Growing up in an environment where bigger people exerted more power over us when we are small set the stage for us to learn and then figure out how power works. It is here that we learn about the roles of victim and victimizer. It can stay with us for a very long time, that sense that we are less than. That what we want and need, or even just being heard AND acknowledged, is a challenge and likely will be disregarded, tossed aside like trash. So we swallow our words and value. Sometimes we can act up and out to be heard as a way to push back from being powered over and disregarded. After a while, we can just give up and trudge through life doing without. We may be quick to give to other people, meet their wants and needs. Learning early on that what is of value to us is much less important than for other people. Sometimes, we give and give, hoping that when we give enough we will get a return on that investment. We learn to keep the peace – at any price. And that is very expensive!
Along my road of recovering, I have been blessed that there were people along the way who encouraged me to ask, reach out and try to change the past by beginning to ask for myself. Linder asked me once if I ever asked God for anything for me. Such a foreign concept. I was puzzled about that one. Why would I ask God for help or anything as long as I felt God hated me? If God was this loving parent type figure and did not step in to make it stop, then I surmised I was worthless, even evil.
When we grow up with such disregard and the balance of power is based on might ma
kes fright, it is a scramble to get our needs met for all involved. Operating out of a deficit, people try to grab all the stuff they can so they feel filled and fulfilled, usually at the expense of other people. There is not enough or never enough mentality. One wins, the other loses.
kes fright, it is a scramble to get our needs met for all involved. Operating out of a deficit, people try to grab all the stuff they can so they feel filled and fulfilled, usually at the expense of other people. There is not enough or never enough mentality. One wins, the other loses.Is that why when we start earning money to buy stuff, we get that stuff to fill us, surround ourselves as a comfort? If we cannot get what we need, the affection, emotional intimacy and connection, from people, will our stuff do to fill that space? Or more often we get a pet to love and who will love us back unconditionally (generally with regular feeding). Maybe we come off as prickly around others as our previous experiences around people are skewed and we do not trust or know their motives for being nice to us. I grew up in poverty where there we did not know if we had the basics. Living on the edge like that can also shape our habits such as keeping the cupboards stocked whether we get around to eating the food or not. There is some comfort we have enough.
When being treated as less than, we can carry that forward which affects our personal and work life, keeping others away at arm’s length and even isolating. We wrestle with being lonely, intimacy and being vulnerable. That sense of powerlessness permeates each cell.
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