Self-Sabotaging Behaviour In Broken Children

Children who have experienced little or no love and care in childhood owing to their parents unhappy relationship and inability to cope with their own problems,often end up feeling insecure, lonely and unhappy. When things go wrong at school support, love and reassurance is absent. They have to fend for themselves emotionally and practically and due to the situation in the home, time after time feel let down and isolated. They are unable to communicate their own problems.They cry tears of desperation internally but are never heard or seen to cry at all in public,everything is internalised and unless help is received this will be the foundation stone that their futures are built on.

For many young people getting away from home seems to be the answer to escaping unhappiness but they often fall into the hands of a version of one or other of the parents they are escaping, or an environment which is familiar and by consequence makes them feel secure (or their understanding of secure): Familiarity has etched itself on their subconscious and they end up being with partners who communicate in the same way (or don't!!), argue in the same way and who damage each other in a similar way. Dysfunctional people attract dysfunctional people and unless they receive some kind of de briefing or psychotherapy they are likely to endure more of the same.

More often than not  their relationships don't last, arguing, lying, mistrust and violence begin to dominate their relationship until failure drives them apart. Where drugs and alcohol are involved the situation is sometimes a lot worse. Over the years people often get drawn into other relationships, all of them destructive and more and more unhappy experiences and emotions are suppressed. With one unhappy experience being stacked on another many people come to the wrong conclusion that they are unlovable and that nobody would want to care for them, they go on to sabotage any relationship offering intimacy and caring for fear of being disapointed. Self sabotaging occurs when a person has been hurt and disapointed so many times that they purposefully go out to destroy any possibility of experiencing love or emotional feelings for fear of it failing. Emotions and feelings are the most dangerous elements in these peoples lives and they avoid them at all costs. They make themselves cold, non communicative and unapproachable.

So many people deprive themselves of love and care due to their subconscious attraction to the wrong people, they can't imagine another world where they would feel happy and positive and what that would feel like...its often better to stick with the devil you know (life without emotions) rather than the one you don't (more disappointment)...if only they could get the idea that devils don't need to be in the picture at all!!

Psychotherapy is a "realisational" process whereby for the first time people can understand their past, enabling them to "let themselves off the hook" regarding their behaviour and to start a new life with new understandings and without guilt.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Counselling Directory are reviewed by our editorial team.

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