HealthyGamerGG - The Secret to Fixing Your Adulthood

Episode Date: September 19, 2026

In this episode, Dr. K challenges the popular self-help idea that healing simply requires "letting go" and accepting a missed childhood. Drawing on Erik Erikson's developmental psychology, he explains why human development functions like a progress bar, how unresolved childhood stages leave adults feeling stuck and unfulfilled, and how to achieve genuine "corrective emotional experiences" to reclaim your life. Mental health resources designed by Dr. K and made with love: https://bit.ly/3ZOopgQTalk to a HG Coach 1-on-1: https://bit.ly/46bIkdoDr. K's NEW Guide to Love, Sex, & Relationships: https://bit.ly/4dO3x0VDr. K's Guide to Mental Health: https://bit.ly/44z3SztHG Memberships : https://bit.ly/3TNoMVf Products & Services : https://bit.ly/44kz7x0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac Canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. At a particular age, you have to do a particular thing. And once you learn how to do that thing, then you can move on. And so we have a series of challenges in life. And when we fail to do a thing, we actually become developmentally stuck. And we have to sort of like fix that later in life.

So if you missed a childhood, is there an element of accepting that that's gone? Absolutely. But growing into healing can grow into loss or growing into healing can grow into fullness, which from a simple standpoint is like what we call a corrective emotional experience. In order to become an adult, you got to learn to let go with that childhood you didn't get. Like you can't pick up adulthood if you're still holding on to whatever it was you missed as a kid, falling through the cracks of what your parents missed as a kid. And I focus on this fault because I feel like growing into healing is growing into loss and losing that.

And it's interesting because when I look back on my childhood, I have two memories. Memories of what happened and the memories of what should have happened. And that keeps me from focusing on what's happening now. Every decision I make, I'm still trying to merge those somehow and win whatever I lost when I was a kid. And so now I live in this world that I don't enjoy because I adopted this mindset of this incomplete little boy trying to travel back in time and fix whatever it wasn't right. How much easier would it be to just accept that part of that was missed instead of putting my adult development on hold to wait around for it? Because childhood is not a progress bar. It's not task oriented.

It ends with age. Whatever it was is what it was supposed to be. be. It's not a new responsibility. Something you got to go back and complete. It's done. You got to move away from that fault. Because only then can you pick up who you're supposed to be as an adult. So I love this because there's a lot of good stuff. And there's a part of me that says, if you do what he says, you will end up the way that he is. So we talk about acceptance. There's a lot of good stuff here, right? So like there's the childhood that I had and there's the childhood that I should have, that growing into healing is growing into loss and accepting that this is the way life is.

And I have to accept that, right? My childhood is gone. It'll never come back. I will never have that joy. And if that's the path that you take, this is the emotion that you will end up with. Because actually, there's a fair amount of evidence from developmental psychology. There's a lot of good stuff here. And I respect this dude for making the poetry.

It's beautifully read, you know, really taps into something that's amazing and tragic about the triumph of the human spirit. And I think it's like kind of wrong. If we look at developmental psychology, we learn a couple of really scary things that life actually is a progress bar. And that if you just leave your childhood behind and you grow into an adult without that piece of childhood and this is what happens to so many people, you will be a sad adult. You'll be an adult, but you'll be a sad adult. And this is the real tricky thing, right? Because we don't know how to reclaim that childhood. And so we sort of resign ourselves to. this adulthood without a childhood. But I think that there's a lot of stuff. And today we're going to

talk about someone called Eric Erickson. And Eric Erickson, I'm not trying to dunk on this guy, by the way. I genuinely think he's, he's on to something really good. But I think it's poetry, right? There's poetry and there's science. And poetry speaks to the human experience and really taps into something that I think is very real. But then there's the science of it. So Eric Erickson comes along and he develops this theory. And what he notices is that human beings have particular goals. at certain stages of development. At a particular age, you have to do a particular thing. And once you learn how to do that thing, then you can move on.

And so we have a series of challenges in life. And when we fail to do a thing, we actually become developmentally stuck, and we have to sort of like fix that later in life. So if you missed a childhood, is there an element of accepting that that's gone? Absolutely. But growing into healing can grow into loss, or growing into healing can grow into fullness. which from a simple standpoint is like what we call a corrective emotional experience.

Right. So if you were never loved as a child, you have to accept that you were not loved as a child. That's really healthy. But that's not where it ends. The real way to fix that is to be loved as an adult. To be loved in the way that a child was loved as an adult. To be spoiled, to be indulgent. And I think there are a couple of really good examples of this through Eric Erickson,

which I think make a lot of sense. Here is the progress bar of childhood. When we're somewhere around three to six years old, we have this basic task of initiative versus guilt. So what does this mean? So when a child is like two, they don't have choices. They can't demonstrate initiative. They don't like it to decide what we're doing today. They don't get to control or steer their life at all.

But once we get to be about three, four, five, and six, that's when we can demonstrate initiative. Hey, today, I want to go to the zoo. Or if we go to the zoo, I want to see the Anacondas. not the tigers. And a five-year-old can demonstrate, they can try to steer the car of their life in small ways. And the way that people respond to that is really important. Okay. So when I want to do something, I want to see tigers, or let's say I want to see snakes, which means that I have an initiative. And let's say that my parents have a phobia of snakes. So they say, no, snakes are for Slytherans. And we are Gryffindors. This is bad. How dare you like snakes?

So when a child demonstrates initiative, right? So sometimes I'll see this with like, you know, boys who want to wear dresses or girls who want to play with trucks, right? Or any number of things. When you demonstrate initiative, does the world punish you for it or make you feel guilty? And there's a certain amount of guilt that's kind of healthy. Okay? It's like, oh, you want to stay up till midnight. Like, you can't do that.

That is wrong. Like, this is right. This is wrong. So there's a certain amount that's healthy. But basically, you have some kids who grow up in environments where what they want is punished. They're taught that you're selfish. Your step sibling wants this. You should give it to them. You're so selfish. Their desires, their wants, their needs, their initiative is met with punishment. And then they start to feel guilty. And unless they are supported enough, they will carry that

forward into adulthood. And the way this looks is as adults, their wants evoke guilt, right? And you guys may have experienced this. I shouldn't want this. I'm being selfish. Wanting something is selfish. This kind of initiative is something that I feel bad about, right? So these people will sometimes do punishment. They will self punish for initiative. They will sometimes self punish for relaxing. Because these are kids where their initiative was, hey, can I play with my friends? They're like, no, how dare you? You have to clean the house today. So they carry these things forward. They feel guilty for having wants. And the way to fix this, like if you're someone who goes through life, like, feeling fundamentally guilty for wanting stuff. Like you think like, oh my God, I'm such a selfish person.

for wanting to take a vacation by myself. Such a selfish person for like wanting distance from my parents. Such a selfish person for not wanting to spend my weekends taking care of my siblings. Right? Because people will guilt ship you to all hell. That's one picture. Another picture is self punishment for initiative. So you're someone who like, it's so scary because some people who are kind of stuck in life, right? Like some people like life is happening to them.

They are the object. It's like they're living life and passive voice. Because in writing, people say like, don't. say, like, don't use passive voice. Alok is. We should have Alok doing things. Alok sits, right? Not Alok is. But some of us go through life being acted upon by life. And if you're someone who's like frustrated with yourself and you say, we call this, oh, I have no motivation. I have ADHD. I have ADHD. I have executive dysfunction. Like those things can exist, yes, but sometimes this is why I love therapy. Psychotherapy. This is why I love working with patients with ADHD.

Because it's not just executive dysfunction. Sometimes it is. But most of the time, it's not. And if you pay attention to you being stuck, what you will find if you're stuck, you have no motivation you feel like life is happening to you, is that when you have an initiative, you punish yourself for it. I keep seeing comments. Dr. Kay, how do I apply this to a situation in my life? That's literally why we created a coaching program. Our coaches are certified on an evidence-based curriculum designed to help you get unstuck. This involves analyzing your patterns, increasing your understanding, and working with you week to week to help you develop a plan to create lasting change. So if y'all are interested, check out the link in the description below.

The best example of this is people who do not allow themselves to want what they believe they cannot have. If you are someone who is numb and has no motivation, do you allow yourself to want the things that you cannot have? Because the want is the motivation. And oftentimes what we'll do is we'll protect ourselves from an empty. void of an unfilled desire by not allowing ourselves to want it in the first place. But then you end up stuck. And what's really scary about this is if you want to fix this, sure, there's a certain amount of mourning the loss that's really healthy.

Like, the guy's not wrong, right? So you have to accept that your parents didn't provide this for you. They made you feel guilty, whatever. But the real corrective action, this is what Erickson kind of taught us, is you have to fix those things as adults. So when I'm working with patients who have these particular things, right? So when a want evokes guilt, the corrective action is helping this person understand, wanting things and being selfish are not one and the same. Just ask yourself, can I want things without being selfish?

Is it fundamentally selfish to want? Because as long as those two things are tied together, you won't have that corrective experience. Right? Because how, what is the normal, what is the healthy version of a kid demonstrating initiative? I want an ice cream. And their parents are supportive of that. They're not like, oh my God, how dare you? You know your brother and sister is lactose intolerant, and when you want ice cream, they can't have it, and like, you're making them feel terrible. How dare you? Whereas healthy parenting is like, look, you want an ice cream. Okay, let's get you an ice cream. It's hard for your brother or sister because they want ice cream too. So then you can also talk to your brother or sister. Or at a minimum, let's take you out for ice cream. Let's go get them. A nice cream. They can go get French fries. We're going to go get an ice cream. All right, well, let's get them a cookie. Whatever. This is where, like, the corrective action is supporting those unmet needs, right? It's okay to

relax. In terms of initiative, do you get punished historically? Ask yourself this question. Did you get punished for initiative? Because if the answer is yes, you really need to take a look at that. Can you allow yourself to want something that you may not be able to have? And this is the tricky thing about that is like, you have to have that first and then you, it hurts, right? Because you can't get it. And then you feel that loss. But that loss is also motivation. The want is motivation and the loss is motivation. They took this away from me and I'm going to get it back. This is the corrective emotional experience. And life is a progress bar.

If you didn't pass a class when you were six, you need to pass it today. We'll go over another example. So the next stage is industry versus inferiority. This is the point where someone develops competence as a skill, like they're competent in skills and pride in oneself. Okay. So here's like the healthy example. I get a bad grade. Teacher says you can do better.

let's do some extra homework and then we get a good grade. What does a kid learn? There are challenges in life. There are times where I will do poorly, but doing poorly is not destiny. That I have agency. When things don't go my way, I can exert some amount of effort and I can change the outcome. I have power in this world. I can pride in myself. It also teaches something really important about the world. When I slip up, the world is a place that will sometimes help me out. So we gain faith in the world. We gain faith in the world. We gain faith in ourselves. We gain agents, so we get pride. We hopefully get some skills acquisition and competence. So let's look at the bad version. I get a 95 on test. And my parents say, what the hell is wrong with you? Rochene Patel down the street got A 100. So you got an A and you are a POS. Industry versus inferior. So what I love about Erickson is that he combines things that we don't normally combine. We think to ourselves, if I have low self-esteem, the goal is to feel better about myself. Actually, Eric says something different. The antidote to inferiority is industry, not superiority, right? And we have some really interesting data behind that because we

know that people who feel superior, I'm narcissistic, I'm arrogant, actually have an inferiority on the inside, right? And this is something that we grapple with all the time in coaching. Because people are coming in and they have no motivation. They make comparisons. And so you may think like low self-esteem, what's the antidote? The antidote is actually industry. It's getting them to do stuff and doing something, anything will affect their esteem. So when we as children, when we do things, and even if we're successful, if we're compared, comparison is like the number one thing that leads to problems with industry and inferiority. So this is like all these gifted kids who are burnt out, people make comparisons. we see this with like black sheep and golden child, right?

You got an A, you got a B, your brother, your sister got an A. Like there's a smart one, there's a stupid one. You're constantly made comparisons. You are not judged by your industry. And then this too creates all kinds of problems in adulthood. So this leads to a couple of problems. Okay. So in adulthood, when we do this, we are left with persistent feelings of inadequacy.

That's number one. Next thing we do is sidestep challenges that can, result in failure, right? Because we don't, it's not about industry. It's about being number one. And if we can't be number one, we're not even going to try. The most crippling is an identity that is based on achievement. So this is the idea that your worth equals accomplishments. In the moment that this happens, you're kind of like SOL. This is where people like, so once you tie your worth to your accomplishments, you're screwed no matter what you do. Because if your worth is tied to your accomplishments and you accomplish, you're terrified of losing that worth and that

down the road. Even if you do well, and here's what's so painful about it, right? So if your worth is tied to your accomplishments, what'll happen over time is you'll rise in society. So you'll go to a community college, you'll do well, you'll go to a four-year university. Competition there is harder. Then you'll go to graduate school. Competition there is harder. You're maybe moving up a tier in universities each step of the way. This is why there's way more imposter syndrome at Harvard Medical School than there is at like Houston Community College. So even though you're accomplishing a lot, you still feel terrified. You'll have a lot of imposter syndrome. And then the other really crippling thing is that that imposter syndrome, that anxiety, that concern, that sidestepping of challenges, because you don't want to be number two, you don't want to be number 100. You don't see it as, you know, what do you call the person who graduates at the bottom of their class in medical school? You call them doctor. You don't see them that way. You see it as this person is a loser. I don't want to be that loser. And then eventually that anxiety, that imposter syndrome, those things will predispose you to failure, right? Because you've got a performance mindset instead of a growth mindset. All these other fucking.

have growth mindsets. So when they get a B, they study harder, they dig deep, they believe in themselves, the world helps them. And I'm just panicking because I got, I knew I was stupid. I knew I didn't belong. Oh my God, it's true. This is the beginning of the end. And then I panic. And then once I panic, the decay happens. The tumbling of the rocks, the avalanche has now started, right? Because I'm building this thing up. I'm trying to keep it together, keep it together, keep it together. But it's not sustainable. I'm burning out. I feel like an imposter. And then everything comes crashing down like I knew it would. And now I have a big. problem, which is that I was, I knew I was going to fuck it up, and I was right.

G.G. But where does this come from? It comes from industry versus inferiority. And this is part of the progress bar of childhood. And if you do not beat this stage, this will carry forward as an adult. And so how do you fix this? My favorite thing to do is to have people demonstrate competence in isolation. This is all fueled by comparison for the most part. So when you start doing things, and being proud of yourself, when you see the worth in yourself by doing something that you set out to do and has nothing to do with anybody else. I'm going to plant a garden. I'm going to write a book. Not write a bestseller, just write a book.

This is a goal that I have. I'm going to climb this mountain. I'm going to hike the Appalachian Trail. You've got to start doing stuff. The antidote to inferiority is industry, not superiority, not even self-esteem. It's doing things, doing things where no one can see. And when you feel pride from in here for what you, have done, you will carry that pride forward. Then what'll happen is you'll have that pride in here

when things don't go your way in the real world because that happens eventually. And that will be the buffer. Then you've solved that problem, right? It goes back to the kid who got to be worked hard, got an A. Now they believe in themselves. And you had all these setbacks and now you conquered those things. So now you believe in yourself. Life is a progress bar. So at the end of the day, I think this is one of those things where like there's the childhood you had and the childhood you should have had. Is one of those needing to be grieved? Absolutely. But if you stop at grief, like, you're just going to be left sad. What a lot of the camp of developmental psychology that I subscribe to, right? So I'm not the speaker of truth. Teaches us, and I think this is just like works so much better,

is reclaim your childhood. Be a kid. It's amazing. I strongly recommend it. If you were denied a childhood, the solution, sure, there's a certain amount of grief and a certain amount of blame and a certain amount of letting things go. But also, like, if you have a romantic relationship, let them spoil you. This is something that multiple people have told me about, but I've never heard talked about, which is the healthy infantilization in romantic relationships. And it's something, it blows my mind. I've talked to half a dozen people who do this, called baby voice. It's not like they got together and communicated. I've never heard this talked about. It's baby voice. That in romantic relationships that are secure, one of the partners, this isn't like diaper fetish or something like that. Like one of the

partners will become a child and will adopt a voice. And then someone, but like their partner will like take care of them as a parent, right? It's so weird. Like I've heard this from half a dozen people at this point. And I'm curious, do you guys do baby voice? Yeah. See, this is where I'm talking. Like, most people think, what the what are you talking about? And some people like, yeah, we both did it. I love baby talking. Like this is so weird. One of my exes, yes and past, both me and my man. Okay, see, this is the really interesting thing. Yes, this is me. This is like, no one talks about baby voice. And people are like, this is, I love this, because this is, this was how I felt about it. Some people like, this is disgusting. I hate this. Other people like, yeah, we do it. It's awesome. Freaks me out.

Yes to my long time girlfriend. I find it cringe. It's not like a particular kind. It's like, I'm going to be a whiny little bitch and I want you to take care of me. I don't think it's goo-go-gaga. It's not like baby, baby. It's like I'm going to infantilize myself and you are going to support that infantilization. Right. And what we know from psychiatry is like basically in therapy, sometimes we try to provide these corrective emotional experiences, but we don't do this. The thing is corrective emotional experience. The emotional experience is what's important. We do it a particular way in LARP in Dari. LARPing tree. I love chat. Hi, my name is Alok. In my free time, I LARP is a parent from my romantic partners. Yeah, so this is great. So I used to find it cringe, but I found my

girl and now I can't stop doing it. This is such a good comment, okay? So here's what I I piece together about baby voice. It is cringe until you enter this weird, uncharted territory of like emotional safety. And then once you enter that territory, it like is, what's the word, fulfilling. Like, and some people are even asking, isn't that a normal part of relationship? I don't think so. Maybe a normal part of really healthy relationships. I actually believe this.

We don't, no, see, it's not acting like a baby. Like, so this is not a nut that I've cracked yet, okay? You don't act like a baby. It's not an act. Like you become infantilized. And your partner accepts you in that infantilized state, which then makes you feel like really accepted. I mean, I've seen like unhealthy versions of this, which is like more what people think, right? Which is like, oh, it's like this kid has like some scat fetish or some diaper or whatever.

It's not like sucking your thumb. It's like, I'm going to signal to you that I need to be taken care of in a very. And we have a certain template for this, right? Which is like, I'm going to be a baby. It can be cringed. There's like an organic development of this kind of thing. And then there's like the cringe imposing of this thing. Right.

So like when I'm texting you on a dating app and I'm like, ooh, woo, me, me, me, me, me, that's cringe. This comes out of a hell, it like grows. It's like a truffle. Like you can't farm it. You can't create it. But in the right circumstances, if you sniff around for a while, you're gonna find it.

It's so fascinating to me. I gotta see if there's any, let's see. See, look, 1996. Talk to me, baby. Oh my God, dude. Brooks Publishing. Let us plumb the depths of the internet chat. Studed most extensively as it is spoken by mothers to infants, but without attention is possible role. We suggest that baby talk plays such a role. No, this is about baby. Oh, wait, which is the first empirical documentation that baby talk occurs in adult romances and friendships. Yeah, look, individuals who had baby talk to friends or romantic partners tend to be more secure

and less avoidant with regard to attachments in general. Within a particular romantic relationship, indicators of intimacy and attachment accounted for about 22% of the variance at baby talk frequency. Oh, so partners baby talking was the strongest predictor, accounting for about 42% of the variance. That's really interesting. That means that if your partner baby talks, that's the strongest influence in you baby talking. I love exploring this stuff, but it's like it's hard because it's not it's not like a term. Thanks for watching. A lot of people who struggle with an unfulfilling childhood carry around a lot of shame. To help people overcome this, we have a great two-hour lecture on our website about understanding shame.

We get into how it shapes you in both positive and negative ways. So check out the link in the description below and start your free trial. And here, the Mona Lisa gaze into Mona's eyes in perfect health with no undiagnosed problems and her optic nerve in excellent condition. Anyone here got eyes like Mona? Mine are brownish. Not enough people know about their eye health. That's why OCT scans are included in every state.

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I'm Siaiaa and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem.