‘I began to wonder how such a “survival personality” gets constructed and how it endures for so long... One day one of my clients really hit the nail on the head, saying: “I became a strategic person, always on the look out for danger and how to turn every situation to my best advantage. I still do it. It’s exhausting.”’ (Nick Duffell, 2000)
We all develop survival programmes as children, designed to keep us safe in frightening circumstances. Some children will keep quiet in order not to trigger anger in a parent who is on a short fuse. Others learn to get what they need by shouting or whining. Many children will only need to activate these survival programmes occasionally, but for some it becomes a way of life.
The trauma specialist, Gabor Maté talks about how saying ‘No’ allows the child to establish boundaries. But when the child is too frightened to say ‘No’ or is constantly shut down, they become a people pleaser, and get stepped on and walked over as adults. People pleasing is a survival programme.
At the other end of the spectrum is the quote from Nick Duffell at the top of this post. This is from Duffell’s book on boarding school survivors who had to develop an entire survival personality, sometimes as early as six years old, in order to survive in an institution which (and here I refer to how boarding schools were decades ago) was completely devoid of love and care.
I would add to this the child’s loss of trust in their parents. How can you trust someone who would send you away to boarding school, to a place where you were deeply unhappy and could never feel safe? It goes without saying that if you cannot trust your parents and there is no-one else in your life who engenders trust, you will find it hard to trust other people as you go through life.
In fact it becomes very difficult to trust life itself. You may find yourself feeling anxious a lot of the time - this follows from that lack of trust in life.
In fact it becomes very difficult to trust life itself. You may find yourself feeling anxious a lot of the time - this follows from that lack of trust in life.
Another aspect of a survival personality is in not acknowledging the unacceptable in ourselves. So I never acknowledged the anger I felt about being sent away to boarding school or indeed my lack of trust, and I became afraid of sadness.
Instead we develop a mask which hides all of these unacceptable or frightening emotions so we appear to be quite calm.
Unfortunately these survival programmes often develop out of awareness. They run in the background, a bit like a computer operating system. And they determine a lot of our behaviour.
Very often they require us to suppress our emotions. If you feel ashamed of your anger or your despair, you are likely to suppress it.
Instead we develop a mask which hides all of these unacceptable or frightening emotions so we appear to be quite calm.
Unfortunately these survival programmes often develop out of awareness. They run in the background, a bit like a computer operating system. And they determine a lot of our behaviour.
Very often they require us to suppress our emotions. If you feel ashamed of your anger or your despair, you are likely to suppress it.
But there is a huge emotional cost to the suppression of emotions behind that mask. Like a beach ball held under water, they keep pushing up to the surface. These suppressed emotions sabotage our relationships and can lead to chronic health conditions.
For instance there is a pattern among women who went to boarding school to feel superior to their husbands. I have been that woman, and I can now see how toxic it is. But it was compelling because it helped me feel safe.
For instance there is a pattern among women who went to boarding school to feel superior to their husbands. I have been that woman, and I can now see how toxic it is. But it was compelling because it helped me feel safe.
It’s not easy unpicking a survival personality, or even a survival programme, because you put it in place during childhood to protect yourself. But it can be done.
- The first step is to notice what you have been avoiding. Look outside of yourself at characteristics you dislike in others – this is often a clue to what you are hiding inside yourself.
- Accept that you have been running these old programmes and say “thank you for protecting me.”
- Notice what is going on in the background when you get triggered. For instance do you have a fear of being wrong which gets triggered when you make a mistake?
- Get support from someone as you allow yourself to feel the difficult emotions you have been suppressing.
- If you are a people pleaser, practise saying 'No' and setting boundaries.
If you would like to explore this in more depth you can download the Survival Kit Workbook. It takes you through a process of identifying behaviour patterns that are no longer serving you, exploring why you created them as a child (in other words how they kept you safe), and creating something new which serves you better now as an adult.