Sometimes you realize that there are problems in your life that, inexplicably, are repeated over and over again, you may even notice that the same thing happens with other people you know and that tripping over the same stone seems relatively common.
“I always find men who deceive me, ” said one of your friends. “I never get a job where I’m valued,” said another. “Why does everyone end up using me?” asks one more.
“Life is such a good teacher that if we don’t learn the lesson, she repeats it. -Anonymous-
When you see this, you sometimes end up thinking yes, that fate really exists and is already written somewhere, or that it’s all part of a karma of past lives where someone has misunderstood and must now pay the consequences.
But is there another explanation for this eternal return to error that you want to avoid?
Repetitive compulsion is defined as the unconscious impulse that leads people to repeat painful situations, facts, feelings, thoughts, and realities.
Why would anyone want to try something negative again, if what we should be doing is simply learning the lesson and not making the same mistakes again?Isn’t life simply avoiding what causes us pain and seeking what leads us to happiness?
Animals learn from an experiment, humans don’t. A rodent does not return to the path where he had previously found a trap, or where one of his rodent friends died.
An elephant is capable of forever keeping the face of the one who has hurt it, if you find this attacker after 50 years, you will probably attack him.
But human beings act differently. You can be wounded a thousand times the same, surprised equal 150 times, or even fall victim to the same abuser forever. The human being does not learn the lesson and can go back on the same stone.
People don’t usually learn from other people’s experiences either. They assume that in your case everything will be different. Sometimes they literally repeat the mistakes, problems and conflicts of the people they love, without realizing it.
The mechanism of compulsion to repetition works like this: in human life there is some trauma, especially during childhood, it is something so painful that it is removed from consciousness, forgotten or interpreted as trivial.
The impact of this trauma is never forgotten, but is repressed, dormant and present again, even if it does not do so consciously.
The problem is that it does not appear repeatedly as a memory, instead of remembering what happened, we act and put it back on stage, it creates a set of circumstances to repeat the same thing that traumatized us, in the unconscious hope that the end, This time will be different.
An example to illustrate this is Norma’s case: her mother was tough and cold with her, had sex for money, hid from the girl’s father and was forced to guard the bedroom door so no one would know.
Years later, Norma marries a man who has ties to pimps and herself has sex for money, however, she is obsessed with looking at her husband and knowing the details of her actions, plus she has a daughter she finds unbearable.
We see how Norma repeats the essential content of what has impacted her: promiscuity, mother-daughter distance, and her role as a vigilante.
The great effect of trauma is exactly this: victims are condemned to enter, time and time again, a vicious cycle of pain and suffering.
That is why it is essential to seek psychological or psychoanalytic help in these circumstances: when we suffer trauma (it does not matter if we think we have already overcome it) and when there is something in our life that is repeated spectacularly and always makes us stumble. on the same stone.