Seeking to survive as a child in the face of abuse, a person adopts numerous behavioral characteristics he believes will augment his safety as an adult, yet enable him to function with minimal detection of the wounds he was forced to sustain.
Becoming isolated is one of them.
Actions, as has often been said, speak louder than words, and when a parent or primary caregiver demonstrates that a child is not safe in his presence because of his uncontrollable, seemingly feelingless, and predatory actions and aggressions against him, it leaves the child vulnerable and powerless to defend or protect himself or even understand why he is being targeted as a victim.
Nevertheless, he quickly learns, by this example, to fear his parent.
Inherent in this example is the concept that you learn what you live, and when a person "lives" the fact that his own parent is detrimental to his safety and even survival, he believes that his home of origin serves as a representation of the extended world.
It becomes an introduction to what assuredly will follow.
Reasoning, therefore, that people are like the parents who were unable to curb or control their behavior toward him, he equally distrusts them--or at the very least wrestles with this concept-and is often uneasy in the presence of others.
Why the child was so treated while he was growing up was neither discussed nor explained-if at all acknowledged-leaving him to assume that he was treated in the manner he deserved based upon his value and worth.
If I could just find a way to be perfect, he may have reasoned, I'll finally be loved.
One of his safety-facilitating actions is, ironically, no action at all, but, instead, a separation from others in the form of isolation.
As a "solution," it serves many purposes.
Minimizing, if not eliminating, a person's exposure to the potential and perceived danger of interacting with others, whom he subconsciously associates with his principle abuser, is, first and foremost, a method of reducing potential detriment.
It secondly enables him to maintain emotional control exposure to others often erodes, sparking internal retriggering.
The avoidance of that retriggering further enables him to escape what was most likely a very painful, but still unresolved, past.
Unable, in greater or lesser degree, to trust, he is equally unable to bond or connect with them.
Remaining alone, he seldom feels worthy or valuable enough to merit interaction with others and earn the help or comfort that interaction could potentially provide.
This, in essence, was the dynamic he experienced during his upbringing.
Asking for assistance usually fell on deaf ears, as his other, or non-abusive parent, and siblings-constituting the family system in which dysfunction, abuse, and alcoholism was maintained--were all in denial and may only have shamed him for his observations and feelings.
Finally, cracking his isolation and asking for help later in life, as an adult, may subconsciously retrigger the original trauma caused by his betraying parent.
Isolation to an abusive survivor, particularly when he becomes an adult, can well transcend the traditional meaning of the word, however.
Once abandoned and powerless to fix, cure, or remedy the abusive circumstances in which he grew up, he was forced to find the resources within him to survive and negotiate a path paved with danger, in the process becoming self-sufficient to the point of needing no other.
Indeed, that "other," particularly his parent, was often not there for him and created the need for protection he himself was supposed to have provided.
Despite the pain, the experience, if properly harnessed, can often hone abilities and strengths considered opposites to those of the person's believed inadequacies and mask the fearful and distrusting emotions with which he navigates life.
Singularly taking the reigns, he is often able to confront obstacles and fend controversy with virtual emotional immunity, since his upbringing already served as such a breeding ground.
Accessing raw, reactive instincts, and undaunted by adversity, he may be able to simultaneously tackle a number of challenges, drawing upon his survival skill-polished self-sufficiency, overachieving, and even rising to the top of his company.
Forced to create a false sense of himself through the ego, which may ironically lead him to believe that he is omnipotent and all-knowing, he is often able to navigate around people, facing challenges head-on and succeeding in the midst of adversity few others can.
In essence, he transplants the skills he adopted during childhood to the adult world.
Although these conditions do not seem to reflect the concept of isolation, they actually provide the circumstances which foster it, since the person principally achieves his goals in just such a state.
Disconnected from others, he does so alone, in a self-sufficient manner, as a one-man show, only employing people as the stepping stones necessary to attain his progressive goals.
It has often been said that it is lonely at the top, but this, in essence, is the very method he uses to get there.
And, once there, he may employ a secondary survival strategy-control-or the very ability he lacked when he was placed in danger as a child, shifting him into the dominant-and thus safer--role.
A person's ultimate isolation, however, may be that from himself, causing him to hide, repress, or reinvent himself in the form of the ego, so that he can disconnect and dissociate from his wounded, unrecovered parts.
Isolation equally transcends the line between physical and emotional manifestations.
Unable to attach to others, an abuse victim does not feel a part of those he is with, even it be at a party attended by a dozen, because of his negative, distrusting feelings.
Repelling, as opposed to attracting, them, he pushes the world away, isolating within himself, and negotiates life as if he were constantly on the outside of it looking in.
Intimacy, in a non-sexual manner, was, after all, the interaction that caused the person's parental-caused detriment, placing him at risk of being subjected to similar danger, and, unless therapy and/or group recovery methods are undertaken, it becomes very difficult to uproot a misbelief planted early in childhood.
"Moving from isolation is the first step an adult-child makes in recovering the self," according to Adult Children of Alcoholics (Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, 2006, p.
82).
"Isolation is both a prison and a sanctuary.
Adult children, suspended between need and fear, unable to choose between fight or flight, agonize in the middle and resolve the tension by explosive bursts of rebellion or by silently enduring despair.
Isolation is (their) retreat from paralyzing pain of indecision.
" Taking that first step from the dome of isolation under which an abuse victim has hibernated since he was a child may be the first step to himself as an adult.
Becoming isolated is one of them.
Actions, as has often been said, speak louder than words, and when a parent or primary caregiver demonstrates that a child is not safe in his presence because of his uncontrollable, seemingly feelingless, and predatory actions and aggressions against him, it leaves the child vulnerable and powerless to defend or protect himself or even understand why he is being targeted as a victim.
Nevertheless, he quickly learns, by this example, to fear his parent.
Inherent in this example is the concept that you learn what you live, and when a person "lives" the fact that his own parent is detrimental to his safety and even survival, he believes that his home of origin serves as a representation of the extended world.
It becomes an introduction to what assuredly will follow.
Reasoning, therefore, that people are like the parents who were unable to curb or control their behavior toward him, he equally distrusts them--or at the very least wrestles with this concept-and is often uneasy in the presence of others.
Why the child was so treated while he was growing up was neither discussed nor explained-if at all acknowledged-leaving him to assume that he was treated in the manner he deserved based upon his value and worth.
If I could just find a way to be perfect, he may have reasoned, I'll finally be loved.
One of his safety-facilitating actions is, ironically, no action at all, but, instead, a separation from others in the form of isolation.
As a "solution," it serves many purposes.
Minimizing, if not eliminating, a person's exposure to the potential and perceived danger of interacting with others, whom he subconsciously associates with his principle abuser, is, first and foremost, a method of reducing potential detriment.
It secondly enables him to maintain emotional control exposure to others often erodes, sparking internal retriggering.
The avoidance of that retriggering further enables him to escape what was most likely a very painful, but still unresolved, past.
Unable, in greater or lesser degree, to trust, he is equally unable to bond or connect with them.
Remaining alone, he seldom feels worthy or valuable enough to merit interaction with others and earn the help or comfort that interaction could potentially provide.
This, in essence, was the dynamic he experienced during his upbringing.
Asking for assistance usually fell on deaf ears, as his other, or non-abusive parent, and siblings-constituting the family system in which dysfunction, abuse, and alcoholism was maintained--were all in denial and may only have shamed him for his observations and feelings.
Finally, cracking his isolation and asking for help later in life, as an adult, may subconsciously retrigger the original trauma caused by his betraying parent.
Isolation to an abusive survivor, particularly when he becomes an adult, can well transcend the traditional meaning of the word, however.
Once abandoned and powerless to fix, cure, or remedy the abusive circumstances in which he grew up, he was forced to find the resources within him to survive and negotiate a path paved with danger, in the process becoming self-sufficient to the point of needing no other.
Indeed, that "other," particularly his parent, was often not there for him and created the need for protection he himself was supposed to have provided.
Despite the pain, the experience, if properly harnessed, can often hone abilities and strengths considered opposites to those of the person's believed inadequacies and mask the fearful and distrusting emotions with which he navigates life.
Singularly taking the reigns, he is often able to confront obstacles and fend controversy with virtual emotional immunity, since his upbringing already served as such a breeding ground.
Accessing raw, reactive instincts, and undaunted by adversity, he may be able to simultaneously tackle a number of challenges, drawing upon his survival skill-polished self-sufficiency, overachieving, and even rising to the top of his company.
Forced to create a false sense of himself through the ego, which may ironically lead him to believe that he is omnipotent and all-knowing, he is often able to navigate around people, facing challenges head-on and succeeding in the midst of adversity few others can.
In essence, he transplants the skills he adopted during childhood to the adult world.
Although these conditions do not seem to reflect the concept of isolation, they actually provide the circumstances which foster it, since the person principally achieves his goals in just such a state.
Disconnected from others, he does so alone, in a self-sufficient manner, as a one-man show, only employing people as the stepping stones necessary to attain his progressive goals.
It has often been said that it is lonely at the top, but this, in essence, is the very method he uses to get there.
And, once there, he may employ a secondary survival strategy-control-or the very ability he lacked when he was placed in danger as a child, shifting him into the dominant-and thus safer--role.
A person's ultimate isolation, however, may be that from himself, causing him to hide, repress, or reinvent himself in the form of the ego, so that he can disconnect and dissociate from his wounded, unrecovered parts.
Isolation equally transcends the line between physical and emotional manifestations.
Unable to attach to others, an abuse victim does not feel a part of those he is with, even it be at a party attended by a dozen, because of his negative, distrusting feelings.
Repelling, as opposed to attracting, them, he pushes the world away, isolating within himself, and negotiates life as if he were constantly on the outside of it looking in.
Intimacy, in a non-sexual manner, was, after all, the interaction that caused the person's parental-caused detriment, placing him at risk of being subjected to similar danger, and, unless therapy and/or group recovery methods are undertaken, it becomes very difficult to uproot a misbelief planted early in childhood.
"Moving from isolation is the first step an adult-child makes in recovering the self," according to Adult Children of Alcoholics (Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization, 2006, p.
82).
"Isolation is both a prison and a sanctuary.
Adult children, suspended between need and fear, unable to choose between fight or flight, agonize in the middle and resolve the tension by explosive bursts of rebellion or by silently enduring despair.
Isolation is (their) retreat from paralyzing pain of indecision.
" Taking that first step from the dome of isolation under which an abuse victim has hibernated since he was a child may be the first step to himself as an adult.
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