Abusive Family dynamic and the pick-up culture

[Martin123]

Hey guys! Its late at night and I just had such a clarifying insight for me that just seems like something so incredibly fun to share with all of you.

I have always felt like there was an imbalance in the dating scene. It doesn't necessarily include everyone, but I am mainly talking about the pick-up culture, club and party culture, and regarding a lot of what RSD teaches and operates in.

The imbalance was what it is often referred to as "high value females" having such an abundance in men, that they walk around telling guys how to be, how to act and how to approach them so they like them more. I always found that on some level slightly repulsive. The sense of entitlement didn't make sense to me, why wasn't there sexual equality, where there can be sharing one another freely when both desire.
And of course, this isn't any type of rant telling women how to behave and who to date. They are absolutely free to like who they like, and date who they feel attraction towards. That's absolutely natural and necessary. It isn't even necessarily one of those "testimonies of a nice-guy" complaining why I could never get laid because "those stupid bitches only date assholes", this kind of INCEL type of vibe, not at all. 

But from a young age I saw this kind of imbalance and I couldn't figure it out. Why was it that guys had to try so incredibly hard, why was it that the most effective dating advice is for a dude to get his life in order, to HAVE A PURPOSE, to BECOME confident, to conquer their life, to GO TO THE GYM and have interests, passions and hobbies.
Why do dudes have to work so freaking hard to create attraction, and it doesn't flow automatically and naturally? I mean attracting your partner and having a relationship is one of the most beautiful things in life, to share yourself with another being is a privilege, joy and amazing opportunity to grow more than ever for both partners! Why does it require so much work on the side of the male? (Not to discredit any type of effort females put forth, but just speaking generally.) 

After all, it is guys who often spend so much time on dating advice, seminars, coaches...

And then there is the result of this type of work. If you look at RSD coaches, or other examples of dudes who "made it", who learnt the "skillset" to attract females. The scenario doesn't usually go "oh I worked on myself, I found the love of my life and had a fulfilling relationship for two decades building a life together with an incredible loving family". No, the result often times is that the man "learns the MALE skillset", he attracts women. And that's exactly where it stays, and then there is this weird thing where he attracts more, and more, and keeps on chasing after those women, as if it were never enough, after all that hard work that he has done on himself, there will never be enough of the sex, of the attention, or of the need to gain the female validation. 
And this is just plain weird, it is a kind of loop that the man keeps spiraling in. 

And today I had a holy shit moment, and it all clicked. This loop is created by a certain type of culturally accepted abuse towards children, especially towards boys, and it is done by mothers.

There is a term that I recently found, that had shed a lot of light onto my own family dynamic, where this type of abuse was very tangible. (I will share my story in a bit) Covert emotional incest.

 

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Covert incest, also known as emotional incest, is a type of abuse in which a parent looks to their child for the emotional support that would be normally provided by another adult. The effects of covert incest on children when they become adults are thought to mimic actual incest, although to a lesser degree. This term describes interactions between a parent and child that are exclusive of sexual abuse. - Wikipedia

You might think that it sounds kind of brutal. But I bet that most of you have almost certainly experienced this type of dynamic in your own family, even if only in a subtle way.

The most obvious and extreme cases of this phenomenon are in ex. A mother asking her son to listen to the trouble she is having in the relationship with her father. The child then feels validated by the things it is being told, and it feels like it is being useful as a listener. But that's not at all an appropriate thing to ask of a little boy! He's a small kid, he is the one who requires their needs met and not the other way around. It is a complete role reverse. It is of course unfortunate when a child cannot have their needs met and is in a situation where it's neglected. But this is actually a totally new level of that. Not only doesn't the child get their needs met, but the child is put into a position where it doesn't even get to have needs. A situation where  a child doesn't get it's needs met is where it asks a parent, and the parent says "No, I am busy, go to your room." And that's a serious thing that affects us all. But in this scenario, the child doesn't even get to know it's needs. It is not even allowed to develop it's needs, because it is the one who is meeting the parent's needs.

This dynamic doesn't often play out in the magnitude of a mother expecting her son to be a replacement for all she seems to lack in her romantic relationship type of situation. It is a more subtle dynamic. And even though it is an abusive imbalanced dynamic, it is so ingrained in our culture that you would NEVER imagine that this type of behavior could be considered inappropriate or abusive.
Examples.:

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Father to a child: Look what you have done, you have upset your mother, go and apologize. 
Mother to a child: Honey, I know that you don't wanna do it, but could you just do it for me?
Mother to a child: I really appreciate that you have been nice to your teacher, it makes me very pleased and happy.
Mother to a child: Honey you are so much more sensitive and emotionally mature than your dad, I just love talking to you about emotions.
Father to a child: You must always respect your mother, she gave you life and you must be grateful for that. (Mothers often say the same thing)

I could continue with more examples surely, but I am a little lazy when it comes to studying these things from external sources, I just like to go with my own intuition and experience so feel free to do research if this strikes you as interesting. 

All these examples have one thing in common. They are situations where the parents are putting the responsibility of their own personal fulfillment and happiness onto the child. In other words, parents have codependent relationships with their children. 

In my own family, this played out on such a large scale and affected me enormously. My own mother subconsciously objectified me to be her own personal "humanoid" fulfilling her needs and expectations. She would say things in a way where she would present herself as a victim of a situation, asking me to be her savior. In fact I had a conversation with her once, and she actually told me that she expects me to fulfill the emotional hole inside her. Without flinching or second guessing herself, or a grain of self-awareness where she would look at what she was actually asking me to do. In my childhood, I was without knowing it often manipulated by her so she could get her way and come out victorious, when I didn't want to do something, she would sweet-talk me into doing what she wanted, making it look as if she was the most amazing and loving mother on earth. 
In my own experience, I had NO idea why on some level I felt like I was a victim of sexual abuse. There was nothing in my history even remotely similar to any kind of sexual abuse, at least nothing I could understand. Not to minimize any type of sexual abuse, I am sure that the experience of it is horrific and beyond belief, however I can imagine that in the case of a parent abusing a child, one of the most significant aspects of the abuse is the sheer betrayal. The fact that your primary caretaker who is expected to care for you and love you unconditionally, supporting your needs and desires, out of everyone in the world, that this one person abused you in such a manner is a horrific experience of betrayal of the most serious degree. And that was the experience I had, there was a deeply betrayed part of me. The moment the child is expected to meet the parent's needs and is not on the receiving end of affection and love, while required to give it to the parent, a betrayal of the natural development is created.

When I realized that this happened to me, I shared it with a friend. And the moment I mentioned that I always felt like I was sexually abused on some level he uttered "OMG ME TOO!" (Side note, we are both empaths so our ability to feel these things is amplified, these feelings may or may not be the same for the majority of guys who went through similar dynamic.)
Then I would share some examples of this abuse happening in my childhood, and he would say "Wait but don't all mothers do that?", and I'd say "Yeah, I think this is real in many families, and that is a scary-ass thing to realize."

Culturally, females are often viewed as sacred when it comes to the relationship with their children. it gives them oh so much power and almost immunity to all kinds of abusive behaviour, mascarading only as "good parenting", with excuses such as "Oh she is just doing it because she loves you so much.", while having almost absolute power to project all her unresolved emotional needs onto the child/boy. A Big FUCK THAT I say to that shit, for real...

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Fuck That shit

So to tie this back to the dating dynamic and pick-up culture. Guys are brought up in a dynamic being expected to meet the emotional needs of their mothers, and in extension then all the females they wish to date. This is the Nice guy. The nice guy who is there for their mom when she needs them, and who is then rewarded by their mom. When it comes to dating, suddenly this doesn't work anymore, and the girls don't respond to this dynamic with attraction. But let's not limit this to the Nice guy archetype. We can talk about the macho dudes, who can have trouble expressing themselves emotionally, or feel like crying is a weakness. That is actually the same wound, that says "I don't get to have emotional needs."  And because we all feel like deep down we don't get to have needs, it creates this whole imbalance where females who are comfortable having needs, hold so much more power in the romantic or sexual interaction. And so the guy (And btw nothing wrong with this, I love the fact that dudes go and take control over their life.) goes and learns all the skillsets to attract women, which is a difficult and a huge step. And I applaud to all the guys who have the courage to change and evolve in this way. However on a much deeper level, there is an enormous wound within your being, that is actually a part of your child-self, that is desperate to have it's emotional needs met, and it doesn't know how. Heck it doesn't even know it's supposed to have needs.
 In culture there is often the distinction between the feminine role and the masculine role, and then the polarity between the two. In reality, it is not about your gender. Feminine and masculine are aspects that we all have within us, and the trick is to balance both of them out, rather than play the masculine role, expecting the feminine to be your partner. From this space, you can actually create relatinoships of equality, rather than perpetuate the old wounded dynamic. 

So that's that, I hope this resonates with you guys because this is actually such a big part of the illness of our society. It needs to stop being acceptable to abuse children in any way possible.

This is the video that brought up the initial spark of clarity, check him out he's a therapist and a good guy with a heart in the right place.

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Martin123

[Privet]

http://www.howtokillanarcissist.com/narcissistic-mother/

[Martin123]

3 minutes ago, Privet said:

http://www.howtokillanarcissist.com/narcissistic-mother/

Hey! Yeah Gee I didnt even properly think of this type of dynamic, I mean thats a story that deserves a twenty book saga to have written about it. 
If you have any experience with a narcissistic mother that youre comfortable sharing youre more than welcome to contribute to what Ive written.

In my experience, narcissism isnt actually the disease that plagues my mother, but I can imagine how insanely painful it must be recovering from that dynamic.
If that is your story, you have all my love and empathy. <3 

[MiracleMan]

@Martin123 Amazing, I really thought you jumped the gun at first but once you elaborated further I thought you nailed it...

[Martin123]

1 minute ago, MiracleMan said:

@Martin123 Amazing, I really thought you jumped the gun at first but once you elaborated further I thought you nailed it...

Thank you, youre so sweet :-) 

[Privet]

@Martin123 I think what you described is actually narcissistic behaviour. Read about "good" and "bad" mother in the article that I posted. It's exactly what you're talking about.

This is what narcissists do, they make themselves feel good by abusing others. By controlling them and manipulating, making others worship, making themselves feel important and powerful.

Narcissism doesn't necessarily have to express itself as self-admiration. It can be just plain selfishness, manipulative tendencies, oversensitivity, neediness, attention-whoring and many other things. There's many degrees of narcissism. It's very sneaky and everyone is a narcissist to a degree.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Privet

[cetus]

@Martin123 I can relate to this in a way. Years ago I had a sudden recall of when I was young, If I did something that got my mom mad, I mean really mad, she would sometimes lose it and say "I'll ruin you in the front". WTF? What was that about? Not sure I really wanna know. But being older and remembering that, I wonder what happened to her to convey something like that to me as a child. 

[Martin123]

@Privet I understand what you mean, and I dont disagree, but I think we just define things in a slightly different way.
There is a difference between selfishness, and self-absorption vs narcissism. Narcissism is an inability of empathy. There are many people that in my life abused me, manipulated me or acted selfishly towards me, but they werent narcissists. 
Just like my mother, she was extraordinarily manipulative, she has a tendency towards pathological lying, but she isnt narcissistic. I know that because I can contrast that with my father, who actually is  
Legitimate narcissism is actually less common than most people think. 

And as a total side note, by the way, I have been taking my healing journey to some rather deep degrees, releasing all kinds of ancestrial trauma. Fascinatingly enough, as I healed some of my deepest emotional wounds, my parents suddenly drastically changed and softened as well. I actually had a conversation with my father (who in the past was a narcissist, and I don't mean that as something to belittle him but that's a safe evaluation of his condition) where he admitted to self-doubt and low self-esteem, for the first time in his life, with tears in his eyes. :-) It was pretty surreal to me.

That being said, im the goddamn child and I am in no way inclined to create a dynamic where I act as an emotional support towards my parents, when the only thing it does is perpetuate codependency. 

[MiracleMan]

@Martin123 The wound...How would you approach the healing process?

[Martin123]

2 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

@Martin123 I can relate to this in a way. Years ago I had a sudden recall of when I was young, If I did something that got my mom mad, I mean really mad, she would sometimes lose it and say "I'll ruin you in the front". WTF? What was that about? Not sure I really wanna know. But being older and remembering that, I wonder what happened to her to convey something like that to me. 

I swear to god, this is so interesting. When I was writing this I had you in mind. I dont mean that like "I wrote this because of you, or for you" but somehow you just appeared in my thoughts a few times.
As an empath I naturally tune into people to feel their emotional stuff and you came up in this energy really clearly just from what I was able to pick up on the forum.

So thank you so much for reading! I hope that you found it beneficial! :-) 

[MiracleMan]

@Martin123 And also, the psychic band, or ancient trauma, its karma in a way, unresolved past fear, unfulfilled desires, guilt, passed down from organism to organism... almost how fear of humans can be bred out of a species over a period of generations...its strange to notice the same mental quirks in both my mother and fathers family tree, such as addiction.  The fear lives on through continued resistance, never being allowed to die, never coming into the light of awareness, almost trapped if you will.  The body seems to contract around these impulses, and the mind doesn't know how to resolve the fear, so it pushes it away.  The cycle seems to have no way of ending once it builds momentum.  There is such a seeming amount of momentum with this cycle, it feels impossible to overcome. This has been my experience if you can relate.  

Edited August 27, 2018 by MiracleMan

[cetus]

@Martin123 I've never shared that before but for some strange reason felt fine doing so here. To be honest I felt as if I was betraying my mom by revealing it.  But I knew it was the right time and place to be said.

[Martin123]

2 minutes ago, MiracleMan said:

@Martin123 The wound...How would you approach the healing process?

Great question! The first step is awareness, and realizing what actually happened. Because until there is the light of awareness shed onto this, the parts of you that were neglected are covered in a veil that says "Oh I must have deserved that, it was right that this happened to me and was done to me."

Just by realizing the scenarios that happened in your own family dynamic, you start shifting your relationship with those traumatized parts of you, where your ego is no longer saying "You deserved that, shut it and stop complaining.", and you switch to "Oh my god, I am so sorry, I had no idea, please teach me how to love you and how to meet your needs."

Second step, bask yourself in self-love and self-approval.

Btw you dont have to try too hard for your emotional wounds to come up. I feel like life has already its way of triggering in us what is ready to be healed, your job or choice is in how you respond to your emotional triggers, and what the relationship with your emotions is. Also, the healthier and more loving relationship you have with your inner child, the safer it will feel to share with you some of the deeper traumas that happened! It is a very beautiful innocent being that inner child of ours <3 
 

[Martin123]

2 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

@Martin123 I've never shared that before but for some strange reason felt fine doing so here. To be honest I felt as I was betraying my mom by revealing it.  But I knew it was the right time and place to be said.

Nice! Thats awesome! I am so happy that what I wrote has this type of effect.
And also I empathise. But its time we all acknowledge that we are worthy of so much more love than we were lead to believe! :-) 

Btw the goal is not to blame parents, the goal is to break cycles of codependency. Your inner child might have some insults to share with you though, I love that part  Its the most linguistically creative part of the healing process. 

3 minutes ago, MiracleMan said:

The cycle seems to have no way of ending once it builds momentum.  There is such a seeming amount of momentum with this cycle, it feels impossible to overcome.  This has been my experience if you can relate.  

Yes!
The mind cant end the cycle, because the cycle has nothing to do with the mind. The cycle takes place in your nervous system and body. It is whats written in our DNA. Good news is this can all be rewired and rewritten, just by changing your relationship with your emotions. Developing a healthy reationship with your body and your inner child. Create patterns of self-love and self-care, self-compassion and self-validation, where you love yourself on a regular basis, say wonderful and nice things to yourself, to your heart and to your body, where over time all these patterns override the old ones running the show, and you start to transform into something incredible :-) 

[Martin123]

Please could you move the topic back to spirituality?

i am aware that it speaks of relationships but actually the depth of it is the pinnacle of spiritual work, it really doesn’t belong in the dating subthread 

@cetus56 ?

Edited August 27, 2018 by Martin123

[Privet]

1 hour ago, Martin123 said:

There is a difference between selfishness, and self-absorption vs narcissism. Narcissism is an inability of empathy.

Empathy = caring about others.

Selfishness = caring only about yourself = not caring about others = not having enough empathy.

If your mom is manipulative it means she is unable to feel empathy towards you when she manipulates, otherwise she wouldn't manipulate you.

I would say that complete inability for empathy is called psychopathy/sociopathy. But those are really just extreme degrees of the same phenomenon - narcissism/selfishness.

1 hour ago, Martin123 said:

Can't delete this quote from mobile dammit

 

[tsuki]

@Martin123 Great post.

From my adolescence, I vividly remember being bullied by my father into being meek towards everybody else in the family.
If my mother wouldn't get what she needed/wanted from me, she would feel bad, even cry sometimes and my father would hold it against me.
It is not necessarily my mother's fault in the sense that she might have not wanted him to act it out like that, but I can tell it was a fuel for many years of our fights. She would never make a scene in front of him, but he would always play the protector of the weak that are bullied by me.

The funniest thing is that by protecting them from me, he would make me into his rival and in doing that - empower me.
To fight for power over family with a teenager is the way to make yourself equal to a child, or a child equal to an adult.
That, of course, would make me pick fights with him, quarreling over the most pitiful things like politics.
That would make him even more entrenched in his defensive position of the protector of the family.
I still catch myself picking on him when we're both older. But since I'm financially independent now, we play it off like a joke.

He grew up without a father, so he did not recognize himself as one.
I hope that I will have enough foresight to see my own mistakes if I have a child, as I have grown against my father.

Having said all of that, even if it had caused me a lot of suffering - I do not hold it against them.
The only reference point for our suffering is our pleasure. This way, even the most peaceful childhood may look like hell from a certain perspective.
As we learn, grow, and experience more mindfucks - we understand that our childhood was fucking strange as shit. Not at all what we thought it was.
That is the essence of growing up.

However, the way in which we see our childhood now is no more true than what it was back then when we were that child.
In my opinion, the conclusion that our parents abused us is no more true than the conclusion that they loved us and that was the expression of their love.

How to heal from that?
We all have the freedom to decide what to do with things that had been done to us.

2 hours ago, Privet said:

Empathy = caring about others.
Selfishness = caring only about yourself = not caring about others = not having enough empathy.

@Privet What about the selfish grounds for empathy?
Seeing no difference between 'me' and 'other'?
What would you call that? Apathy?

[Privet]

41 minutes ago, tsuki said:

What about the selfish grounds for empathy?

Incase when the one that you feel empathy towards is perceived as weak it is called pity, you feel pity toward someone because you want to feel superior. Who like to feel superior? Narcissists.

If you want to gain your positive self-image by trying to be "good to others" that's called lack of self-esteem. Who likes to be better than others? Ta-daaa..

@Martin123 Both narcissism and what you're talking about are just different perspectives on the same problem. None of it is true.

Edited August 27, 2018 by Privet

[Martin123]

@Privet Again, what you’re categorising as narcissism is pretty regular self-absorbed behaviour.

In my past I know I have manipulated and hurt others, and I’m an empath ? 

I wanted to feel better than others definitely, that’s not exclusive to narcissists. 

2 hours ago, Privet said:

Both narcissism and what you're talking about are just different perspectives on the same problem. None of it is true

It’s true that those are coping mechanisms we develop to deal with out unresolved hurt. What makes it actually different is the way you go about resolving it. With an actual narcissist you gotta use different strategies than with most people. Narcissistic individuals have incredible problems with self-awareness and it can take a lot of time to develop that skill. 

Narcissism can’t be oversimplified in this way. It’s a real condition that requires awareness 

@tsuki

It sounds like you were also given responsibilities that didn’t belong to you in your family. I’m sorry about that, I wish you the best time healing.

[Martin123]

Just now, Feel Good said:

Thanks. I intuit this but I don't have the capacity to put it into words like you do.

 

Awesome, glad it resonates :-)