also an attempt to gain some control over something
HI Nicolette,
I think this is the classic idea of AN (anorexia nervosa) and many feel this but for me it wasn't something I was aware of. It was much more about wanting my feelings and self to be smaller and less of a target emotionally, self wise and physically. It was also about wanting to be less womanly and noticed in that way. The irony is that one tends to end up with more attention not less. Then I would trip into the psychology that maybe being fat was a better way and go into bulimia. Not that I saw it that clearly at the time of course. As a result I would go from moderate AN to normal weight BN and battle between the two. Fun. Each would not give me the escape I needed in some way.
I always felt being quiet and doing what I had to was self preservation against them and nothing towards protecting them.
These things are always so multifaceted and difficult to put into words aren't they? Around others I was quiet mostly to self protect. If I said less then there would be a little less chance of getting into trouble. Very subconscious of course.
When it comes to acknowledging what was happening or telling others then the silence was mostly about protecting them. I never spent much time thinking of myself or my psychology but would be immersed in theirs. Other people wouldn't understand that he was just suffering a lot. That he was very anxious and therefore was acting out. That things had been difficult for him as a child and that he was under a lot of stress at the moment. They wouldn't understand that he was often very kind and was not critical and that I felt safe in the relationships in some respects. As a child it was more profound. It was just him and my mother as the universe and the only consideration was how I was failing or helping to make things better.
That's just a general idea of the mindset. I would breath and be them and I was lost in that. It was what I did and was trained. How I personally reacted. Fitting in perfectly with what they want before they even know they want it. Keeping an attachment as if one looks at the reality then anger and resentment tends to come up. Anger and resentment can put one in danger.
The psychology of all this is that finding a way to attach and blame ourselves rather than the guilty party is a legitimate survival mechanism for a child. An angry, resentful child is much more likely to act out and be a target in some respects than a compliant, intuitive child that can read situations and fit themselves to them. Having a self can be a big disadvantage then but not having one as an adult can be huge disadvantage later.
I saw myself as very compassionate at one point and I am but I now see the extreme extent that I displayed this as very unhealthy on a psychological level.
"The victim of Stockholm Syndrome irrationally clings to the notion that if only she tries hard enough and loves him unconditionally, the abuser will eventually see the light. He, in turn, encourages her false hope for as long as he desires to string her along. Seeing that he can sometimes behave well, the victim blames herself for the times when he mistreats her. Because her life has been reduced to one goal and one dimension which subsumes everything else–she dresses, works, cooks and makes love in ways that please the abuser–her self-esteem becomes exclusively dependent upon his approval and hypersensitive to his disapproval."
I hope it's Ok to put some links here. I tend not to have trust in being able to express what I mean so write and then afterwards look for things that express it better!
http://www.co.washington.or.us/Comm...esourcesLinks/upload/Why-Don-t-They-Leave.pdf
[DLMURL]http://www.rainn.org/get-information/effects-of-sexual-assault/stockholm-syndrome[/DLMURL]
http://drjoecarver.makeswebsites.com/clients/49355/File/love_and_stockholm_syndrome.html
http://drjoecarver.makeswebsites.com/clients/49355/File/love_and_stockholm_syndrome.html
On a theoretical level I believe there are a few different sides to the whole thing. Learned Helplessness, Stockholm Syndrome, Cognitive Dissonance and Repetitive Compulsion.
I also think when what is keeping someone in the situation is mostly about learned helplessness and trauma bonding then what works to help people out of it is often slightly different to what works if it is less of an issue and mostly about fear and lack of understanding.
Once we have that engrained pattern as a child I think for some of us it doesn't take that much to set it off again and even in quite mild situations. I have had this happen in work-authority relationships again and again. Humiliating and frightening.
The interesting thing is how out of character I would behave then this whole dynamic kicks in.
Meadowsweet, I relate a lot to what you describe. I started realising that a lot of the "empathy" was actually projection. That is a hard one to deal with. I can barely speak about it to do with my father so can't say more and have mostly dealt with it to do with mother which was extremely painful and took a whole lot of quite forceful yet patient therapy.
