Early Deprivation: Can A Man Associate Receiving Attention With Being Humiliated If He Had An Abusive Mother?

If a man were to step back and reflect on his life, what he may see is that he does what he can to avoid attention. As a result of this, he can typically stay in the background and not be seen by others.

He might see that it doesn’t matter if he is around men or women, or he might see that he has a greater need to not be seen when he is around women. If he can relate to the latter, this is likely to have a negative impact on his success with women.

A Closer Look

So, he can see that, over the years, he has stopped himself from speaking up and being the centre of attention. The outcome of this is that this might have stopped him from moving forward in his career.

And, when he has been in a special setting and he has been attracted to a woman, he might have often stopped himself from taking the next step. When he did think about taking the next step, he might have been filled with fear and anxiety.

A lot To Handle

If he can relate these examples, as well as others, he can be filled with regret when he thinks about what has happened over the years. Additionally, he can feel helpless and hopeless.

But, as he will want to be seen and heard, and this need has seldom been met, this is to be expected. However, part of him can wonder why it is such a challenge for him to be seen and heard by others, especially women.

Stepping Back

If he were to imagine that he lived a life where he feels comfortable being seen and heard, irrespective of whether he is around a man or men or a woman or women, he can feel relieved and grateful. After a while, though, he can start to feel anxious and fearful, and have the need to go back to how he was before.

If he were to think about why he responds in this way, what can enter his mind is that he expects to be put down and humiliated. Therefore, the anxiety and fear that arises are there to let him know that something bad is about to happen, and he needs to protect himself.

Two Levels

After this, he can understand why he has had the need to stay in the background for so long. His behaviour is then not going to be irrational; it will be a way for him to make sure that he is not pulled apart.

Nonetheless, what could enter his mind is that even if this does happen, his life is not going to end. Thanks to this, he can believe that while his behaviour does make sense, it is holding him back.

Missing out

He can think about how being criticised and humiliated hurts, but that living a life where he stays in the background and is rarely seen and heard hurts even more. But, even though he can have this outlook, it doesn’t mean that he will just be able to change his behaviour.

If he is unable to simply change his behaviour, he can wonder why his need to behave in this way is so strong. Yet, if he were to able to go back in time and observe what his early years were like, he might gradually realise why he is this way.

Back In Time

This may have been a stage of his life when his mother was generally anything but nurturing. She might have been emotionally unavailable and out of reach, and often criticised and humiliated him.

Assuming that this was the case, his mother wouldn’t have been someone who he could attach to and feel safe around; she would have been someone who he couldn’t attach to and was a threat. Instead of receiving the attunement and care that he needed to grow and develop in the right way, he would have been greatly deprived and deeply wounded.

One option

To handle not receiving what he needed and being put down and humiliated, his brain would have repressed how he felt and a number of his needs. This would have involved him losing touch with his connected true self and developing a disconnected and outer-directed false self.

He would have also come to associate attention with something that would cause him to suffer. Not being seen and staying in the background would have been seen as the only way for him to be safe.

Moving Forward

He is likely to have hoped that, if he stayed in the background, he would end up being seen and heard and would be loved. But as his mother was probably unable to love him as she herself wasn’t loved during her formative years, it wouldn’t have mattered who he became or what he did.

But as ineffective as it was for him to adapt in this way, this hope would have served as a secondary defence that made it easier for him to keep it together and function. For him to change his life, he will have beliefs to question, pain to face and process, and unmet developmental needs to experience.

Awareness

If a man can relate to this and he is ready to change his life, he may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided with the assistance of a therapist or a healer. 

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk