control

[Rustam]

I am doing a group, its positive to be in a group of men who are working on themselves. We get homework that is supposed to be done once a day for one hour at the same time each day. What this is bringing up for me is my hatred of feeling controlled. I am not in reality being controlled and I can say as I did say that I have a lot of resistance and am doing my best etc everyone else is doing the work enthusiastically.

This fighting for control goes back as far as I can remember. When I was about 10 I had some schoolwork to do and as usual hadnt done it. I was dreading the beating and the public humiliation the teacher would give me (he was a brutal sort), but I still wouldnt do the work. I sat on the edge of the river and thought about jumping in, for me then it seemed preferable to die than feel controlled. The suicide escape route was a great consolation for me. It comes up still but its no longer an option. The other part of that was that I didnt have to feel any fear. I always felt safe because I knew I could cope with dying or getting hurt. Now I am able to feel fear, thats progress but I feel much more vulnerable.

I sort of get how it started, my dad was terribly controlling, the sa the beatings every interaction with him was about him needing control, all I could do to have a sense of power would be to resist him. He could beat me as hard as he liked and I didnt care, I was beyond trying to avoid it. I got to a place that felt safe inside myself, and I could ignore the pain, I could even laugh at him sometimes and send him into further fits of fury. To have some sense of being in control meant so much more than anything anyone could do. You can do what you like to my body but Im still free, is sort of what I was saying.

This is still my reaction to feeling controlled. Feeling like I have to do something often means that I wont do it. The more necessary it is the less likely I am to do it. One example is a job I had which gave me a nice place to live and involved very little work. I had some simple tasks to do, but not doing them was preferable to me than loosing my home. This behaviour pattern has lead to lots of failure, dropping out of university, dropping courses, getting in trouble at work, chronic procrastination etc. I am afraid to start anything that I need to commit to as I am still likely to repeat the pattern.

This helped me cope with lack of control of what was happening to me in childhood but has hampered me ever since. When my partner or others see me acting this out, they are baffled and I feel ashamed and secretive about it.

Not sure if anyone shares my experience in this, but its good for me to get more honest about it.

Thanks

Rustam.

 

[ForeverFighting]

I know what you mean about control issues. I feel the same way. The more people push, the less likely I am to do it. But my dad was the same way--extremely controlling. He told us how to fold our shirts, how much toilet paper to use, how to walk down the street when walking with someone. It makes me angry to even think about it. If you ever saw the movie "Sleeping With The Enemy", that was my dad.

I admire your strength with your dad. That wasn't me. I was terrified of him, and when he came at me I turned to mush. For most of my life I would have dreams that I was being attacked and couldn't lift my arms to do anything about it. I wish I'd had your strength in that regard.

It's nice to hear your story.

 

[FlyWM]

Control is often a big issue with survivors of abuse. Abuse isn't about sex or pain, it is about power and control, and since we all had someone else have power and control over us now we openly rebel against anyone ever having control over us again. It was kinda developed as a defense mechanism that now can ensure chaos for us, we don't ever want to be controlled again so we fight tooth and nail trying to keep control in our court. This can all cause problems as you said with work or other assingments. I have a terrible time doing what my therapist tells me to do for the same reason, fear of being controlled again. But in reality we are now in control, in therapy as in life, we control the way we go and what we do, we always have an option, so remember you are no longer powerless and you now have the control, even when there are requirments of you you are still in control.

Peace,
Scott

 

[onlyakid]

Originally posted by Rustam:
I sort of get how it started, my dad was terribly controlling

My mom is controling, constantly needing things to go her way. In MY apartment, she had purchased me a table and she wanted it right against the wall, I wanted it out a little bit. But she wouldn't say OK or I think you should put it over here BECAUSE, just that it should go over there. She used to have the excuse that it was her house and as long as I lived at her house, it was going to be her way.

This is still my reaction to feeling controlled. Feeling like I have to do something often means that I wont do it. The more necessary it is the less likely I am to do it. One example is a job I had which gave me a nice place to live and involved very little work. I had some simple tasks to do, but not doing them was preferable to me than loosing my home. This behaviour pattern has lead to lots of failure, dropping out of university, dropping courses, getting in trouble at work, chronic procrastination etc. I am afraid to start anything that I need to commit to as I am still likely to repeat the pattern.

You've hit the nail right on the head. I always put tasks off because I am being told to do them and how to do them. I'm sure it has caused all those things you mentioned "dropping out of college (university), getting trouble at work, chronic procastination. Yep all here.

Your not alone Rustam, and neither am I. Thank you. Now if we could only figure a way to fix this

 

[reality2k4]

I think you can be all of us here, I hate control, my boss tries to control me, so I do everything the wrong way around, but confuse him, because the work still gets done.

I had the same problem with teachers at school, I took many beatings through often no fault of my own, until I snapped, and finally got to protect myself.

Looking back on my life, and my father was not the abuser, I still remember the beatings for things I did not do, or did I? I could not tell him what happened in the abuse, he saw me as a different boy than the one he knew.

He beat me for the same reasons you went to the river, I went to the sea, just to drown, and get away from the burdens of life. Getting out was the only way when you feel so low as a kid, I would come back late at night and cause havoc in the family, my father would ask me where I had been and I would just tell him I was out cycling.

If I look back though, and he told me this, he said he really was upset at me being away from home so late, and he worried about me. Maybe he thought I was gay and meeting men, but it was just part of getting away from life, and being in touch with nature, at 11yo he should be worried.

SA is so complex, it is so hard to identify feelings and maybe our minds were under anothers' control, but we got out of it by conciously holding on to our minds, my mind just wanted to give in when I was a kid, it did do when I was twelve and I had a nervous breakdown.

Is it any wonder that we resist control, when we have had to show so much control in our childhoods, control we never should have to summon to keep ourselves in control. All of this when we should have lived in childhood abandon!

take care,

ste

 

[Bobby]

You know, Rustam, your post started me thinking...not an easy thing to do this early in the morning...about how our response to our SA when it was happening has affected our lives. I wonder if we were that kind of person before we were SA, or if the SA and our response shaped who we were....kind of the chicken/egg thing? You see, I responded to my SA in just the opposite way from what you did. I gave in and quietly allowed it to happen, as if it were my fate and a given in my life. Of course, I was 1 to 6 years old, but still, that's how I coped with it.

As an adult, when trouble comes, I cope with it in the same way. There were problems with my last job. Instead of staying and fighting for change (because, of course, my veiw of the situation was the correct one), I resigned, giving some sort of reason for the resignation so that I wouldn't cause a big problem (It was a church.).

That's usually my way. I'd rather just leave a situation than to fight it. Now (See, even though I'm anonymous I care what you think...I hate that about me, too.) that doesn't mean I don't have any fight in me. I survived my abuse and I am a survivor in life. But I don't really fight the system...I learn how the system works and figure out away to beat it on its own terms. It's when I can't do that that I leave and go find another system to work in.

There's something very rewarding about beating a system, but there's also something very demeaning about not speaking up when you think you're right about something. Both I think are connected to my abuse. I figured out a way to survive in an abusive atmosphere, but had no way to fight it. On the one hand I have great self-respect because I survived against considerable odds, but on the other, it doesn't matter how old I was and how strong he was...I will never forgive myself for not fighting back.

I would really be interested in what others have to say about this, as it's a totally new thought for me. Thanks, Rustam for this very interesting post.

I also want to say how sorry I am that you had to live that way. I am a school teacher, and when I am confronted with a student like you were, I try my darndest to figure out how to approach him in a way that he will want to do the work and realize it's for himself that I want him to do it. Every time it comes down to a stand off with a kid...nobody wins. I admire your strength, but am so sorry for the strong boy who had to use it in the way you did, to survive. Bobby