Apytele , 3 hours ago (edited 3 hours ago)

In addition to my above comment I’ll add specifically on response to this question: I’ve noticed that in addition to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, people specifically need to feel as though they are in control of getting those needs met in some way. And this can be different for each individual depending at the very least on what they’re physically capable of, but also what they can cognitively and emotionally manage. I suspect this is because if you didn’t cause it to happen, then that means it’s being controlled by some outside force, which means it can just as easily stop happening.

So in addition to having food, a house, etc, you have to feel as though you, at least in some small way, caused yourself to have food and a house. And this can even manifest in someone causing unsafe situations, especially if that need has consistently been unattainable, because they still won’t have whatever it is, but at least they then feel as though they have control over it. You see this all the time with personality disorders (I should know, I’ve got one that took 3 years of therapy to get under control), but the level of dysfunction described here is… extreme to say the least.

This particular type of problem in this article is usually caused by dysfunction the esteem/respect level of needs. When you can’t cause yourself to be respected, you cause yourself to be feared. And because being feared is a fundamentally unstable system (most victims will start standing up for themselves eventually and at least in some small way), it can escalate very quickly and often even before the people directly involved realize what’s happening. It also tends to be very difficult to undo and return to a place of positive esteem because the person has lost the trust of those around them.

And fundamentally, as with any problem of this nature, the person themselves has to take a leading role in their own recovery, and by the time you’re this deep in, that’s very unlikely to happen. I was just cutting myself to get people’s pity and yelling / bucking up at people who upset me as a young adult and it still took me three years of wholeheartedly engaging in literally the most intensive therapy that exists to get to the level of functioning I’m at now; this is… a little farther down the rabbit-hole.