The fear of being controlled and engulfed

Ceki controls other people’s behavior to make sure he doesn’t get into a situation w
here he feels inferior. I control in order to make sure I maintain superiority s
o I dont get into a situation where I am engulfed and used to meet other people
s needs. Need to maintain dominance and uncontrollability and be the superior on
e (by being higher status, acting aloof, etc). TREBAM DA SHVATIM DA SADA IMAM PO
WER DA SE ODBRANIM OD TAKVE SITUACIJE – BY VERBALISING MY DISCOMFORT IF I FEEL I A
M BEING ENGULFED AND CONTROLLED. ULTIMATELY - if its not working imas slobodu da
raskines vezu. TO NISI MOGAO KAD SI BIO MLAD – SADA YOU HAVE ALL THE POWER IN THE
WORLD. Kao sto si shvatio da imas power da se odbranis od narcista.
Kod mene je problem sto sam abandon my voulnerability. If I’m not voulnerable (am
totally self sufficient) I can control against getting into a situation where I
am with someone who engulfs me-thus I remain in control. Hurt brought on by narc
issistic parents makes you fear relationships (you were dominated, told what to
do, not respected for who you are, criticised, controlled, tried unsuccessfully
to please them...) I developed a terrifying fear of getting into the same situat
ion which leads to the need to feel superior and dominant in relationships. Whic
h I think will give me control against protecting I don’t end up in a situation wh
ere I am controlled and engulfed.
* Fear of being engulfed by needy women (who put down masculinity and sta
tus, try to merge, are terrified of abandonment, have no independence)
* So deny vulnearbility and am ashamed of intimacy needs (narcissistic dom
inant behavior, self-sufficient, uncontrollable, private and aloof, puts down d
evojke). This is why I don’t chase. Maintain superiority.
* Egzibicionizam gde ih nalozim na sebe i onda odbijem (tako sto pokazem d
a mogu bez njih) - mi je svrsavanje. Na taj nacin odbijam njihov “pokusaj” da “merge” sa
mnom. Zato ga drkam kao egzibicionista - kaznjavam ih i to mi daje neverovatnu s
atisfakciju - i u ovoj fazi odbijam “normalne” ribe. Oko toga mi se vrti svo ponasan
je - da nalozim ribe na sebe pa da ih odbijem (obicno kroz nit-picking zbog cega
nisu dovoljno dobre). Plus underlying je strah ako podjem sa ribom bicu stuck i
powerless da izadjem iz veze so it becomes a huge decision.
* Ako mi se bas svidja devojka (ako je dovoljno nenormalna...) gornje pona
sanje mi daje dominaciju i kontrolu nad interakcijom. Seksualna zainteresovanost
mi uopste nije kriterijum kod izbora devojke. Control mi daje iluziju da sam pr
otected against engulfment because I get to control the level of intimacy.
* But ultimately I don’t pursue (in order to maintain dominance and control
- and because of fears od emocionalne veze kick in - so I nitpick if I haven’t alr
eady).
* Sto se tice seksa – egzibicionista sam. Lozim se kad nalozim ribe na sebe
i onda se samozadovoljavam. Obozavam da im se pokazujem. FLASHING YOUR PRIVATES
IS ABOUT POWER, NOT SEX. flashers are predators, searching for victims they can
control AND HUMILIATE. By violating the code of conduct between individuals, the
flasher can throw the victim off balance — the victim is disoriented because the
social contract is betrayed. U emocionalnim vezama se uplasim i postanem impoten
tan. Jedino sam funkcionalan u seksu kada sam superioran, kada dominiram, kada j
e degrade I kada nema emocionalne veze. Kada imam totalnu kontrolu i nisam emoci
onalno voulnerable.
==========
U sustini sam mysogenist koji ulazi u power struggle sa devojkama zbog svog stra
ha od njih - moram da budem superior - dominantan - in control. I da ne bi imao
real relationships ulazim u fantasy relationships a u stvarnom zivotu sam skroz
self-sufficient. Strah od emocionalnog priblizavanja and being engulfed me cini
impotentnim.
1) Exibitionist stage: nalozim ih - potreban mi je attention. Its like im
saying - look, you want this? See how nice it is. You want it?
2) Witholding stage: Then I withold. If she gives me dominance I usually ju
mp to rejection because “she is not good enough” and “any choice is the final choice”. P
osto lozim sve ribe bez razmisljanja sa dosta riba stvarno i nemam zelju da podj
em. A posto sam zenomrzac preko witholdinga im se svetim. Daje mi satisfakciju t
o sto se loze na mene a ja ih odbijam. U sustini obozavam da ponizavam i spustam
ribe i da ih gledam kako se pate sto ne mogu da me imaju.
3) Power struggle stage: By witholding I want to achieve dominance. To help
me with this, I have structured my life to be uncontrolable: a) Am totally self
sufficient so dont depend or need anyone, b) Keep my life totally private so no
one knows what I do in free time. If I like her and she doesnt give me dominance
and make it easy - I rationalise that she is too controling and insecure. This
is why I dont pursue women when they expect me to - because this would give them
power, dominance and control. It would also express neediness and voulnerabilit
y on my part. And I need to be the one who feels superior to them, dominant and
in control.
4) Fantasy stage: While I’m waiting to achieve power I am in a fantasy relati
onship. I replace real relationships with fantasy relationships - they are a “safe”
way to feel intimacy. Ove ribe koje osecaju da sam stvarno zainteresovan - povuk
u se - jer zele i ocekuju da ih pursue - to bi bilo normalno ponasanje. Jer a) n
emogu da budu “kurve” sa jedne strane ako bi doslo do veze - b) potrebno im je da vi
de da se osecam zasluzno, c) potrebno im je da vide da sam stvarno zainteresovan
i d) potrebno im je da vide da sam available, da nisam vec u vezi ili braku. Pl
us ne znaju da nisam neki kreten pa su oprezne - ipak su slabiji pol a jednog da
na treba mozda da zavise od mene - treba im da vide da sam sposoban da resavam p
robleme. Ne znaju ni finansijski kako stojim, da li uopste imam posao. Ja u tom
trenutku stanem jer osecam da gubim kontrolu i superiornost - i strahovi kick in
- i cekam da mi olaksa da bi “dokazala” da nije controlling. Sa druge strane ono st
o mi otezava je to sto nisam ni imao nikakav konkretan plan za nastavak muvanja.
Ono sto one hoce je da ih “pursue i budem uporan” iako ti one otezavaju. Da napravi
s da je ok da one budu sa tobom.
5) Rejection stage: nearly every time in the end I decide she is not good e
nough because any choice is a final choice so it’s a huge decision; or I decide sh
e is too controling because she is not giving me enough power and dominance, or
that she is too needy; or I just dont have the balls to approach her because i a
m afraid of rejection and ashamed and afraid of asking her directly to meet my n
eeds for sex and intimacy. Am also afraid I will be inadequate. And am afraid to
submit myself to her “power” because I will be helpless at her mercy.
NJIHOVO PONASANJE:
1) Misle da sam zainteresovan jer se tako ponasam. Lozim ih.
2) Privucem Ih - zainteresuju se.
3) Ove ribe koje lozim bez razloga - skroz se povucem jer izgubim interesov
anje jer sam pokazao sebi da bi mogao da ih imam kad bi hteo. Racionalizujem da
nisu dovoljno dobre. Osvetio sam im se by witholding.
4) Ove ribe koje osecaju da sam stvarno zainteresovan - povuku se - jer zel
e i ocekuju I potrebno im je da ih pursue - to bi bilo normalno ponasanje.
5) Kada ih ne pursue one se zbune i dodju do zakljucka da ili mislim da nis
am dovoljno zasluzan, ili da nisam dovoljno zainteresovan, ili da nisam availabl
e (u vezi, braku).
ZAKLJUCAK: AKO SAM STVARNO ZAINTERESOVAN - UMESTO PASIVNOSTI -KADA OSETIM DA OCE
KUJE DA JE PURSUE TREBA DA - OTVORENO IH PURSUE, DA NE TRAZIM PERMISSION, DA BUD
EM PERSISTANT. ZNACI DA PREUZMEM SVU ODGOVORNOST NA SEBE - DA IMAM KONKRETAN PLA
N I CILJ - NE DA LOZIM BESCILJNO RADI LOZENJA! A CILJ TI JE DA JE POJEBES. ZATO
BIRAJ RIBE U STARTU KOJE TI SE STVARNO SVIDJAJU - KOJE BI STVARNO HTEO DA JEBES.
KOJE TI SE STVARNO SVIDJAJU. AKO STVARNO PROBAS SA PET DEVOJAKA KOJE TI SE STVA
RNO SVIDJAJU - SA JEDNOM CES DA USPES.
==========
When we learn how to speak up for ourselves and not allow others to invade, smot
her, dominate and control us, we will no longer fear losing ourselves in a relat
ionship.
It is said in relationship psychology that we have two opposing fears that we ar
e trying to avoid: being abandoned or being engulfed. Both are “victim” thinking: “w
oe is me if…”, “I have no control…”, “other people are more powerful than me…”, ‘if I start
path and it doesn’t look so good, I’m stuck because I’ll lose so much by getting off
it…” They are products of one’s childhood, of one’s feelings of powerlessness - and the
y are strictly left over strategies and the ways of thinking of a child. While
true as a child that you were powerless to feed yourself, it is no longer true t
hat you are powerless – you have the ability to cause things, to survive, and to c
reate. Both imply that you have no control and no power over what happens to you
.
If you are too engulfed, do you not have the ability to see it and to draw back
from it into a new balance? Some people draw away from beneficial relationships
or activities or involvement in groups because they fear they will lose control
and there will be “no limit” or it will take them past what they can stand. All of
this is a passive or victim view – as it appears to be “done to you” as if you did not
have control over it. The bottom line here is that you have the power to be the
final determiner overall all this and to not give away your power by buying int
o any loss of control, engulfment, or any such stories and fantasies.
People often choose a partner with a script that is the mirror reversal of their
own. Thus a person with a fear of engulfment will pair up with someone who has
a fear of abandonment. Whenever his fear comes up, he creates distance. This in
turn brings up her fear, which makes her grab at him, further activating his fea
r of engulfment. “Pressing each other’s buttons” in this way, they become polarized in
mutually antagonistic positions that threaten to drive them apart. Karma throws
opposite people together to work through these issues.
Her father had been emotionally distant, and this has made her distrustful that
a man could ever be there for her. Thus she regards his need for solitude and “his
own space” as a constant threat. She is always wary that he might be on the verge
of leaving her, and repeatedly seeks proof that he really loves her. He, on the
other hand, becomes suspicious whenever she expresses their affection too arden
tly or demands his in return. His mother had turned to her son to fill his emoti
onal needs. Feeling overwhelmed by her mother’s needs, and lacking protection from
her, he had learned to protect himself by keeping a safe distance from her.
So when she approaches him out of her abandonment panic, he becomes claustrophob
ic and goes into an engulfment panic. He cannot understand her urgency unless sh
e was, like his mother, out to eat him alive. And she cannot understand why he i
s so unwilling to give her what she needs unless she was, like her father, dista
nt, punishing, and cold. Their fights, underneath all their convoluted tangles,
have a single theme: “You’re abandoning me.” . . . “No, you’re engulfing me.” . . .
In his conflict with her, he is in pain about feeling engulfed by her need for l
oving contact. When he opens to this pain, it connects him with a deep wound fro
m his past: his conflicted feelings about needing to be an individual in her own
right. Although he will blame her for not letting her have her own space, the t
ruth is that he does not really feel entitled to it. This is because of his guil
t about having to push away his mother in order to be herself. . . .
In a similar way, by exploring the pain she feels in chasing after him, she cont
acts her old wound - her conflicted feelings about needing love. Because she had
felt so unfulfilled as a child, part of her had come to believe that she is unw
orthy of love. Before she can make friends with her need for loving contact, she
too has to become aware of her critic, who says, “You’re so needy - what’s wrong with
you?” .
As they make friends with their needs, he and she no longer feel compelled to pr
oject their fears. No longer seeing each as oppressors, they can begin to commun
icate what they are actually experiencing in their conflicts. When she simply sa
ys “I’m feeling abandoned and scared right now,” he becomes less defensive. And when h
e says, “I’m feeling overwhelmed and put on the spot,” this disarms her. The final hea
ling of the rift between them happens as they come to recognize, through working
on themselves, that both these needs - to be strong individuals and to be close
to each other - belong equally to each of them. As he comes to accept her need
for love, she can discover her terror of being left alone. She had hated her alo
neness as a child because it was associated with deprivation, which had felt lik
e a threat to her survival. By relating to her inner child in a caring way and
educating her to the present situation - that being alone is no longer a threat
to her survival - she loosens the hold that his old abandonment stories have on
her.
Through their struggles he and she have learned a powerful, essential lesson: th
at relationship, rather than being just a form of togetherness, is a ceaseless f
lowing back and forth between joining and separating. Just as the moon begins to
wane at the peak of its fullness and the tide ebbs at the height of its flux, s
o after moments of intense connecting two partners naturally begin to fall back
into their aloneness. And in moments when they feel most separate, a desire is b
orn to come together again. The health of a relationship depends on both partner
s being able to move freely back and forth between these two poles. This is a ke
y discovery for every relationship. We often imagine that having our own space i
n a relationship is the opposite of being intimate. Yet actually the reverse is
true: Space is what allows intimacy to happen.
Neediness - emotional dependency - comes from a deep fear of rejection, stemming
from inner abandonment. She gives him responsibility for her feelings. She does
n’t have enough of an inner adult self to take care of her own feelings and needs,
so she makes him responsible for them. Until she starts to notice the thoughts
that create her feelings of abandonment and develops her loving inner adult self
who can take emotional responsibility for her own feelings, she will be a botto
mless pit. No matter how much time and attention he gives her, it will never be
enough because the inner abandonment will continue to make her feel alone.
On the other hand, emotional distance also comes from fear - of engulfment. Not
having a strong inner adult self to speak up against being controlled and smothe
red. In this codependent marriage system, each person is triggering the fears of
the other. They respond to each other with the very behavior that continues to
trigger the fear. They are caught in a vicious circle, each blaming the other fo
r the problems. His fear of engulfment is being caused by not having a strong i
nner loving adult self to speak his truth and take care of him in the face of en
gulfment. As long as he does not know how to lovingly take care of himself in th
e face of her wanting something from him, he will continue to emotionally distan
ce.
If both of them take responsibility for their own feelings instead of controllin
g or resisting each other, they will eventually develop their loving inner adult
selves and become capable of:
Not taking rejection, resistance and emotional distance personally; Filling them
selves with love so that they are not needy for the other’s time and attention.
Speaking the truth about not wanting responsibility for the other’s feelings, with
out resisting, attacking or distancing; taking loving care of themselves without
anger or distance; taking loving action in their own behalf to ensure against e
ngulfment.