Father Wounds: Can A Mans Masculinity Be Knocked Out Of Him If He Had An Abusive Father?

What a man could see, if he was to take a step back and to reflect on his life, is that he finds it hard to get things done and is often passive. Along with being this way, he could find that he spends a lot of time feeling depressed.

So, instead of being able to ‘take life by the horns’, so to speak, he will find it hard to do anything, and, if he does do something, he will find it hard to keep going. In general, it can be as though he is simply on this planet to make up the numbers.

An Analogy

One way of looking at what he is going through would be to imagine that he is like a car without an engine. There will be other people around him who are going all over the place but he will rarely go anywhere.

Some of these cars will be younger and some will be older, but regardless of their age, they will have the ability to move. It won’t matter that the car has wheels as the power won’t be there for them to be used.

Another Part

By being this way, it could be normal for him to do what other people want and for others to walk over him. As frustrating as it will be for him to behave in this way and to put up with this behaviour, he probably won’t believe that he can do anything about it.

In the eyes of some people, he could be seen as easy-going and even ‘selfless’, and to others, he could be seen as a people pleaser and someone who lacks backbone. It could go even further than this with some people seeing him as a man who has been emasculated.

His Relationships

When it comes to those with who he generally spends time, most of these could be people who are the complete opposite to him. They probably won’t find it hard to get things done and they could be fairly controlling.

If so, while he will be out of touch with his inner power, a lot of the people in his life will be controlled by this part of them. He could often feel intimated by these people and act submissive around them.

His Personality

Now, this could be how he has been for as long as he can remember, and this could cause him to believe that this is just what he is like. He was then born this way and there is absolutely nothing that he can do about what is going on.

Consequently, he will just have to put up with what is going on and continue to live a miserable existence. However, although it may seem as if he was born this way, there is a strong chance that there is far more to it than this.

A Natural Outcome

His early years may have been a time when he was mistreated by his father and his mother may have been too scared to do anything or she may have also been abusive. Perhaps his mother actively encouraged the harm that was done to him, with her using his father as a way to assert her own will.

Either way, this would have been a time when he was regularly hit and perhaps verbally abused by him. Assuming that this started taking place from a very young age, he would have been totally defenceless.

Helpless

He wouldn’t have been able to fight back or to run away, the only thing that he would have been able to do was to freeze up and disconnect from his body. Both of these survival responses would have taken place automatically, which is good as he would have probably died otherwise.

Freezing up would have been a way for him to “play dead” and to no longer be seen as a threat, also described as the fawn response. Leaving his body would have been a way for him to no longer be aware of what was going on without it actually coming to an end, also described as dissociation.

Split-Off

These experiences would have made him believe that it wasn’t safe for him to exist or to express himself. Therefore, losing touch with his aggression/fight instinct would have been partly a consequence of him losing touch with his body and partly the consequence of him being brought up in an environment where it simply was safe for him to express his true-self.

Living on the surface of himself and being estranged from his body, along with the masculine strength that goes with it, will be what feels comfortable. Deep down, his survival will be seen as being dependent upon him being a nonentity.

It’s Not Over

What took place will be in the past but, as his brain and body will have been impacted by what took place, he won’t have truly been able to move on from this stage of his life. He will have been deeply traumatised during this stage of his life and this traumatised state will have become ‘his personality’.

This trauma will need to be dealt with in order for him to get back into his body and to reconnect to his aggression/fight instinct. By doing this he will no longer need to be stuck in his parasympathetic nervous system, with this being the reason why he may often be shut down, depressed, have no energy, feel helpless and even have “low testosterone” as it will mess his hormones up.

Awareness

If a man can relate to this, and 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