“I just don’t think anyone would ever understand me! I feel that the turmoil inside my head would lose its value if I’ll put it in words!”
“But it is affecting our relationship, Laura! Why don’t you communicate with me at least? What is going on in your head?”
“Just relax and give me some time! Give me my space; that’s all I am asking! Why do we have to share what is going on inside our heads? Stop being so clingy and back off!”
“There is a jungle law inside the head of a modern man.” There is this thick jungle full of wild, instinctual emotions and insightful beings. Then there is the law of censorship, culture, and conditioning.”
It is quite ironic to observe that the species that do not have complex and personalised rules of language at their disposal are better at communicating their emotions than our collective species of ‘wise men’. The modern man, in the process of shifting his base from tribes to cities and living in communities to nuclear families, has lost his ability to share his most personal and intimate behaviours of love, insecurities, and reaffirmation from within and without.
The individual in the modern world keeps on procrastinating the inner calls of self-reflection and goes on sublimating all the negative emotions into his subconscious mind. These vaporised emotions hover over the individual like dark nimbus clouds. If you observe carefully, you can hear a faint thunder of this black cloud in the multiple personas that an individual carries throughout his life. One day the cloud bursts and the individual is seen drenched on the threshold of his identity, which would either prove to be a mental breakdown or a spiritual awakening.
Understanding an individual and his relations with his inner self is a worthwhile process. Let’s, for our understanding, take the example of two individuals with their separate baggages and see how their emotional lives intersect each other.
A young couple who had been together for quite some time now. They had had enough time together to have surpassed the initial period of excited exploration of each other and also of all their ceremonial firsts. They were in a more stable phase where they had more chances of navigating beyond the personalities for which they had first fallen. They were, from a third person’s view, quite a happy-go-lucky couple. The circle to which they belonged considered them ideal and saw them as taking their relationship a step further towards marriage anytime soon.
These young lovebirds would have frequent quarrels as Ralph was not satisfied with the amount of commitment shown by Laura and on various occasions accused Laura of not opening up to him and confining in him her true inner self. Whereas Laura would feel suffocated in this web of monotony and would often want to break this arrangement and go out and experiment. He would always go beyond his capacity to keep her happy and would rather have an idealistic relationship with fixed roles for a male and a female. He wanted an exclusive right over her. She would get paranoid about settling for one guy forever. He had an ‘insecure attachment style,” and she had an ‘avoidant attachment style’.
The success or failure of any relationship depends on the relationship that an individual has with his carer in the early years of his development. Ralph was the second child in the family. As a kid, he was not given any genuine attention in the family. He was considered a fatuous, dumb-witted kid who is good for nothing and dependent on his mother or father for constant support. His opinions hardly mattered in any decisions, and he would just keep floating around the house, searching for his identity. His relationship with the mother was shaky, and he would often find himself being dominated and crushed under her identity. He developed an insecure attachment style, whereby his inner self was filled with self-doubt regarding his worth.
In relationships, he would always find himself as an inferior partner, would always keep the other on a pedestal, and would often live in fear of others leaving him at any instance due to his incapacity. Even a small gesture from an opposite sex towards his partner would raise the red flag, and he would either go into his zone and cut all communication or burst out in frustration at her being unfaithful and planning to leave him. Mostly, it was the former. He would go into his zone and not come out for weeks at a stretch, and even after coming out, he would keep piling up the hurt and insecurity for future outbursts. He would show his love and affection in excess of what the occasion would require and would always remain surrendered, as he thought that his partner was doing him a favour by being with him, as she would get anyone better than him. He sought her time and assurances in excess and abnormally attached himself to her emotionally, strifling any sense of space that Laura would have as an individual.
Laura had a different story to tell about her upbringing. Her parents wanted their first child to be a male. When Laura was born, they were a bit disappointed. She was then neglected by most of the family. There had been instances when her mother would not even touch her and push her away when she would come to her for affection in her very developmental stage. Her father would abuse her, call her names, and insult her. She was the older of the two and turned out to be rebellious. But her wounds from early childhood traumas became cankers, and she developed an avoidant attachment style. The people with this style are the careless ones. They remain emotionally unavailable or unresponsive, which is a direct result of the parent being ignorant or disinterested in the child’s needs. They develop a pseudo-independent behaviour where they feel that they do not need anyone and can self-nurture themselves and soothe their hurting selves.
Laura would often feel too suffocated by Ralph’s overly clingy behaviour and would often try to avoid any confrontation. She would want to distance herself from too much intimacy or would grow phobic of too mushy behaviour. The thing with the avoidant style is that although on the outside it might seem that the partner is disinterested or too aloof from all sorts of emotional bonds, deep down the individual has had traumatic experiences while growing, which has given birth to such a ruthless attachment style. So under the layers of detachment lies the rock of insecurity. It is just that the person is not willing to face the hurt because, from past experiences, she knows that it is not a rosy area to go to. She too had major insecurities regarding her physical and internal selves: complexes, paranoias, anxieties, and phobias that became part of her, yet she rarely visited them and lived a life of detachment from her inner self.
The anxious-avoidant attachment style, as it is commonly called, is the most prevalent and disastrous form of attachment. One is constantly seeking affirmation, intimacy, and reassurances, and the other is running away from the same. One is too full of insecurities, and the other is too inadequate to fulfil the former’s demands. This creates a loop of interrogations, disappointments, and heartbreaks and gives rise to patterns that the individual then carries for the rest of his life. It was not that Ralph and Laura did not love each other. In fact, they are more serious with each other than they were in any of their previous relationships, but what they lacked was a clear understanding of how to better communicate what they felt for each other beyond the shackles of their attachment styles.
This spectacle goes on outside the knowledge of the individuals involved, and they keep on clawing their personalities deeper into their attachment styles with each passing relationship. Even if one of the partners transforms into the secure attachment style, the relationship would undergo an entrancing metamorphosis, and the secure partner would act as a catalyst to transform the other. The secure partner acts as a lover and also as a remedy for the partner’s unfortunate circumstances. They pull each other out of the heritage of harmful patterns and mark a new lineage of fulfilling life experiences.
Our ancestors did not dare tame the wild stock of their time. The nighttime remained roaring and crawling with all sorts of freaks and ferals. Symbolically, modern man is trying a little too hard to domesticate the wilderness within him. He is forgetting that you do not milk a lion or ride on the back of a zebra. Some of his most primal emotions deserve to roam in the jungle of his inner self, tempestuously unrestrained and without any formal conditioning!
Interesting analysis.
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Yes, thank you:)
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That was good psychology..I am telling you change your profession and pursue counseling as your profession..let your mind Drool!!😉😛
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Haha abhi time hai but eventually:D
Thanks a lot for commenting:):)
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Your Blogs are getting better day by day.
It’s the perfect time quit job and start as a full time blogger.
You have a great analysis and it’s shows in your work.
As always your Blogs are worth reading.
Eagerly waiting for your next blog.
Cheers ❤️
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Thanks a lot brother:D
Keep looking forward to your comments on the blogs!
Haha cant quit it but definitely manage it with my passion for psychology and writing:D
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I recently had a similar thought. It seems like we as a species are allowing ourselves to be domesticated, neglecting some of our natural strengths and inclinations. Like domesticated pets, if released into the wild we might find it difficult (maybe even impossible) to survive. I don’t mean this just in the physical sense, but also in the intellectual sense. We are trained to believe that we have a select few options to choose from in regards to thought, belief, philosophy, politics. After being trained so long in such a way, it becomes nearly impossible for us to see that there are actually infinite options at our disposal. This is dangerous. What if the world we’re train to see (and the lenses we’re trained to look through) prevent us from seeing the best possible world (or at least a world better than the current status quo promotes)?
Great, thought-provoking read. Thanks for sharing!
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Thats very true! And the world as we see now is set to patterns and a flow of monotonous existence, where we are made to believe that there is no other reality beyond this!
Thanks a lot man:D
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Before even I start to read the blog picture in itself depicts a pool of emotions. The overall view of monochromatic background with the accent of bright colours is the irony that portrays different emotions of ones being.
Now how I look at this picture – these tied, standing upright bunch of balloons have the heavy weight of responsibility of warning the supper of may be a family of four. I see an average looking man with a lean physic, tiered of the scortching heat which he battled during the noon, buried under the pressure of unstringing each balloon which have a limited life of solving its purpose in return for some money. When I see them attached to a cylinder near me I fear the filthy touch and surrounding and strong pungent smell of hydrogen that disturbs the charm of their appearance.
And when the same bunch of balloons I imagine to be flying up high, untied and taking their own respective course of direction – I smile. Yes I do like any human heart and soul appreciates freedom and abundance. In this scenario I don’t fear the unhygienic touch nor the fail smell of hydrogen I just see the colours with my head stretched high trying to catch the last sight of the farthest balloon before it vanished into infinite.
Same way humans want to see their loved ones around but don’t want to be tied under pressure of obligence of any kind may it be emotional, financial or social.
In relationships we all fear what would work the best silence or formulated words. As soon as thought take up a shape and come out in materialistic presence there are two people involved the speaker and the listener and now for the same situation there are two brains, two emotions and two thought process working with their individual self interests. And if the ideologies don’t match their strikes a friction which may make or break the relationship.
It’s same like if an artist has a thought and when he brings it out there are changes in the course already and the end result sometimes is fantastic and sometimes may be not worthy of time and effort involved – may it be poetry, a painting or piece of music.
And when one starts believing that staying quite works the best that is when either they have started enjoying their own company or they don’t feel the need to express at all as they fear that no body would be able to help. And in most cases later is more dominating situation in maximum population.
For the sake of communications without words is apparently possible when two parties communicate with zero or no self interest but that is rare in today’s society, there is always more than what meets the eye.
A mental breakdown or spiritual awakening would solely depend on how independent one has been throughout the process of that cloud buildup – how self sufficient one is financially and more important emotionally. And that is when one is in the favourable position to decide whether they like their own company or they still seek a shoulder to weep over, atleast in my opinion.
I also have a slightly different opinion when it comes to effects of early childhood on ones rest of life. Partially it may be true that some actions are result of past experiences but in today’s world when everyday one experiences so much new, we go through appreciations, negligence, power, authority, abide by duties and laws and so many new relations that we build we go through an entire process once left in the open world. I think person grows everyday emotionally and intellectually and learns to overcome of his past and tries to accommodate to his present.
Sometimes I feel what would be the basis of any two beings in any sort of relationship. Is it one just needs a body to share stuff or beyond that? One may like the company of another person but he sleeps alone, thinks individually and dwells alone, dreams alone, (not all in physical but in terms of thoughts, subconscious and so on). So it is only for materialistic pleasures one requires a partner – may be for some it’s society, for others religion and for some, compulsion. I still need to figure out what is it for me (😂).
Biggest mockery on ones being that he doesn’t even know the purpose of his being.
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Thats very true. Ill reply to you in person sister:)
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Interesting. Thanks!
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Thanks a lot:)
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How often does this happen that one small article helps you understand wats rng in relationships.? Very rare.. written so precociously and simply that one can realise staying in one’s comfort zone. Nyc work Anurag.. Loved it!!!
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Heyy man thanks a lot:D am really glad that you could connect to it:D
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Again this was amazing. Regards to your talent in making psychological phenomena understandable for every person reading this. You managed to get me to comprehend what is going on behind it. Behind this facade of daily situations. And you made it possible to understand the logic behind that anxiety. She’s scared and feels incapacitated because he gives her too much attention and not enough space and he’s scared because she doesn’t give him enough affection for his taste. So this is a common problem in our society. Communication problems. Not being able to accept one self’s feelings. And you tackled it down. Regards.
Yours
Gioia
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Hey! I was partially sure you would love this one:D am really glad you could connect to it!
Hope to keep hearing from you in future 😀
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You can count on that. 🙂 Hope to be hearing from you too. And I’d love to see a comment of yours on my post too:)
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First thing in the morning!
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Thanks man. I really appreciate it. 🙂
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Very well written!
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Thank you:D
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Wonderful ❤️
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Thank you:)
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Okay dude, awesome piece. I saw myself on a journey through psychology 101 and also through the upbringing of both myself and my girlfriend…me in Laura’s shoes and visa versa 😂 but thank you so much…however I think it’s dangerous to let the Wildman run wild inside, maybe we should find a place where we can let him out to play?
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Hello Keletso, its good to hear from you!
I am really glad you could relate to the post.
Yes, many of my friends and relatives have gone through the same kind of struggles while growing up.
As far as “letting the Wildman out to play is concerned”, it can get a bit tricky and double sided. With many questions at hand- What is this Wildman?, What Games does he want to play? And Why?. Repressed emotions and mental injuries often take a toll on one’s individuality more than what one gives credit to it.
So its always better to objectively see yourself from a third person’s point of view and look at the ” Games” you want to play. Also never hesitate to consult a professional whenever required. And until then for your interesting question I would recommend read Eric Berne’s, Games People Play, What to Say After You Have Said Hello and Tom Harris’s, I’M Okay, You’re Okay.
It would help you understand yourself better.
And thanks a lot for appreciating the work! It means a lot:D
Cheers mate!!
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Cheers. Thanks for the recommendations 👍
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