A submissive and vulnerable person? A strict education can be the origin

Most parents who come from a strict upbringing are used to children obeying adults without question. Surely, they were raised like this, so they are not capable of questioning this principle. Besides, andApparently, it is much easier to raise through threat and imposition than to spend time talking and take into account the other person.

But what supposes, in the short term, an “advantage” for the parents, becomes, for life, a problem for the children. Submission creeps into adulthood and is very difficult to break free of. when it has been assimilated as natural from earliest childhood.

Parenting models that undermine the security of a child

When Pedro came to my office, he was 35 years old. All his life he had been a victim of others.. His friends, partners and family members took advantage of him. He was aware that these relationships were not healthy, but he was unable to end them. He didn’t know how to defend himself.

Pedro was a biologist and was dedicated to studying the influence of heredity and environment on animal behavior, however, he could not understand their tendency to submission. For this reason, he came to my office, he wanted to find out and understand if his attitude was inherited or learned, in order to change it.

After a few therapy sessions, a doubly traumatic event occurred for Pedro, but it served as a stimulus to deepen and work on his childhood.

Several years ago, a lifelong friend heand had asked for a large sum of money to solve some personal problems. Pedro lent her much of his savings and sacrificed his plan to buy a house to help his friend. After some time, every time Pedro insinuated that he needed the money he had lent him, his friend would beat around the bush and never give him anything back.

The last thing that Pedro knew about this friend, and that was a great crisis for him, was that He had gone to another country and that he had been removed from all his social networks. In addition, he had changed his phone number, so he had no way to contact him. Pedro had lost his money and had no hope of getting it back.

Dejected by what had happened, he went to discuss with his family what had happened to him, but his father’s response was even worse than the betrayal he had suffered from his childhood friend. He told her: “That happens to you because you are very innocent and trusting. You have to look first for yourself and your interests”.

In other circumstances, these words could have been good advice, but the tone with which he said it was not that of a father worried about his son, but rather, like a scolding or a mockery for having been deceived.

Analyzing, in therapy, his father’s words and the emotions and sensations they had provoked in him, Pedro began to remember hundreds of situations of his childhood, in which he saw himself submitting and adapting to the decisions of his elders.

His interests or opinions counted for nothing, he had spent his life following his father’s orders to the letter.

They always went to eat at the restaurants that their parents liked, they never asked him if he wanted it. They took him to the extracurriculars that they decided, regardless of whether he liked them. Even holidays were always organized from the point of view of adults. He remembered having spent long hours taking guided tours of the historic center of any city, while his friends went to the beach or amusement parks.

Recover the security to get out of submission

Peter was understanding how his parents had turned him into a submissive and obedient child, putting their adult interests before the needs of their child. They even reinforced her submission when other friends’ children complained about something. “Pedrito is very obedient, he never protests” they proudly commented to his friends.

In the present, thanks to his father’s reprimand, Pedro discovered that, when he was little, they had done the same with him. They had been selfish parents who only looked out for their interests, without caring about the opinion or needs of your child.

Pedro was not born submissive, but was made submissive. They were interested in having a complacent and ductile son who never protested. As a direct consequence of this treatment, they left Pedro completely defenseless against the abuses of others.

“They didn’t teach me to take care of myself or defend myself,” Pedro reflected in a therapy session, “it’s totally normal for others to take advantage of me.” These types of revelations cause a deep duel, a mixture of sadness and anger that must be crossed and transformed to be able to learn and be reborn to a different life.

Throughout his therapy, Pedro was recovering the necessary confidence to be able to present his opinions and say “no” when he needed to. We progressively worked on small challenges, until we reached a very significant one. Pedro began the process of investigating and looking for his ex-friend to claim the money he owed him.