Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthough Program to End Negative Behavior...and Feel Great Again

by Jeffrey E. Young

You are more likely to be passively than actively aggressive. When someone fails to take care of you, you feel like a victim. You are angry, but you probably restrain yourself. You express your resentment in other ways—through pouting, passive-aggressive behaviors, hypochondriacal complaints, whining, and occasionally a childlike temper tantrum.

You do not necessarily feel that you are special. In fact, you may try very hard to please and be accommodating. Yet you feel entitled to be dependent.

Children are given whatever they want, whenever they want it. This may include material desires or having their own way. The child controls the parents.

It was acceptable in Mel’s household for his father to behave like a child. When adults cannot control themselves, they are unlikely to control their children. It is through parental self-control that we learn to control ourselves.

Patients brought up with weak limits usually do not learn the notion of reciprocity as a child. Your parents did not teach you that, in order to get something, you have to give something back. Rather, the message they gave you was that they would take care of you, and you did not have to do anything in return.

The parents take on everyday responsibilities, decisions, and difficult tasks for the child. The environment is so safe and protected and so little is expected of the child that the child comes to demand this level of care.

You have difficulty empathizing with the feelings of those around you. They feel you do not understand or care about their feelings. 4. You may take more from society than you give. This results in an inequity and is unfair to other people.

You never learn to take care of yourself, because you insist that others take care of you. 2. You unfairly impinge on the rights of people close to you to use their own time for themselves.

highly unlikely that we will change basic lifetraps without making a conscious decision to do so. Most of us operate on automatic pilot,

However, it is also important to take responsibility for changing. Many self-help groups have been criticized for encouraging members to feel like victims of their parents without teaching them to take responsibility for changing. We think this is a serious risk. It is vital that you keep confronting yourself. Be persistent. Do not keep putting off change, waiting for a more convenient time. The best time to begin changing is now. No matter how damaged you were as a child, this does not excuse you from taking responsibility for change.