Father Wounds: Can Man Associate Self-Assertion With Death If He Had An Abusive Father?

A man may find that it is difficult for him to stand his ground and to stop others from walking over him. Then again, he might not even get to this point and could simply allow other people to cross his boundaries.

Once this has taken place, he could end up feeling deeply frustrated and fed up. This could also be a time when he wonders why he let someone walk over him and why he didn’t do something about what was going on.

Self-Blame

If this is the case, he won’t be able to stand up to others but he won’t have trouble laying into himself, and this could mean that he will end up feeling very low and even depressed. In fact, he could spend most of his life feeling this way.

But as he is used to being taken advantage of and doesn’t do anything about it, why would he be any other way? By lacking the ability to stand his ground, it is unlikely that his life is very fulfilling.

A Build-Up

Due to how he experiences life, he is likely to carry a fair amount of anger but that doesn’t mean that he is typically aware of this anger. In general, he could be unaware of how he really feels.

Still, this anger will play a part in why he feels low and perhaps depressed and it could cause him to be passive-aggressive at times. This will show that although he has a high tolerance for bad behaviour and just sucks it up, there is a fire inside him.

A Strange Scenario

If he was to become aware of the fact that he doesn’t allow himself to get angry and then to use this energy to protect himself, he could struggle to understand what is going on. For some reason, this energy won’t be there when he is compromised and so he will be defenceless.

At this point, he could believe that there is something inherently wrong with him and that he is missing something that other men have. There is the chance that he has been this way for as long as he can remember.
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Looking Back

If he was to look back on his childhood, he may see that he was often mistreated when he was at school. Again, this may have been a time when he was walked over and just put up with what was going on.

If he wasn’t regularly hurt during this stage of his life, he may have often been picked on and had a miserable time as a result. What this could show is that he doesn’t have a healthy relationship with his fire due to what took place when he was a child.

No Recollection

Upon hearing this, he could struggle to see how what took place at this stage of his life has played a part. This may illustrate that he can’t remember much about this stage of his life, or he could say that it wasn’t that bad.

If so, this could be a sign that his brain has blocked out what took place in order to protect him. The outcome of this is that he won’t be able to join the dots, so to speak, and to see why he is the way that he is.

Back In Time

Throughout this stage of his life, he may have been hit by someone who was supposed to love, care, guide, protect and support him – his father. As he was powerless and totally dependent during this time, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about what was going on.

When he was hit by him, it probably would have felt as though his life was going to come to an end, with this being a time when he would have experienced fear, terror and felt totally helpless. His only option was to automatically repress how he felt and to go into shut-down, collapsed and frozen state.

A Matter of Survival

If he has tried to fight back and defend himself, he would have most likely suffered even more. Losing touch with his aggression/fight instinct would have been essential and doing what he could to please his father would have been his priority.

This would have meant that his true self would have gone into hiding and he would have become a non-entity. Ultimately, his self-protective instinct, power and aliveness would have been knocked out of him.

Another Element

Along with this, through being egocentric at this stage of his life, he would have personalised what took place. It was then not that his father was in a bad way; it was that there was something inherently wrong with him.

Therefore, not only was he treated like he was nothing and had no value but he would have believed that he deserved to be treated in this way. The truth is that he didn’t deserve to be treated in this way and it wasn’t his fault.

A Natural Outcome

His early years wouldn’t have allowed him to develop a felt sense of safety, security, worth or love or to stay connected to his true self. Ergo, instead of being prepared for the real world, he would have been broken by his father and ill-equipped to handle life.

Also, he will be estranged from his aggression/fight instinct and, until he is able to reconnect to this part of him, he will be like a sitting duck. He will need to reconnect to himself and this will take 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.