Parent--Child Orientation Interaction Forming Enneagram?

[marooned]

this is fascinating.

i was both of these as a child:
Active: demanding, assertive, bossy, outspoken, intimidating, egocentric, expressive, willful. (although i don't think i was intimidating; my sister sees me as whiny > intimidating ... but i fear being intimidating as it would mean i'm secretly evil)
Neutral: avoidant, withdrawn, indifferent, apathetic, absent, reserved, ignoring, neglectful.

if there was only one -- i would say the active one was my nature as a child, but it got slowly broken down over time which is why it's not as apparent now. my sister knows me primarily as the "active" description and thinks the other is something i've developed that doesn't belong. i also feel the huge contradiction of this in my personality and it's one of the things i don't know how to resolve. i am ashamed of many of the "active" qualities and hate myself for them. many are suppressed. but they're always spilling out here and there and i have a lot of internal narcissism (that i also can't stand).

Active child vs. Neutral parent This scenario is thought to produce Enneagram type 4

In this relationship, the child usually tries to grab the attention of an indifferent or absent parent, by expressing himself with increasing intensity, until a response is achieved. The Active child may act in a dramatic, exaggerated manner, attempting to get his message across to the unconcerned caretaker. The Neutral caretaker will typically ignore the child's emotional needs, making the youngster feel frustrated, misunderstood and possibly abandoned. Sometimes the child turns these negative feelings inwardly, believing that they are unlovable and not special enough to deserve attention.

This scenario teaches the Active children that they are different than other children that seem to be getting the support they lack. They want to make themselves heard so they amplify their feelings, resorting to dramatic expressions of their emotions. These children may later become overly sensitive, artistic and theatrical, but also melancholic, self-loathing and depressive.

^applies to my dad and i when he wasn't shouting and being aggressive. his dr. jekyll side was like the neutral description. his mr. hyde side was like the active one. (this one was the main relationship between my dad and i in my early childhood)

Neutral child vs. Active parent This scenario is thought to produce Enneagram type 9

The Neutral child is often overwhelmed and frightened by the controlling, domineering Active parent. Lacking self-assertion skills, he prefers to withdraw and stay out of the way, minimizing his own needs and avoiding the parent as much as possible. On the few occasions the child reaches out to the caretaker, he ends up feeling rejected and bullied around for no apparent reason, which causes him to withdraw again. The loneliness, however, also feels like rejection and soon enough the youngster will be ambivalent towards both being alone and being with others.

Most of the time, a compromise will be made. This type will seek out company but will not invest themselves in it, preferring to keep in the background and go with the flow, partly removed from their actual situation. When alone, they will avoid introspection, which will bring about old feelings of depression and rejection, instead they'd rather numb themselves out with food, TV or other unimportant routines to avoid emotional pain.

^applies to my dad and i when he was shouting and being aggressive; when i was afraid of violence or that he would lose all control.


i alternated between the two above with my dad... when he was jekyll i wasn't enough or was abandoned. and there were limits to how far i could go as i didn't want hyde to return. i always seemed to think i could somehow affect this--that it was my fault when his mood turned. eventually the second of the two overrode the first... the tipping point was probably around age 12. a lot of this is that he became increasingly emotionally unbalanced as time went on. in response i became increasingly afraid and felt increasingly oppressed. i gave up my agenda bit by bit because i was too afraid of violence. i didn't have anywhere to go, didn't want to abandon my mom or sister, and if i tried to run i thought i'd just end up back with him and i dreaded how angry and violent *that* would make him. i also began developing escapism tendencies in my teens such as not eating (this made me feel i'd escaped or at least had some control) and withdrawing into fantasy. although really my sister and i were always using fantasy--me especially--even at a younger age. but it became more "pathological" later? more deeply ruminative?

i recently realized that my lack of body awareness is rather abnormal and i think it's because i was subjected to long periods of discomfort with my dad that surpassed my stamina and so i learned not to notice it at all so i could get through it. also apparently being continually put in fight or flight situations where you can do neither contributes to a lack of sensory awareness over time.

Neutral child vs. Responsive parent This scenario is thought to produce Enneagram type 5

In this relationship, the Responsive parent is inclined to give a lot of unrequested attention to the Neutral child, who perceives his parent's supportive and affectionate attitude as a form of smothering. The youngster will tend to withdraw from his environment, preferring solitary activities and contemplation, but as opposed to the previous scenario (of type 9), loneliness will not be accompanied by a feeling of rejection. At the contrary, being alone is a matter of choice and it gives a feeling of security and well-being, knowing that there is always someone to communicate with when they decide to seek out company.

Such children are genuine loners, who prefer and enjoy their solitude. They are introspective, insightful and love learning and discovering things on their own, usually rejecting any help or intervention from the outside. They are afraid of being intruded upon because their parents used to make a fuss over them and suffocate them with attention and demands for closeness.

^this applies to my mom and i. i often felt overly smothered by her and needed to escape, but she was also the only place of safety. she wouldn't protect me, but she also wouldn't hurt me. also she was the only one who would fight to get me medical attention if i was incredibly sick. that was one area in which she would stand up to my dad.

(i feel bad about this because i don't blame my mom for not protecting us more... i understand why. i also understand my dad to a fair degree. it's hard because he's not alive anymore so i can't talk to him to try to resolve anything with him. i have already forgiven him i think, just not myself. but the two are intertwined.)

 

also my dad disliked my active qualities too... perhaps this aided in coming to hate them myself and wishing to destroy them (that and how his expression of these qualities was almost always negative and i was afraid of being like him). the neutral child personality was defensive in a lot of ways: how to survive and endure. it was also something i hated less (maybe because it generated less disapproval from my dad... although he didn't like my withdrawal and i think i did that kind of stubbornly as the last way in which i could resist since i couldn't stand up to him (i think in the beginning it was refusal to respond since what i wanted to say would only make him more angry... so i would stare and refuse to respond). but it morphed into wanting to escape--that's the more stable form it has grown into).

so really my relationships with both parents formed identification with the neutral qualities as the way to be where i could cope and hate myself less. but my identity is almost split in a lot of ways. so now i have the two faces also: active vs. neutral.


all the responsive elements are just scattered... like they don't seem to form a theme for me. my mom generally matches the responsive qualities and always has (she is responsive/active - her active qualities were cowed when with my dad a lot of the time--or they would be displaced into work environments).


my active qualities are displaced *by* work environments as i think the workplace becomes "my father" in my mind. part of this is because i feel like workplaces are life or death (i feel that no one really wants me and so it's hard to earn any money and my personality is never acceptable enough so i have to be someone else so as not to be fired... there isn't really anyone who could support me without a job so i feel i am on my own). it's also that the conformity and restrictions on self-expression remind me of my home environment as a child, and so i feel forced to hide my individuality. this creates great resentment. i also feel like a slave in society. i think i tend to reveal things about myself off and on at work (when i feel the oppression has lifted a little) that are likely to be unusual or unaccepted out of this need to show that i am different (not "one of you") or out of need to rebel against conformity. these little moments don't really help my cause.

one issue i have with E9 is that it's not that i embrace conformity but that i am constantly fighting myself *not* to reveal my actual attitudes. often when i express my actual attitudes it's because they bled out and i couldn't stop it because i felt too strongly. i'm afraid that workplaces are my second death--where i will finally be stripped of all of my personality and turned into a mindless drone never allowed its own life.

my dad was such an overwhelming presence in the home, and everything for all of us was about him and his moods; fearing his next rage. he also isolated us as much as he could. since his presence kind of was my entire home life i think this may be why i associate workplaces with him rather than individuals as much. although i am very afraid of men old enough to be my dad when they shout... i may freeze and try not to cry or visibly shake (which was what always happened when my dad would pin me somewhere and shout at me).


i probably suppress some responsive qualities in myself because my dad rejected them in my mom (and actually in me as well - he might mock them). they come out very slowly if i feel like i can trust someone and i feel uncomfortable with these qualities and unstable (so it's just a struggle). it's like these are the aspects of myself i need to keep safe so no one can reject me for them (or for not being able to express them well). maybe this is why i may love in secret.

(also please don't quote too much of this.)