The trigger mechanism for keeping the infantile personality structure intact, with the arrest of mental maturation, is maternal or substitute rejection – intentional, forced, or accidental. Probably, the more responsive and warm the mother is, the fewer the consequences of this birth shock – the expulsion from the "paradise of the womb". Conversely, the more indifferent or depressed the mother is, the greater the contrast between the womb and life outside it, and the stronger the desire to return there. The very fact of birth, from the infant's point of view, is already a fact of rejection. With repeated (post-birth) rejection by the mother, this infantile stage is fixed, and maturation does not occur; the personality remains stuck in the ouroboric structure.
The child's psyche probably seeks an explanation for what happened within itself and fixes on the paradigm: "If I become a better person, I will be worthy of love". Thus, the closure in the ouroboric circle is due to the coldness and insensitivity of the adults around the infant, who respond only to maximum crying and fulfill minimal needs. The child receives attention only after suffering. Another paradigm entrenched in their psyche is: "If I suffer, there is a chance that I will be noticed and given favors".
This work is not about specific people; it is about you and me. According to my observations, the overwhelming majority of those with whom I have had the opportunity to communicate have, in the structure of their psyche, an Ouroboros of larger or smaller size with all its «charms». Only a small percentage of people can adequately pass all the stages of adulthood and grow into an adult, responsible person, living not in illusions but in reality. I don't know what this is due to, as I have very little experience with such people, but I have come to the conclusion that it is not necessarily because they had a cloudless childhood and an accepting mother. Moreover, having a loving but ouroboric mother, generally devoid of true empathy, does not guarantee that her child will not grow up to be an infant; rather, it guarantees the opposite. Perhaps these superhumans living in reality have some innate volitional or intellectual traits that allow them not to fall prey to illusions. Perhaps such people don't care whether their mother is loving or rejecting, ouroboric or adult. Perhaps they have an experienced soul that has gone through many incarnations and matured through the ages. Perhaps in time, I will find the answer to these questions.
Chapter 1. Auto-aggression. Anxiety. Longing
I have already written that I was prompted to study my psyche by the realization of the multifaceted nature of auto-aggression, which, as it turns out, is not at all what we used to think based on traditional ideas about this phenomenon. When I tried to understand and systematize the mechanisms by which my consciousness works, I felt as if I were walking in a circle in a dense fog, from which unclear outlines were emerging. The more circles I made, the more distinct the contours and details of the blocks that formed the circle became, and the more obvious it became that they were all interrelated. It was impossible to study one without bringing out and studying the others.
I discovered that auto-aggression is closely connected with the illusory view of the self, which, in turn, generates a certain reference view of «happiness» and the external world. This, in turn, generates the devaluation of the real world, which is different from the reference one. The comparison of these worlds inevitably plunges one into despondency, which leads to auto-aggression as an attempt to defeat one's own «inferiority» and achieve a state of "full value" where the dream of the ideal has already been achieved, but this state is constantly slipping away. And again, auto-aggression, vulnerability, devaluation. And on and on in a circle, over and over again.