Anxiety: Can A Man Suffer From Anxiety If He Had An Abusive Father?

If a man was to step back and reflect on how he experiences life, what could soon stand out is that he often feels on edge. He might see that he has only just started to experience life in this way or it could be something that he has experienced for a little while.

Regardless of how long he has been this way, he could have a strong need to change his life. He could be desperate to be able to feel more at ease and no longer feel as though something bad is going to happen.

One Experience

What could stand out is that he has the tendency to feel on edge when he is around other men. When he is around women then, he could find that he is typically able to feel at ease.

But, if he comes across as easy-going when he is around other men, he may find that he doesn’t feel unsettled around them. In this case, he will have to lose one thing, himself, to gain another, inner peace.

Another Experience

Then again, he could find that it is not so much about whether he is around men or women and more about how they behave. So, if he is around people and there is tension and anger and perhaps aggression being displayed, he starts to get tense.

He is then not going to consciously choose to be on edge, this is just something that will automatically take place. At this point, he might wonder what is going on and if his life will ever be any different.

A Doormat

Most likely, being this way is going to make it hard for him to stand his ground at certain times, if not in general. He is then going to be used to being taken advantage of and doing things that he doesn’t really want to do.

Thus, there will be the impact that this has on him when he is at work, with friends, family and in an intimate relationship. Therefore, the sooner he is able to change his life the better he will be.

Two Levels

At one level, what is going on is not going to make any sense, but, if he was to get in touch with what is going on at a deeper level, it would probably make complete sense as to why he experiences life in this way. The reason for this is that his conscious mind will see life in one way and his unconscious mind will see life in another.

When he experiences anxiety in certain situations, it is likely to show that this other part of him feels as though his survival is under threat. When it comes to why this is, it is likely to be the result of what took place when he was growing up.

Way Back

Throughout his early years, he might have often been physically harmed and verbally put down by his father. He then wouldn’t have felt safe and supported by his father, he would have felt threatened by him and often as if his life was going to end.

As he was powerless and totally dependent, there was absolutely nothing that he could do about what was going on. His only option is likely to have been for his brain to automatically repress how he felt, to shut down and to come across as submissive, in order to try to minimize the harm that was done to him.

A Continuation

Now, what took place will be over but as he would have been deeply wounded and the impact of what happened was repressed and not resolved and integrated, he won’t have truly moved on from this stage of his life. When he ends up feeling anxious, it will then show that part of him is preparing him for an attack.

It won’t matter that another person or people are not his father, as this part of him will be projecting an old scenario onto the present. This part won’t be doing this to cause him harm; it will be doing this to protect him.

A Defence

This part of him will have taken one experience and generalised it, which will show the level of development that he had when this association was formed. During this time, he would have been too underdeveloped to realise that how his father was behaving was not a sign of how every man or people behave.

Also, he wouldn’t have been able to understand that just because his father got angry and ended up harming him, it doesn’t mean that this is what will always happen when another person gets angry or displays a certain facial expression, for instance. Still, responding in this way may have minimized the harm that was done to him all those years ago.

Moving Forward

For him to truly put the past behind him, he will probably have a lot of pain and arousal to work through. This is something that will take courage and 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.