Why is it I have so much trouble dealing with male authority figures compared to female ones?

Is it becuz I'm not man enuf, as my female & male perps going up tried to tell me?

No it's becuz there weren't men enuf.

During my childhood & adolescent years, men were rarely around & when they were they were abusive.

Wome were usually abusive too, yes, but they were always around.

So I learned to deal with women, but not men. At least when it comes to authority figures, people in power over me as opposed to peers.

Even as an adult, my line of work & my path in life has not led me to a lot of times I've had to really deal with male authorities. When I have it has generally not gone too well.

Within the last week, I've had confrontations with
three different male authority figures. Two are related to my work as a water aerobics instructor,
one to my certification for the same.

The problem may have something to do with the fact
that my manhood has already taken another hit in the last week or so, as I've come to the full realization my mother tried to make me gay to keep
another woman besides herself from ever having me.
However this has also helped me realize more fully
why I have so much trouble being intimate with women, or with men, in any healthy way. Still its discouraging when it comes to thinking what to actually do about this.

What has happened is that I've not reacted particularly well to these three recent confrontations with male authorities. And I've realized more than ever that I never have. Again I do better understand why, but that doesn't take away the pain, the numbing pain.

Basically these confrontations have just contributed, along with other recent realities (increase of my chronic pain due to a bug) & revelations (like some already mentioned), to numbing me into inaction, putting me back into my childhood freeze response.

Specifically, I've already given up getting certified, at least thru my current course which dropping seems the best course of action (it still feels like inaction, as opposed to calling the Better Business Bureau or something).

I'm even considering not instructing anymore, which would be tough becuz I can't afford fitness center membership & I need the exercise; my condition limits me to water exercise. Long story: basically its just yet another case of one person having more rights than a group of people for who knows what stupid reasons. Just like perps. That's why I feel abused again. Irrational yes. But this isn't about rational is it?

Obviously this is all stuff I need to & will talk with my T about tomorrow.

Meanwhile you lucky guys I'm venting it here.

Victor

I have problems with both male and female authority figures, but I think this is because of the attack on my ability to trust. Because of both the verbal abuse by my father and sexual abuse by others, I can never relax because in my experience things can turn ugly or terrifying quickly and with out notice. I always used to conclude that my supervisors were out to exploit me or out to get me. At this point I many times directed anger toward them which leads them to return hostility, and my fears become self fulfilling prophecies.

Peace
MO Healing

I don't know if it's the same, but growing up I had absolutely no respect for anyone with supposed power over me. I mistrusted them, disobeyed them, and went out of my way to torment them even if they had not done anything to me. Maybe it was a survival response so that I would not be victimized again. (It didn't work. Actually, it just got me in more trouble.) After I went to prison my views changed and now I'm terrified of anyone with authority, especially police. I guess I went from one end of the spectrum straight to the other. I would really rather be in the middle somewhere.

Same thing here Victor.
I have always gotten along well with female supervisors and less so than men.
However as my shrink shrewdly pointed out.
she said" you seem to have more of a problem with men who abuse their supervisory or authoritarian positions for their own purposes and play favorites"
She was mostly right.

Victor:

I have had trouble with authority ever since I was a child. Even if I think that someone is trying to exercize it when they are not. I become totally irrational and the worst thing is that ultimately I hurt myself more than anyone else. I cut of my nose to spite my face.
Think about this Victor. This is the comfort zone of coping that we are all so familiar with. How easy it is to relax in it and fall back. And that for myself is just another example when I do it of giving back some advantage to those assholes I had the misfortune to meet (PERPS).Makes me sick when I do it.
I have a bit of a different attitude now. I take a deep breath and ask mysel a really simple question. I three hours or one or a hundred days will it really matter what has just happened. Truthfully the answer is no if I do not react in my totally predictable fashion that I am comfortable with.
I know where you are coming from Victor. Think of you monikor and why you chose it. It might just help.
You are a great individual as I have said before and too good I bet as a water aerobics instructor to let the insensitivity of authority figures and your own comfort one keep you from doing what you like best. And that my brother wolf is helping others and yourself. Think about it ok.
With Affection
Mike

AAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOO

I've made a career out of doing this Mike, no - let me change that, I've ruined a career doing that.
In 25 years at the same job I have made zero progress, in fact I've gone backwards.

I've rowed with bosses and managers, jumped a desk to get at one ( no witness' luckily ) and generally been an arsehole.

And the only manager I have ever respected was a woman, and she wasn't a direct manager over me unforunately.

I'm better than I was, but working for a very large utility company like I do there does tend to be a culture of people arse licking their way into promotion, and my immediate managers have both done that. And they're a pair of little shits.

I have a meeting with one tommorrow, and I'm planning on telling him he's a little shit.
But I do it politely now, I don't rant and rave like I used to. I get so much more pleasure from it as well.

I guess I still have authority problems....

Dave

Lloyd:
I like it when you say politely.

Gotta tell you I ruined the chance of being a vice president of a large Canadian Bank and ultimatetly quit after 27 odd years. I just could not a would not accept any authority.

I have great job now and enjoy what I am doing. And when someone in authority starts to use it in what I think is an inappropriate manner I smile and agree with them completely. God you should see their faces. They dont know whether I am telling the truth or being sarcastic and they are too afraid to suggest it. I get a real gut tingle every time I do it.

I have learned to take authority from someone I respect. It has been difficult and still is and once in a while I screw up. But I am good at that and can live with that particular wart.

You brother wolf

Mike

Josh,

That's how I went about it. I don't know if it's connected to abuse or not in my case. I may have inherited it and passed it on. One of my kids is having trouble in school, "borderline oppositional defiant disorder." I always thought it was a "healthy lack of respect for authority" and I didn't want to crush it.

'Course, I did get kicked out of school. Maybe I should look harder at not making that the family tradition.

Thanks,

Joe

Mo:

Pretty much what my T told me today--and not for the first time. :rolleyes:

Josh:

I very much relate to your entire post. Thanks for your empathetic experience sharing. I'm still trying to find the balance, that's for sure.

Randy:

I also very much relate to your post. Wise words there from your shrink. I have a very strong to the point of hyperactive sense of justice. Problem is, my sense of justice is far from perfect; I'm not God. I'm sure you're all grateful
I shared that with you, and even more grateful that I'm not. Well, I am too; I can hardly handle my own life.

Mike:

Ditto. And ouch!

Thank you brother wolf, you are right. I still think it best not to get certified thru the course I'm dropping. But I will definitely continue to teach water aerobics indefinitely. And hopefully get certified with a real outfit, after more careful investigation, soon.

Mike, you are the wolf!

Dave:

Maybe we have authority problems.

And maybe the authorities are the problems!

Joe:

Honestly that's a tough call.

No you don't want to make getting kicked out of school a family tradition.

I tried to but I failed. I got suspended from school more than once. My daughters were A students & hated to miss a day. Where did I go wrong?

Seriously, on the other hand, there is such a thing as "healthy lack of respect for authority."
For many of us it was a survival tool of necessity
growing up. And it's one survival tool that can still be handy now if used properly. Some authorities are just not to be trusted. If I learned nothing else from being abused I sure learned that.

Thanks fellow wolves for all the great & helpful responses!

Victor

I had a very 'productive' meeting with my managers this morning, I didn't curse, swear or lose my temper once. I just sat there and told them they were a pair of power crazy control freaks, only politely.
No, I think I actually said that.
But we're having new machine tools in our workshop so it's being re painted and tidied up, and 'Dumb and Dumber' are telling us what to put where, and how to do arrange our workshop. They're treating us like village idiots.
Not any more they ain't. The machines go where WE want them.

Mike, my brother did about a hundred years with the R.B.C. until the job stressed him out, he's out now and loving every minute of it.
His depression and stress was entirely down to the way big companies treat people like idiots in the mad rush for accountability.
I've done about 5 hours actual work this week but that's ok because I fill in the required paperwork ( at least 1 1/2 hours a day ) and pass it onto the legions of clerks that process it all. They pass the figures onto a kid with a degree in colouring in who produces a graph that nobody understands but goes uphill and 'proves' we are more productive !
It might sound good to do so little, but it can't last, there's work that needs to be done so what will happen in the future ?
The boredome is terrible, I read endlessly, we play table tennis and drown in coffee.

It's slightly off topic I know, but this kind of work culture produces some terrible effects, and for people like us with existing problems it's even worse.
I saw a young lad today who'd worked with me since he was 16, he's 26 now and just left the company to become a sales engineer for a good company.
The difference in him is incredible, he looks better and he's lost the defeatist "fuck it" attitude that we all have.
Depression is already a big problem within our company, and the directors wonder why. They honestly do - they sent a questionaire about stress and depression around last year sometime. But has anything been followed up, has anything changed ?
Has it hell !

I know this is the kind of thing that stresses 'normal' people, my brother is a classic example, for us, and other people with problems this is a nightmare.

Crap employers are my favourite rant..... :rolleyes:

Dave