More on bad environments

image by JustcallmeBethy

Sometimes environments fail to give a person what they are seeking. Most people adapt to these kinds of conditions if they arrive in them as adults because they already have had prior experience of their needs being met and they are able to manage their needs by seeking fulfillment elsewhere.  Younger persons can cope too with, for example, difficult home lives if they can find some form of sanctuary with relatives (aunts, uncles etc.) or with close friends.  But if the environment being relied upon is all a person has and it fails them the consequences can be terrible.

We have all met people who exude calmness and emotional balance - they are usually the people we would most like to resemble or the ones we envy secretly.  They are people who we wish to be close to so that we can share in the equanimity that they possess.  But in fact, it is not them one should envy necessarily but the system of relations of which they are part - i.e. their environment.

The problem of being brought up in a disturbing environment is that it prevents a person from directly experiencing themselves in relation to a loving other.  There is no response that can be relied upon to allow a confident self-image to be based upon.  Lines of communication may be twisted and direct communication that is open and honest seem impossible without fear of misunderstanding or arousing an unwanted reaction.

Mental problems such as paranoia can develop in such situations, where one may feel of no importance and feel jealousy towards those who are held to be more significant or loved.  In some cases protective delusions are built up to allow a person to feel important.  In schizophrenics the environment may be so distorted they lose any sense of who they are, who others are and what situation they are in.

In incestuous situations the child may experience a real conflict between keeping a symbolic relationship with the parent alive and keeping their own individuality intact.  Confusion stems from the parent relating to the child in two ways - as parent and lover.  Incestuous feelings can be aroused too where a child is not allowed adequate privacy, is smothered and is treated as a 'darling' rather than a son or daughter.

My main interest is in self-directed behaviours.  An environment that does not recognise or respond to the needs of a person risks producing these because the individual will continually be seeking a certain relationship to its world (to be heard, recognised, comforted etc) but be continually knocked back or frustrated.  This continual process can, in young developing children (and animals in captivity), produce behaviours such as hair pulling which reveal that the body has become a source of satisfaction in order to deactivate the behaviours that can find no outlet.

One of the reasons that hair pulling may be so little reported is because for the people who do it it is a very comforting and helpful way of mediating their emotional frustrations.  In short, they feel better doing even if there are the unwanted consequences of bald patches and social embarrassment.