The End of Adolescence: A Crucial Period

In parenting, the goal is to guide children towards gradual autonomy. This support is essential and should not lead to prolonged childishness. It involves valuing, listening to, and accepting their differences, aiming to ease them into adulthood. Any behavior that infantilizes them hinders their autonomy and well-being. While life isn't always smooth, the family environment must be pragmatic and conducive to their growth. Alongside fostering the teenager's autonomy, it's vital they feel they can rely on their parents. Failing to strike this balance can lead to developmental risks. Overprotection can trap adolescents in a distorted worldview, rendering them incapable of handling basic societal interactions: socializing, entering the workforce, financial responsibilities, etc. More damagingly, when parental trust and support are lacking, replaced by judgment, pressure, criticism, and humiliation, it paves the way for the inevitable vampirization of the adolescent seeking certainty.

Vampirization: The First Stage of Dark Normality

When a child regularly feels belittled and unsupported, they may resort to life choices not aligning with their true aspirations. Driven by fear of disappointing parents or escaping a disturbing emotional home life, their transition to adulthood is tumultuous. Forced choices lead to a sense of obligation, not promise. Constraint becomes their only reference. This outlook on life is half-empty rather than half-full, in every aspect of their life. This adult normality they must adapt to will be far from bright, leading to a dark normality characterized by:

• Inner balance deficit (regardless of professional success)

• Mockery, humiliation, tendencies to belittle others

• Inducing guilt in others

• Anger/aggression/insults

• Intolerance

• Recurring judgments

• Constant criticism

• Prioritizing self-interest over others

• Fear of illness, being weakened

• Ego-centrism

• Self-pity, victimization

• Emotional blackmail, emotional hostage-taking (unclear sentiment life goals)

• Opportunistic friendships (self-oriented interests in others)

• Envy and jealousy mimicry

• Stealing/converting conversation topics (self-centeredness)

• Paranoia, negative/misguided interpretations

• Busyness illusion

• Full awareness of flaws without changing (victimization justification)

• Draining friendly/romantic energy

• Living vicariously (minimal material and emotional investment).

When Vampirization Is No Longer Enough

Entering adulthood without chosen direction has dire consequences on identity construction and self-confidence. As this young adult doesn't believe in themselves, they must believe in something else, larger and uncontrollable. Seeing personal fulfillment as nearly inaccessible, this mental construct allows them to consolidate that they are not in charge of their destiny. Fortunately, sliding into identity crisis isn't inevitable. However, in families steeped in aggression, anger, and emotional abandonment, it creates a breeding ground for the ultimate stage of vampirization: psychotic disorders. The dark normality of vampirization gets intensified into a malevolent identification responsible for deep existential distress. Machiavellian plans, extreme world perversion, unfounded beliefs, and hostility towards a pivotal figure become part of their daily dark normality. This leads to schizophrenia, meaning a 'split mind' in Greek, referring to the division between dark normality and healthy normality, and the alternating phases between actual and fantasized or misinterpreted realities.

High Potential: The Unique Gateway to the identity crisis

The identity crisis demands boundless imagination and limitless analytical capacity. Dark normality, like healthy normality, requires mental construction, fulfilling the cognitive closure need: any answer suffices, regardless of its favorability. For neurotypical profiles, the need for cognitive closure is low. Unanswered queries don't necessarily lead them to repetitive logic-seeking loops. For high-potential individuals (HPI, HPE, Zebras, Hypersensitives), it's different. They activate branched thinking to logically explain a given situation. Immersed in intense dark normality, high potentials engage their knowledge and analytical abilities to understand why life is so unbearable. Intense focus and successive unfounded over-interpretations attempt to close their cognitive loops, blending dark and healthy realities.

More Men Than Women

Studies don't show a clear male predominance in the identity crisis. The reason is straightforward. In differential psychology, boys are less focused on emotional sharing and are less permitted to express feelings. Emotions are more suppressed. Without resorting to outdated stereotypes, societal acceptance of emotions in children does vary. Boys, future men, are typically more action-oriented, with less acceptance to express what they feel. Conversely, girls, future women, are more inclined to exchange and share, with greater acceptance to express their feelings. Hence, the identity crisis crystallizes into more aggressive and violent forms in men, whereas in women, it manifests more as anxiety and depression. Regardless, both exhibit psychotic