Freedom From Self-Sabotage

by Peter Michaelson

  The point is this: When you’re not awake to what you’re experiencing and feeling, you won’t see or feel the extent to which negative impressions are infiltrating your life and degrading your capacity for enjoyment. Nor will you see the elements of self-sabotage.

  Let’s look for more understanding of the largely forgotten experience of our early childhood. The early years of childhood are a time of high drama. Some aspects of our infantile state of mind have been described in preceding chapters, and a further elaboration follows, based on tenets of classical psychoanalysis. The baby begins life with a built-in conflict: he or she is infused with a sense of being one with all reality, meaning baby is unable to distinguish himself or herself as a separate entity in a greater whole. In baby’s mind, everything good is self-produced and self-bestowed, and thus there is no need for gratitude toward caretakers or even acknowledgment of them. Gradually, baby’s feeling of “oneness” is eroded, mainly due to mother’s “intrusiveness” and baby’s dependence on her. Soon, baby’s natural aggression is projected on to mother, and she can be felt to be, in some sense, opposed to him or her. Baby also experiences unpleasant feelings when the desire for the breast or the bottle is not instantly fulfilled. A wait of a few minutes can seem like eternity because baby has no ability to understand the relativity of time. Hence, from baby’s point of view, mother not only opposes but also refuses.

  Baby is frustrated by passive dependence on getting milk. Baby is also passively subjected to a time schedule for meals and, at some point, must undergo the passively experienced “tragedy” of weaning. Meanwhile, the functions of urination, defecation, and sleep (experienced as normal by an adult) are felt quite differently by baby. Something irresistible drains parts of baby’s body or forces baby to expel part of himself. Something makes baby go to sleep. Baby develops several fears: of starvation, created by his exaggeration of the hardship of waiting even a few seconds for breast or bottle; of being devoured, a projection of his own aggressive designs upon the nipple; of being choked by the mother’s breast or body; and of being drained, a result of his “helplessness” in the elimination process. Baby’s misunderstandings of these experiences is understandable, given how they defy his measuring rod—his “oneness” with all of existence.

  In the first eighteen months of life, the oral stage, baby’s consciousness is in “oneness,” meaning that all existence consists only of baby’s experiences. Next, in the anal stage, baby evolves into “twoness,” meaning he expands his consciousness to include his mother, and she is recognized as a viable entity existing outside himself. Finally, in the phallic stage, the child evolves into “threeness,” and thus is emotionally involved in a new order, the triangle of mother, father and child. The child’s world is expanding, slowly taking in reality, trying to make sense of it, yet also defying it.

  Each of these three stages presents the child with challenging emotions. These stages correlate with the three categories of primary emotions discussed in Chapter 2, with the oral stage corresponding to the complete range of deprival and refusal issues, the anal stage to control and power issues, and the phallic stage to rejection and betrayal issues.

  In the third stage, boys can see father as a rival for mother’s affection and may feel unloved and rejected as they see or imagine mother’s affection going more to father or other family members. Girls can feel acutely any deficiency of love and attention from their father, either directly from the father or indirectly through mother’s experience of feeling unappreciated or unloved by her husband. Both boys and girls can embellish feelings of being unloved, even when parents are kind and decent.

  We carry the emotional repercussions of childhood into our adult years, and we are prepared to experience anew in the different contexts of our lives all the doubts, hurts, and fears. In this unfinished business of human development, we become beggars, slaves, and orphans, exhibiting our own distinct brands of the victim mentality. In a thousand different ways, we are ready to feel like beggars (oral stage—deprived or refused), slaves (anal stage—controlled or helpless), and orphans (phallic stage—rejected, abandoned, and discounted).

  Making it Personal

  How does this relate to you? Feeling like a beggar, slave, and orphan can be so subtle that you may not have imagined yourself in such terms. Do you feel constrained or enslaved at work? Do you feel lonely and separate, orphaned by your spouse, parents, or community? Do you go around begging for more benefits in the form of money, recognition, and love to feel okay about yourself? Do you blame others or outside circumstances for your income shortfall or for being unsuccessful? Do you feel certain people are not supporting you or that they wish you ill? Do you feel the “system” is stacked against you?

  We know we can be subjective and take things personally. We can feel that much of what we experience opposes our wishes in some way. A sense of being victims can overtake us even in situations where we know we ought to be able to manage without emotional disruption. One man is furious at his wife because she becomes distracted and doesn’t listen to him talking while he is driving. A woman complains repeatedly that her husband doesn’t kiss her first thing in the morning. An office worker is furious that his friends, through a misunderstanding, fail to meet him one day for lunch. In each of these instances, the feeling of being a victim is produced by a willingness that is usually unconscious to embellish upon feelings of being discounted or dismissed by others.

  Some psychologists teach confrontation and assertiveness—what they call “empowerment"—as a way for people to deal with feeling victimized. But such an approach can provide official sanction for the tendency we have to react inappropriately and negatively to others. For instance, a person may become aggressive or assertive when he perceives that he is being refused, controlled, disrespected, or rejected. But he may be misreading the situation and exaggerating the sense of being a victim. If he confronts those he believes are, say, refusing him, his righteous aggression is likely to be a defense intended to cover up his own readiness to indulge emotionally in feeling refused. Confronting others is obviously appropriate in many situations, but often such action covers up our own issues. When we confront others in a righteous, scolding, or angry manner, we may initially feel better for our aggression, but we risk damaging our relationships and producing guilt if we have used our assertiveness or aggression as a defense blocking insight into our own issues.

  As an example, a young man driving on the freeway shot and killed an older man who had cut him off in traffic. The gunman pursued his victim for several miles before shooting him in the back of the head from his moving vehicle. This was, of course, an extreme reaction, but it contains the same unconscious elements, absent the self-control, that would be involved in a less damaging reaction. If the young driver had understood his emotional nature and the mechanism whereby he reacted in righteous indignation to feeling victimized, he would have had more ability to maintain self-control. He obviously took it personally when the other driver cut him off, which was an emotional “mistake” in the first place. The young man may have been under the influence of various emotional challenges such as feeling pushed around by a girlfriend, disrespected by a boss, or abandoned by a friend. He may have been harboring feelings of being discounted, neglected, or rejected.

  Suddenly, as the other driver cut in front of him, all these emotions flooded to the surface. The young man experienced anger, rage, and an enormous sense of being victimized. This powerful negative reaction, however, was a defense against recognition of his own passivity (meaning the extent to which he was prepared to soak up and “take a hit” on feeling discounted, cut off, and pushed aside). His overreaction was self-sabotage of the highest order, an act of “pseudo-aggression,” a phony attempt to “prove” how much he hated being treated in this manner. The older driver became the target of his pent-up emotional outburst. The young man displaced all his own emotional issues, in the form of this pseudo-aggressive reaction, on to the other driver.


  The greater the unconscious attachment to feeling discounted and pushed aside, the more self-defeating the protest or defense is likely to become. The gunman certainly took his protest to the limit when he pulled his handgun out of the glove compartment and took off after his “tormenter.” While his behavior cannot be condoned and must be punished, it nonetheless can be understood.

  Confrontation that is a reaction to one’s deep-rooted willingness to feel victimized is obviously not appropriate. This “dumping your stuff” on others doesn’t win friends and influence people, and it doesn’t resolve an individual’s inner conflict. It’s not confrontation one needs but insight into how we unconsciously produce negative emotions and self-sabotaging impulses. A common expression of self-sabotage involves our use of inappropriate aggression to cover up our unconscious willingness to soak up feeling refused, controlled, disrespected, or rejected. Understanding this inner process, we determine with greater clarity and more likelihood of success the best response to deal simultaneously with both the internal and the external challenge.

  A component of self-regulation involves knowing the difference between healthy confrontation (normal aggression) and a negative or exhibitionist reaction (pseudo-aggression). The former is an appropriate response based on an objective assessment of fault or mistreatment, while the latter is based on an inner readiness to feel offended or victimized. Pseudo-aggression is usually a self-defeating reaction, as well as a defense. Sometimes the individual professes to be insulted, which covers up or defends against his recognition of his attachment to inner passivity or some other unresolved negative emotion.

  As a general rule, healthy aggression is used only in self-defense, when the object of aggression is a real enemy rather than one of projection, misconception, inner fear, or fantasy. The response of normal aggression corresponds with the degree of provocation, whereas phony or pseudo-aggression exceeds the provocation (e.g., breaking up a friendship over a misunderstanding). Normal aggression is not easily provoked, while pseudo-aggression is.

  Our assimilation of inner knowledge, along with our courage in exploring repressed content in our psyche, strengthens our ability to step out from beneath our victim mentality while avoiding self-damage. Bill comes home from work after a bad day at the office. He had a disagreement with his boss and feels criticized, rejected, and generally victimized because, in his mind, his boss lacks sensitivity and appreciation for him. Brooding at home, Bill notices that his teenage son, Bobby, forgot to take out the garbage. Bill overreacts, berates his son for being irresponsible and lazy, and displaces on to his son the anger he feels toward his boss.

  Bill’s negative outburst induces Bobby to buy into his father’s accusations of being lazy and inconsiderate. Now Bobby feels worse about himself—like an orphan who is unappreciated, unloved, and rejected, similar to what his father felt earlier at work. To cover up his own unconscious readiness to indulge in feeling rejected, Bobby may make a claim-to-power defense, blame himself for being lazy and insensitive, and come into an inner conviction of being defective, flawed, and unworthy. Unconsciously, in self-sabotage, he may find ways to provoke more criticism and rejection from his father.

  Of course, Bill’s reaction against his son has little to do with his son’s forgetfulness and everything to do with Bill’s unpleasant encounter earlier that day with his boss. Bill spends the evening continuing to brood about his feelings toward his boss, imagining all the ways he might have retaliated or more effectively defended himself. While he is ensnared in feeling criticized and rejected, he is at the same time identifying with his son who is also experiencing the same feelings.

  Bill has to understand that he is responsible for how he reacts to his boss and how he reacts to his son. While Bill may have genuine grievances with his boss, his displacement of his pseudo-aggression on to his son is a grievous injury to the innocent boy. The damage originates from Bill’s transference of unresolved emotions on to his boss. That means that Bill is unconsciously prepared to experience with his boss a reoccurrence of unresolved emotions stemming from how Bill experienced his own father.

  As a youth, Bill felt criticized and rejected by his father. Bill has retained an orphan mentality and now transfers on to his boss the expectation of being treated as such. Bill’s displacement on to his son is both a defense against, and a consequence of, his emotional willingness to indulge in feeling criticized and rejected. He does to his son what was done to him (by his father and boss), and he then identifies with his son being “hit up” with those negative feelings. His aggressiveness with his son is also a reaction to, and a compensation for, the degree of passivity he experienced in his encounter with his boss. (This passivity doesn’t mean Bill should have spoken back brusquely to his boss; it refers, rather, to the degree to which Bill felt victimized by the experience with his boss and how, in all likelihood, he failed to represent himself more skillfully and effectively with his boss.)

  So the solution is not for Bill to react aggressively toward his boss. That could cost him his job. Bill needs to understand his unresolved passivity, recognize his transference, see his own role in acting out the conflict with his boss, recognize how and why he passes the feeling of criticism and rejection on to his son, and work out his attachment to those feelings.

  We can all benefit greatly by recognizing our transference. To explain it again, transference is an unconscious process through which we repeatedly experience situations and relationships in a manner that revives emotional hurts from our past. When we don’t see our transference, we are back into cause-and-effect thinking, believing our dissatisfaction, anger, and urges for retaliation are justified by challenging external circumstances or the alleged ignorance and malice of others.

  Like Bill, we all transfer on to present circumstances the emotions that are unresolved from our past. If Bill felt victimized in some way by his father, or some other authority figure from his past, he is under an emotional compulsion, as an adult, to continue to feel victimized by father figures. As a cover up for his passivity, he is also tempted to become pseudo-aggressive and victimize others, such as his son, who he feels to be under his authority.

  To repeat, the solution for Bill requires that he learn what had previously been unconscious. He has to understand that his anger toward his son is a cover-up for his own attachment to feeling criticized and rejected. Such knowledge as this is not readily available in the culture, the media, or even in our universities. The psychoanalytic establishment has not been helpful. It has descended into self-defeating rivalry over separate versions of the discipline,[xviii] and its members have been passive in championing essential truths about human nature.

  There is more self-sabotage to be understood in Bill’s case. Because of his self-criticism and self-rejection, he may unconsciously provoke his boss to react negatively toward him. He could be forgetful, negligent, or careless in ways that upset his boss, thereby creating opportunities to replay the old criticism and rejection he felt with his father and to which he remains attached, while deepening feelings of being a victim of his boss and life in general.

  Since Bill experienced his father as criticizing and rejecting, he is ready to replay that passive relationship with his boss, and then to become like his father and be the aggressor in his relationship with his son. When Bill understands this, he begins to penetrate the false illusion that he is justified in his negative feelings toward his boss and toward his son. As a result, he can take responsibility for his reactions, learn to regulate them, and refrain from feeling victimized. As his negativity subsides, he is also able to feel more compassion for his son. If his boss was being unfairly critical or negative, Bill would be able to deflect that negativity and not take it personally.

  As mentioned, all of us have ways we felt victimized as children, even if these memories are repressed and we’re not aware of them. Even if we had good parents, we still felt emotionally challenged by the realization that we were helpless and subservient to the will of
our parents. The extreme self-centeredness with which we are born is at first offended by, and later begrudgingly resigned to, the requirement that we submit to our parents. Witness the tantrums of the “terrible twos” as a demonstration of how much we hated being toilet-trained, instructed, and socialized. Later, as adolescents and teenagers, it often feels so empowering and liberating to defy our parents, even when doing so results in punishment and dissension.

  Memories of our childhood “subjugation” and helplessness don’t magically disappear when we reach the age of consent or turn twenty-one. They persist, simmering beneath the surface, ready to be experienced repeatedly when opportunities arise. That is when we find ourselves entangled in the hurt of being a beggar, slave, or orphan, at the mercy of those who seem to be indifferent to our existence.

  Without the insight to resist it, the victim mentality is contagious and spreads through our ignorance. A college education, even a Ph.D. in psychology as it is now taught, is no immunization. A doctor or a ditch digger, of whatever race or color, could be the father in the example earlier of Bill and his son. Because of ignorance of unconscious dynamics, even the most upstanding citizens unwittingly contribute to family, community, and, by extension, national problems.

  Starring in Our Victim Revue

  Wallowing in feeling victimized has a certain appeal. Being a victim can be used to attract attention to oneself. Everyday people who may feel otherwise insignificant and unimportant relish the sympathy and recognition they receive in this role. In our self-centeredness we all like attention, and many prefer sympathy and even pity to what is felt as the only alternative—the sense of being anonymous. Doctors say that children and adults alike often make themselves sick in order to get attention and love.