The mother wanting the son for herself,
As an extension of itself instead of a separate being.
This is the classic devouring mother.
She punishes/guilts the independence/autonomy of the son.
Leading to the son internalizing that “Autonomy is bad and ought to be punished”.
So then that sets up the death drive,
Where there is masochism/self-punishing,
To end the self and get back to the state of fusion.
The son may adopt the adage: “If you cant beat em you join em”.
Since his mother is actively or passively against him becoming a separate individual,
He starts actively trying to merge back into fusion with the mother to the prior egoless state,
Rather than having a separate self,
Which is constantly attacked and opposed by the mother.
In reality the son’s self-attack against having an autonomous individual self,
Is preemptively done, because the mother would oppose it anyway.
So here, the son starts to do that attack to himself in a controlled way,
Which is an internalization of the mother’s attitude towards his self/independence.
The over-attached/possessive/protective mother is clinging on to her son,
Expecting him to be a nobody and act as its slave.
This may be totally unsaid and well hidden,
But the mother’s behavior will show it.
So the son is guilted and threatened about this time and again,
That he ought to be the slave of his mother, but is acting independent.
His independence is actively attacked and discouraged and even threatened by the mother.
She threatens him that “he is not strong enough and will die if she withdraws her support, and that he better be her slave instead”.
That is why later the son is attracted to dominators/abusers/manipulators/narcissists etc.
All of whom who use him,
Which is basically the repressed anger of his mother against him,
Which he has internalized,
And projected onto the dominators/abusers/manipulators/narcissists.
The dominator/abuser/manipulator/narcissist is openly punishing,
Which represents the same unconscious relationship the mother has towards the son’s becoming a separate self.
The son via. the projection of the vengeant-sadist aspects to the dominators,
Gets to keep his mother image pure as being the caring positive mother.
The mother also may keep gaslighting the son and reinforcing that whatever he sees in her is all good only.
This anger of his mother is essentially against him becoming an independent self,
I.e. him betraying her, and leaving the state of fusion, and the state of being an unconditional helpless slave,
Is then internalized, repressed (made unconscious), and then projected as a punishing world that wants to destroy him.
Because it is much more scary for the son to see his only care-taking figure as the devil.
So he would rather make the whole world the devil and keep the mother pure.
This sets up the death drive, where the son is constantly trying to escape himself or destroy himself,
Constantly trying to escape the terror of being himself.
Because he is expecting the brutal attack of his mother for being autonomous.
So the only action of his self is to destruct itself, masochism essentially.
Be it through attracting abusive partners or by self-inflicted harm/abuse,
OR by consuming intoxicants constantly to drown out the awareness of the self as much as possible.
His mother only wanted a slave, an extension of herself, and did not want “him”, and would have killed him as a baby if he were to express himself in his true individuality.
So this is the primary trauma, of the fear of the wrath and punishment of the mother who would have killed him because she never wanted “him” per se.
So then the son/child escapes this by developing an ego that is on the mother’s side.
His own ego is against his self, just like his mother was against his self.
So the ego formed for the son is inherently self-destructive and antagonistic to itself,
And only attracts destructive forces to itself.
That was the very way it was formed,
Because of identification with a mother who never wanted him in reality.
Neglect compounds this, because neglect simply implies the mother is not interested in the independent self of the son at all.
Neglect then is an expression of unconscious hostility on the part of the mother.
It also clearly conveys the intention of the mother to not have her son individuate at all and remain in fusion with her.
The message of the devouring mother is “I will take care of you, but never leave me, if you leave me, you have betrayed me, and will face my wrath”.
So then the mother has instilled the need, fear, and guilt of:
“The outside world will kill you, you will not survive without me, you need me.”
“Also never become anything other than what I want you to be, else I will be very angry at you, and punish/abandon you for that.”
So then the son may internalize this mother’s message and project this out to his world view itself.
He will see the world itself as being a bad hostile evil place that is best abandoned.
He thinks: “It is better to not invest in the bad world at all (this also means the very act of having a self is seen as bad, because it is investing in the world that creates a self in the first place).”
So the son actively keeps attacking his own self, independence, autonomy, and sabotaging himself,
Where all his decisions serve the death drive (his own wish to end the self and return to fusion) and he therefor attracts only destructive forces to himself,
Including addictions to abusive people/narcissists/sadists/self-harming/painful information/bad news OR to intoxicants that will eventually kill him.
The intoxicants may also help him escape by numbing the awareness of sense of autonomous self itself – by fusing him into the intoxication-state as long as it lasts, which makes him repeat that again and again.
This may also lead him into the spiritual paths of self-abandonment and surrender.
Where he justifies all his self-destructive actions as the ending of his own ego and reaching god.
The son cannot pursue his own self interests, because that would mean betraying the mother and incurring her wrath and punishment.
The son also cannot become a pure slave to the mother, because that slavery feels unbearable.
So this constant suffering with no remedy makes him look for every single escape/relief/or source of pleasure he possibly can, to make living bearable – this may include an attraction and/or addiction to porn, intoxicants, and various forms of dissociation etc.
This is the inner turmoil, double bind, the archetypal struggle,
Of becoming an individual and separating from the mother.
If the father figure is absent or self-absorbed in dealing with his own suffering,
And if the mother figure is also wounded and dependent herself,
Then the only identification left is with the mother, because the father has not invested in you.
The only option then is to identify with the mother who does not want you,
And this is the classic death drive setup.
Because you would then treat yourself the same way your mother treated you,
Which is to invalidate/neglect/abuse/gaslight/deceive/sidetrack etc.
So then you are trapped in a place where you don’t belong,
For too long a time with no escape.
And there is no help from the father, he is unavailable for you,
And neither is the mother helping you in any way because she herself is dependent and in her own grief.
And add to that the mother also has the unconscious agenda to have you not separate from her,
Which is why she may never nurture your independence and keep treating you like a helpless baby,
Because in truth she wants you to remain helpless so that she has something to do (so that she can fulfill her own narcissistic needs for purpose, esteem, usefulness through serving you).
The mother will then go around telling others “Oh my son needs me, he cannot manage without me”.
That is a truth that she herself has engineered,
Where she wants to maintain you as such.
Journey to the Abstract 