I believe I’ve discovered where I got “stuck” in my childhood development. The following is such a close match that there can really be no doubt about it...
In the CONCERN phase of childhood:
THE LONELY CHILD: FEAR OF OTHERS/OSTRACISM
Some children fail to make friends and are thwarted in their attempts to be included in the group. Such setbacks produce an adaptation that I call the “lonely child.” There are usually three possible explanations for this. Often his parents, overprotective and overrestrictive, fear the loss of the child. They are quick to voice disapproval of his friends, criticizing them and the child’s social behavior. Failure may also be due to the lack of social skills in his home; his parents are unable to guide him in his new task of developing friendships and resolving conflicts. Now that the child is out in the world, and subject to its judgments, he may also be ostracized because he is different – too smart or not smart enough – too tomboyish or too effeminate. His religion, nationality, race, or economic background may isolate him. Although he may have one close chum, probably a loner like himself, he has few other friends. Rejected, socially inept, he turns his energy back on himself, becoming self-preoccupied and immersed in a self-constructed fantasy world of relationships that are closed off to him in real life. Though he looks independent, and denies that he needs or wants friends, he is acutely lonely.
[I am a **textbook** example of the above description!]
THE ADULT: A LONER
The lonely child becomes a Loner in adulthood, a rigid Minimizer, a private person who has a hard time sharing his feelings. At the core of his being is a void, for he has failed to satisfy his needs for healthy dependency and interdependency. He is filled with intense, often painful, feelings, including the powerful belief that he is unlovable. This may have positive value as the source of creative output, but he is also vulnerable to addiction – to drugs, alcohol, work. To make up for what he lacks, he is attracted to someone gregarious, intrusive, and self-sacrificing, someone who will spearhead the making and keeping of friends and draw him, kicking and screaming, out of his privacy, while at the same time he does his best to exclude the partner from his inner life.
Again, textbook. I am beginning to realize that my wound was not so much a result of poor nurturing as it was a result of poor socialization.
In the CONCERN phase of childhood:
THE LONELY CHILD: FEAR OF OTHERS/OSTRACISM
Some children fail to make friends and are thwarted in their attempts to be included in the group. Such setbacks produce an adaptation that I call the “lonely child.” There are usually three possible explanations for this. Often his parents, overprotective and overrestrictive, fear the loss of the child. They are quick to voice disapproval of his friends, criticizing them and the child’s social behavior. Failure may also be due to the lack of social skills in his home; his parents are unable to guide him in his new task of developing friendships and resolving conflicts. Now that the child is out in the world, and subject to its judgments, he may also be ostracized because he is different – too smart or not smart enough – too tomboyish or too effeminate. His religion, nationality, race, or economic background may isolate him. Although he may have one close chum, probably a loner like himself, he has few other friends. Rejected, socially inept, he turns his energy back on himself, becoming self-preoccupied and immersed in a self-constructed fantasy world of relationships that are closed off to him in real life. Though he looks independent, and denies that he needs or wants friends, he is acutely lonely.
[I am a **textbook** example of the above description!]
THE ADULT: A LONER
The lonely child becomes a Loner in adulthood, a rigid Minimizer, a private person who has a hard time sharing his feelings. At the core of his being is a void, for he has failed to satisfy his needs for healthy dependency and interdependency. He is filled with intense, often painful, feelings, including the powerful belief that he is unlovable. This may have positive value as the source of creative output, but he is also vulnerable to addiction – to drugs, alcohol, work. To make up for what he lacks, he is attracted to someone gregarious, intrusive, and self-sacrificing, someone who will spearhead the making and keeping of friends and draw him, kicking and screaming, out of his privacy, while at the same time he does his best to exclude the partner from his inner life.
Again, textbook. I am beginning to realize that my wound was not so much a result of poor nurturing as it was a result of poor socialization.
posted by Darkest Knight | 9:23 AM
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