the funniest comments. Always denying the existence of the Syndrome, while at the same time exhibiting, verbally, classic OCS attitudes.

And then you have the Only Children who get it and are working on it. I like them.

Now, I have never said that all Only Children develop the Syndrome. But, all the Only Children I have known have had the Syndrome to varying degrees. But, I'm sure if I knew 100 Only Children that there would be several totally Syndrome-free. Some parents are good parents, no matter if they have One Child. Or a dozen. Other parents have One Child, and, though they may mean well and not realize they are creating a monster, that is what their bad parenting does.

Two of the worst Only Child Syndrome cases I have known were very similar in how the Syndrome manifested itself in them. Which was ironic, because they had so many things in common in addition to both being Only Children.

They had the same first name, they both had alcoholic fathers, they were born within days of each other, in the same month, they were both overweight, with one being morbidly obese, they both had a history of imaginary boyfriends. They both were infatuated with me. (shudder) They both were unkempt, and, well, let's just say beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this eye always saw the opposite of beauty when his eye beheld this particular pair.

And how did Only Child Syndrome manifest itself in this pair? They both required a lot of attention. Both had at least 2 personality modes. One being a semi-normal acting mode. The other being what I would call performance mode, as in acting up to get attention. Both were extremely neurotic, bordering on being paranoid much of the time. Both lacked self-awareness, with no sense of how others viewed them.

As it is with a lot of Only Children, a big deal must be made over birthdays, even well into adulthood, when most of us have reached the point where we prefer the day to be ignored. Both were known to throw elaborate parties for themselves. Homage had to be paid, or you risked a rage.

Which is another thing this pair of Only Children shared in common. Anger management issues. Both could fly into nonsensical rages when some random present moment thing would trigger a neurotic reaction. Very unpleasant to be around.

Both had a highly evolved sense of entitlement. That could lead to any number of bad things.

Both were extremely over-bearing, very opinionated, but both lacking the intellectual ability to reason their way out of the arguments they created. Both using the foot-stomping temper tantrum method of getting their way in a disagreement.

Obviously, I see neither of these particular Only Child Syndrome cases anymore. Which is a good thing.

6 comments:

  1. Hilarious. You are spot on on this subject.

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  2. OK, I DON'T KNOW FOR HOW LONG YOU HAVE BEEN WRITING ABOUT THIS TOPIC, BUT I AM VERY CURIOUS TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT IT. CAN YOU DIRECT ME ON WHERE TO FIND MORE INFO ON THIS.THANKS.

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  3. Anonymous 2, you could try Googling "only child syndrome."

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  4. SHELLEY I DID, I JUST WANTED TO GET MR DURANDO'S RESPONSE SINCE IT LOOKS LIKE HE HAVE BECOME AN EXPERT IN THE MATTER. I ALWAYS WONDER WHERE THE LEGITIMATE INFO ENDS AN IT BECOMES JUST PERSONAL RAMBLINGS. THEN AGAIN HERE WE ARE READING AND CHECKING HIS BLOCK, I GUESS IS LESS ABOUT LEGITIMATE INFO AND MORE ABOUT BEEN ENLIGHTEN BY MR DURANGO.

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  5. I'm sorry Mr./Ms. CAPITAL ANONYMOUS, I didn't realize you were wanting more OCS input from me. Are you being a victim or suffering from the behavior of an Only Child?

    If you want to read a good book that can help you deal with many of the behaviors manifested by Only Child Syndrome I recommend Toxic People by Lillian Glass. If you read this book you will likely recognize many OCS symptoms and get good insight in how to deal with the disease.

    I think the #1 thing I have experienced, common to all OCS adults, is how extremely brittle they are, how extremely easy it is to upset them. While at the same time they say and do things much more rude and mean than that to which the OCS person overreacts to.

    This behavior, the brittle temper, while at the same time being almost constantly mean-spirited and quick to react, and never ever able to own or acknowledge their own bad behavior, because in the mind of the OCS adult, they can do no wrong. Even when they commit criminal acts and end up doing time behind bars, I have seen an OCS adult able to dismiss that which got her in trouble as a minor matter, best forgotten.

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  6. HI MR DURANGO, IT'S MRS CAPITAL ANONYMOUS. I HAVE ENCOUNTERED MY FAIR AMOUNT OF THEM. I'M NOT A VICTIM, SINCE I'M PRETTY GOOD DEALING WITH ALL KINDS OF BEHAVIOR . I OWN A SHOP(RETAIL, YES! COSTUMER SERVICE IS A PRIORITY EVEN WHEN YOU REALLY WANT TO STRANGLE SOMEBODY) AND PRIOR TO THAT I TAUGHT HIGH SCHOOL SO YOU CAN IMAGINE. I HAVE MET SOME GREAT PEOPLE AND SOME THAT MAKE YOU WONDER FROM WHAT PLANET DO THEY COME FROM; AHH...AND WHEN I THINK I HAVE SEEN AND HEARD IT ALL... THANKS, I WILL CHECK IT OUT.

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