Masochistic Personality

Masochistic Personality

People who are suffering from masochistic personality display a passive approach in their outer actions, whereas if you see the other side of the personality that is their internal behavior they are completely different. When discussing about their deeper feelings, they are negative people , full of hatred, feeling of dominance and unfriendliness. He avoids any clash with physically powerful and confronts them only through complaints or lawsuits.

People with masochist personality are trained from the young age to detest her or himself and consider that they do not deserve any form of love and are insignificant as an individual. As a result a person is prone to punishing, hurting and self-defeating actions. He denies the fact that he is enjoying his life, looks for pain and suffering in a relationship and circumstances, discards any kind of help if offered and dislike those who try to propose it.

When such people inflict pain on themselves such acts are means of giving an outlet to their pent-up anxiety and apprehension. The behavior of Masochist’s is actually targeted at dodging acquaintance and its pros: companionship and camaraderie.

Masochists tend to go for people and conditions that without doubt and as expected lead to malfunction, fiasco, disappointment, and letdown. Conversely, they tend to avoid relationships, interactions, and state of affairs that are likely to lead to any kind of success or satisfaction. They rebuff, disdain, or even distrust people who time and again treat them well. Masochists consider thoughtful, loving persons sexually unappealing.

The masochist usually picks up impractical goals and thus assures underachievement. Masochists on an average fail to perform even normal tasks, even when these are vital for their own success.

When the masochist does not succeed at these attempts at self destruction, he reacts with anger, despair, and hopelessness. They do not like the mere thought of being happy. They constantly indulge in activities that lead to rejection, aggravation, hurt, sickness, or physical pain. Some masochists make damaging self-sacrifices, uncalled which even the intended beneficiaries or recipients do not like.

The masochist on purpose calls for rude, disapproving, and hurtful reactions from others in order to feel on “familiar territory”. They love the feeling of being embarrassed, dishonored, distressed, and shocked.

What is Masochistic Personality Disorder?

A person who likes to inflict pain on himself and carries out self harming and self-defeating behavior is considered to be suffering from masochistic personality disorder. This condition generally emerges in early adulthood and goes on to have an effect on the rest of the life of a person. What are the traits of this problem and how does it come into existence? Let us try and be aware of the same in the following sections.

Symptoms:

Given below are few of the symptoms of a masochistic personality:

• They believe that they need to be self sacrificing and agree to bad treatment from others.
• They think that they do not deserve any love in their life. In fact, they find factors like love, kindness and warmness very boring.
• They keep away from pleasurable experiences in life.
• They think that anything leading to pleasure is unwieldy, and will disdain the same.
• They will get into associations that are bound to be unsuccessful as well as situations that are bound to show the way to displeasure and other negative emotions.
• In case of any kind of assistance from anyone, they will refuse the same and be offended by the person who offers it.
• They seek distress, pain and torment in all the circumstances that they face and all the relations that they deal with.
• They will fix goals that are without a doubt out of reach for them, thus failing to achieve the same and leading to disillusionment.
• They act in response with anger when they are not able to incapacitate their own plan at failure because they are not able to bask in the rewards of success.
• They will depict adequate skills to do something for others but will flounder to do the same for themselves, even though their progress is dependent on the same.
• They will indulge in uncalled for self sacrificing behavior. This arises from their need to be accepted.
• They will depict such behavior that it will lead to disdain and rebuke from
• They are not competent to make respectable decisions for themselves.

These behavior patterns do not stem from the reality that a person is not in correct state of mind or that they might be ill treated in some manner if he or she behaves otherwise. Thus, a person who suffers from this personality disorder will carry out all forms of behavior that will lead to disillusionment and frustration in his life and the lack of ability to attain any fixed goals. The underlying themes are those of blame, guilt complex and self-reproach.

Causes:

Why does a person build up these patterns in conduct? The causes of this personality disorder have its roots during the early childhood. If a child has had a very stern father  or mother and he is been given the feedback that he does not  deserve  any love or that he deserves to be ridiculed and to be exploited, then that is precisely what he will grow up to accept as true. Thus, he will try to keep away from anything that makes him happy. Even when there is happiness, he can never feel good and will be confused with feelings of fault and remorse.

Treatment:

The treatment for this personality disorder is not easy. A masochistic person does not want that he should be given any help. If a person is reluctant to go for any treatment, then a mixture of methods like psychotherapy, group therapy, family therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy can be employed to bring about encouraging results. The masochistic personality disorder is not a common problem. A person who is inflicted with this condition will find it tough to form constructive and normal relationships with people and will have innumerable adjustment issues.