How Not To Enter Into Relationships With Infantile People? Subscriber Question

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

After the stream "How to grow from the position of a child?", Which was held on September 2, 2019, some subscribers still had questions. Today's article - answers and comments to a letter from one of them.

“Larissa, good afternoon! I attended your stream "How to grow from the position of a child?" I consider myself to be a conscious person, empathy, altruism and generally positive thinking are inherent in me. I have always considered communication skills to be one of my leading skills. The stream really turned out to be useful to me, but still there were questions that were not raised.

On stream, we came to understand that early awareness arises at the moment when the burden of responsibility for his own life and the lives of loved ones falls on the child. The most typical situation is that infantile parents do not want to be fully responsible for their own lives and the lives of their children."

If we consider the situation from a psychological point of view, such individuals not so much do not want to be responsible for their actions and deeds, but are not able to do it - they generally do not understand what responsibility is, do not realize what role they are assigned, what functions they should fulfill. “In my understanding, having matured, these children are forced to play the role of a parent for their parents. In fact, the child was unconsciously dragged into a relationship that predetermined his future destiny. Often he will grow up as a fully formed personality - conscious, responsible and hard-working.

In this whole situation, many probably recognized themselves, and I am no exception! However, the understanding of why exactly this happened, as well as the realization of what needs to be done next, came only now - infantile personalities cannot be remade, so it is better to leave them alone.

So my questions are:

1. A conscious person was brought up by infantile parents, respectively, he has no filters, brakes in front of infantile people. As a rule, in an unfamiliar company, such a person will easily find a common language with infantiles. And this is quite logical, because the situation duplicates the environment of childhood. How, when meeting a person, learn to feel infantile? At the first meeting with a stranger, no one has a desire to use the interlocutor for their own purposes. How to put a filter on the recognition of infantile people at the stage of acquaintance, and not after you have already been used?

2. Such qualities as openness and sociability serve as additional beacons for infantiles. So what exactly needs to be changed in yourself so as not to arouse their interest in their person and not to become "food" for them? " In general, the topic is quite interesting. Why do we fall in love with some and ignore others? Why do some people share their affection - they find friends from more or less healthy individuals, and "prefer" to build personal relationships with destructive people? The answers to these questions can be interpreted for family relationships. If you have narcissistic parents, you will surround yourself with people with narcissistic tendencies. Likewise, with hysterics, "eternal victims" and psychopaths.

It is worth analyzing your attraction to infantile personalities - how does it sound inside our consciousness? As interest and curiosity, or maybe we are drawn to a person, we want to learn more about him, to get into a merger with him. The sensations can be completely different. Remember what you felt during your previous acquaintance with an infantile personality who later used you (in this case it may not be so much an infantile as a narcissist - parent-child relationships with narcissists are perfectly described in A. Miller's book “The Drama of a Gifted Child and the Search my own self ).

So, the main task in the context of the problem is to catch this attraction. However, here you need to clearly understand: if there is such an instinctive attraction, it will be comfortable with a person only in sex; and the rest of the partnership will be difficult (misunderstanding, eternal heat of passion, constant demands, etc.). The essence of falling in love is quite simple - having survived the splitting of the mother's image in deep childhood, a person tries to find a partner in the image of a good mother's figure, but he certainly finds a person with opposite qualities.

After going through a fairly long course of therapy and working on yourself so as not to get involved in these people, you can overcome the painful attraction and stop your choice on a more acceptable option for the psyche (perhaps for another person a partnership with an infantile personality will be quite comfortable, but for you they resemble the image of the mother figure).

The next step is to learn how to build relationships with other people (without a lot of arousal, attraction and interest). How to do it? Try to find in them the features of infantile personalities that are familiar to you - for example, similar laughter, facial expressions, demeanor, etc. Such insignificant details will remind you of a person whom you loved very much in childhood.

To summarize: in order to get rid of destructive relationships for you, you need to come into contact with those people, when communicating with whom you do not turn on libido (at least, this will allow you to fully satisfy your needs).

For a detailed analysis of your relationships and understanding the origins of attraction, you can read the books "The Family and How to Survive in It" (Robin Skinner, John Cleese), "Dreams of Eden. In Search of a Good Wizard "(James Hollis)," We. The Deeper Aspects of Romantic Love”(Robert Johnson).

How not to attract infantile personalities? The answer is quite simple - no need to "feed" them! Let me give you an example from personal experience. In the supervisory group, at the beginning of the lesson, we always discuss the questions that the participants have. At the next meeting, one lady categorically declared her difficulties, and during the break she “turned on” the task of finding her therapist - she talked with psychotherapists, assessing who was involved in her problem (relatively speaking, she unconsciously chose a victim for herself). This is how a dependent and infantile person acts - he is looking for a victim who will respond to his call (for example, a woman fainting in front of the “right” man). Then the lady worked with the most sympathetic therapist, but did not get what she wanted. Usually, a person responds to such a request with support, care and love, but an infantile person does not need this - she needs to stand on her own feet. This will be the therapy for her.

However, in life, infantiles do not realize this - they simply feel morally bad, their self-esteem is lowered, it constantly seems to them that someone should give more and more, then insecurity will disappear, and self-esteem will rise. Alas, as long as the infantile personality only gets what he wants, the moment of healing will not come. Perhaps a partner who charges such a person with his energy and nourishes with resources is sure that he will gradually change his consciousness, but in reality this is not so - everything works in the opposite direction. There is no need to save the infantile, his true need lies in something completely different - the infantile personality needs to return its responsibility ("How do you think, how this situation can end?", "Have you thought about the consequences?"). Another good example - if a woman returned to her destructive sadistic husband, you can stifle her ardor: “Okay … Have you already written your will? Who will your children stay with if he kills you at some point?"

What needs to be changed in yourself so as not to arouse interest in your person among infantiles? Control yourself, your emotions and actions. Don't let anyone else use you. Adhere to the tactics of healthy interchange - you give the person exactly as much as he gives you.

Quite often, people who have grown up with irresponsible parents and become parents to them feel a deep need for someone else to take on some of their responsibility. This need is very important and strong, it is worth paying attention to it and finding a person who can share with you this unbearable and heavy burden, support at the right time. In reality, the need is unstoppable, huge and painful, it is rather difficult to realize its full depth on your own, therefore the most optimal option is therapy sessions.