Early Deprivation: Can A Man Have A Disembodied False Self If His Father Was Abusive?

What a man may see, if he were to reflect on how he behaves, is that he has the tendency to do what he can to please others. As a result of this, he is seldom, if ever, going to freely express himself.

So, when he is around his friends or family, he can come across as easy-going and selfless. He can then be used to receiving positive feedback from others, with him being seen as a ‘good’ man.

A bleak Existence

But even if he is used to receiving positive feedback from others, it is not going to make up for the fact that he typically hides himself. He can find that it is normal for him to feel angry and frustrated, and helpless and hopeless.

If he were to think about how long he has been this way, he may see that he has been this way for many, many years. If so, what may enter his mind is that he was just born this way.

What’s going on?

However, if he were to imagine behaving differently, he may gradually find out why he behaves in this way. At first, this can be a time when he feels free, alive, relieved, and grateful.

Instead of being focused on others and behaving how they want him to behave or how he thinks they want him to behave, he will be himself. This doesn’t mean that he will completely overlook other people’s needs and feelings; no, it means that he won’t erase himself.

The next Stage

After a while, though, he can start to feel uncomfortable, with him having the need to go back to how he was before. He can find that he fears that something bad will happen if he doesn’t go back to being focused on others and pleasing them.

Assuming that this takes place, he can believe that there is no reason for him to be this way and that it is irrational. Yet, although this is what he can believe, it doesn’t mean that it is accurate.

Another Direction

If he were able to go back in time and observe his early years, he might soon see that how he behaves is perfectly normal. This is because, throughout this stage of his life, his father might have often mistreated him.

Along with putting him down and humiliating him, he might have often physically harmed him. Thus, he wouldn’t have felt safe around his father, or supported, protected, valued or loved by him.

A Brutal Time

He would have generally felt unsafe, unprotected, exposed, worthless and unloved. As for his mother, she might have also undermined him directly, or undermined him indirectly by largely watching what happened and not doing anything about it.

To handle being greatly deprived and deeply wounded, he would have lost touch with his embodied, connected, and fully feeling true self, and developed a disembodied, disconnected, not fully feeling, and outer-directed false self. He would have also lived in the hope that, by becoming who his father wanted and behaving how he wanted, he would be loved.

It was futile

But as futile as this was, as most likely, his father and mother were unable to provide him with what he needed, as they themselves were deeply wounded human beings, it would have served as a secondary defence. In addition, then, to his brain repressing how he felt and a number of his needs to allow him to keep it together and function, this false hope would have aided in repression and allowed him to release tension.

The years will have passed since that stage of his life, of course, but he will still be disconnected from his body, and he will still be looking for the love that he missed out on as a boy. This will cause him to focus on others and to do what he can to please them.

A New Reality

For this to change, he will need to reconnect to and feel safe being in his body and let go of his need to receive the love that he missed out on. To do this, he will have pain to face and process and unmet developmental needs to experience, among other things.

This will take courage, support, patience and persistence.

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 healer.

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