Childhood

The Self-Preservation 7 typically develops in a family and socio-cultural environment that fuels their obsession with survival and, specifically, with compensating for early feelings of

lack or abandonment by filling themselves with overindulgent pleasures. Economic or emotional instability at home triggers the Self-Preservation mechanism.

The child feels inferior, alone, and lacking in material or emotional support. Parents often send the implicit message of "there's not much for you," along with the explicit "get a life" or "be independent," which quickly become ingrained in their psyche. This is accompanied by a deep sense of loneliness. While not a universal truth, it's common for parents to be unavailable, unloving, or emotionally manipulative. On the other hand, these parents foster a sense of responsibility in their child, who then begins to adopt an independent stance early on.

“I started working very early to achieve the things I wanted. I was born into a wealthy family; I saw my father spending a lot of money on parties and cars, and then I heard my mother complain about debts and shortages. I grew up insecure because of that. I remember knowing from a very early age that I had to become independent from my family. I think the Self-Preservation mechanism is about not trusting the people you loved most.” (LUCIANA)

“I think the character I have was formed when I realized that for me, 'there wasn't much,' and I had to be strong; vulnerability was not an option. I got involved with gangs, committing petty thefts to make some money, until I started working as a street vendor, mover, and unloading trucks. At seventeen, I entered a factory, then worked in workshops and as a longshoreman at the airport, but I never stopped studying. I was determined to escape family poverty and do better in life.” (JUAN CARLOS)

The child develops the belief that they must compensate for their deficiencies with intelligence, often showing early signs of sharpness and social skills. They quickly realize that, while they may have felt physically weak or clumsy, they often excel intellectually. As a result, their perceived deficiency is counteracted by sharpness and social acumen, which serve as compensations for the underlying schizoid core. This deficiency is transformed into a false sense of abundance through an insatiable drive to not need anything they can't provide for themselves. This quest for self-sufficiency creates a minimum sense of security, but over time, the feeling of greed for the material world intensifies. Thus, they fill the emptiness inside with new possessions, masking the inner silence where they feel they do not exist.

“I was born with malformed lungs, and my breathing was always shallow. My fragility was overwhelming, and I remember showing feelings of lack, fear, and the need for my mother to hold me. But I was criticized for these needs. So, I created a parallel world and didn't ask anyone for anything. For years, I used a Type Five strategy: I isolated myself by reading books and listening to music, staying quiet so as not to attract attention.” (ALEXANDRE)

Sometimes, the child takes on the role of provider early, using their sharpness and opportunity to feel valued through gratitude and recognition. This creates an illusion of no lack, conflict, or sadness, allowing them to maintain a fantasy of balance in the family system.

“Until a few years ago, I thought I had a happy childhood; however, I don't remember much of that supposed happiness. My mother became ill when I was a child, diagnosed with bipolar disorder at fourteen, though her emotional instability started earlier. My father was an alcoholic and didn't fulfill his responsibilities. Now, I realize that my mechanism was already in place, telling me that everything was fine when, in fact, my childhood and adolescence were filled with loneliness.” (MARÍA MARTA)

The Early Loss of Childhood Paradise

The chaotic family situation or lack of care in the family of origin for a Self-Preservation 7 child swiftly ends the feeling of happiness that typically marks the early years of life. The experience of a "childhood paradise" — which can last into adolescence or even blend with fantasy in other subtypes — seems to vanish by the time the child reaches the age of four or five in the Self-Preservation subtype. Experiences of survival, lack, loneliness, violence, or intense fear cause this "childhood paradise" to fade, becoming a blurry memory in the distant past.

“I remember my father carrying me on his shoulders next to a river when I was three. I remember the scent of my mother's hug when I was four. But then, a fit of rage from my father and a flying table with food and crockery snapped me out of that dream: I had arrived in reality, and it was a disturbing and dangerous place. From then on, violence only grew. Paradise is, then, that moment before the violence, the time when I felt the attention was on me and I didn't know what was coming.” (DAVID)

The Self-Preservation 7 subtype carries within them a greedy child who often takes over their adult behavior. While the Peter Pan allegory does not fully apply here, the attachment to childhood is still powerful, especially in terms of the ability to charm and the darkness that it entails. Narcissism peaks in the Self-Preservation subtype, which arises from a peculiar childhood where difficulties are counteracted by emotional anesthesia and narcissism, especially in the face of loneliness and helplessness, which often lead to feelings of inadequacy, envy, and rage — emotions that are later managed as necessary.

“From a very young age, I remember feeling a great emptiness and loneliness always present in my house. I invented games, spent hours looking at photos in an encyclopedia, and imagined traveling to all those places in the world. I think that's where my passion for

travel began. I felt very alone, and when I went out into the street, I would do so with anger, envying the other children. They had parents, and I didn't. In their homes, there was tranquility; in mine, there was none.” (JUAN CARLOS)

“The common denominator of my childhood was feeling alone. The mottos in my family were: 'You have to look after yourself,' 'No one will do it for you,' 'Family is everything,' 'He who hits first, hits twice,' 'The world belongs to the bold,' 'I'm going to tell you something, but you can't tell anyone,' 'Dirty laundry stays at home,' 'Men don't cry...' Essentially, the message was: 'You have to be a strong man.'” (NÉSTOR)

“I had a painful childhood emotionally; there was no space for my emotions. My family didn't understand what a girl's emotional needs were, and my emotional space was already taken up by my mother. I learned that if I expressed my emotions or showed vulnerability, I would be hurt, rejected, and my mother would get upset. So, I learned to suppress everything.” (MEKA)

The Self-Preservation 7 soon becomes a "hustler" — a controller and emotionally detached individual. The child compensates for feelings of lack by focusing on everything they perceive as abundant around them, deciding how to benefit from it. Feeling disadvantaged, they develop skills for optimization, advantage, and shortcuts, initially using small attempts to overcome their shyness and anxiousness.

“From a very young age, I made a living by running errands for neighbors and doing family chores. But, the greatest pleasure came from stealing coins from my father's fishmonger money. In the end, I always had money for little indulgences, which gave me power and kept me from feeling the frustration and pain of lack. It was also a way of telling my father, 'I don't need you.'” (ORI)

“My father always encouraged us to study and said that women shouldn't depend on men. The uncertainty about tomorrow, related to money and my mother's dependence on my father, became the foundation for my constant theme of survival.” (JUSSARA)

“I have four siblings, and this led me to take on responsibilities that weren't mine. My childish arrogance made me think I had everything under control, that I could save my mother, and by extension, the world. My schizoid nature (and narcissism too) emerged as I started disconnecting from my feelings and became increasingly practical. This caused me to lose touch with myself, and my ego began to inflate. I was going to show the world where the holes were. The Terran Controller had emerged.” (MARÍA MARTA)

Violent Scenarios

Although not always the case, many testimonies suggest that it is common to encounter scenarios of family violence in the childhood of a Self-Preservation 7. The child distances themselves from their emotions and becomes calculating, strategic, fighting fear with anticipation and planning. They want to become strong to defend their mother, sometimes even saving her from their father.

In order to help her navigate these experiences, the Self-Preservation 7 boy or girl becomes a kind of surrogate “family man” (regardless of gender). They learn to mediate between the elders, sometimes even becoming a shield. They internalize the family expectation (usually raised unconsciously by the mother as an emotional debt) to fill the void and "save" the family from chaos. Above all, they learn to be tricky, smart, and opportunistic. Through family messages, they come to understand that they are expected to deceive, take shortcuts, and use their intelligence—this is taught to them implicitly.

“My mother taught me to steal from my father. When she arrived drunk, she didn’t remember how much money she had in her wallet, and I went to get bills for her. It was like payment for a bad time, it was justified, and I didn’t have to ask for money to buy things, thus avoiding arguments. My mother repeated to me, and I understood well, that I wasn’t going to depend on anyone for my money. I wasn’t going to put up with a man. Later, I started taking money for myself, to go out. ‘It was all for the bad times we had had,’ I told myself. His payment for the scars he gave us. And no guilt—my mother taught me that. It was better to cheat, steal, and take what I needed than to ask. Money appeared to cover the lack of love, the unresolved conflicts.” (CONCHA)

These environments often foster a confused emotional atmosphere. The child is inhibited by the overwhelming emotions of their parents, so it’s not surprising that they show early signs of schizoid withdrawal as a defense. They also tend to become very rational and even organized—practical, a good student—using these traits to restructure their unstructured environment. Albert Rams, in 27 Characters in Search of Being, explains that “to assume a commitment, for a E7, is to find themselves once again immersed in that subtle obligation to satisfy the impossible expectations of the Family Environment.” This chaotic atmosphere directs the child toward the role of “rescuer” of the family system’s balance, which indelibly marks their emotional future.

“My mother sometimes used me to entertain my father, especially when he was drinking. Little by little, I managed to get him to rest in bed. He would hug me—trap me. I don’t remember any abuse; I knew he loved me very much. I knew I had the power to calm the ogre. I kissed him, talked to him, smiled at him. I felt betrayed by her, abandoned. She felt a lot of fear, but also a lot of power: she was the savior.” (CONCHA)

“The arguments were almost always about the same topic: sexuality. My mother wasn’t receptive to my father’s sexual appetite, and he was continually angry. I got caught in the

middle. My mother used me as a shield, and my father rejected me, saying I was ‘a mama’s boy.’ I remember my mother drowning in her suffering. I was a woman who suffered constantly but couldn’t find a way to escape it. I couldn’t go with my father, and I didn’t want to stay with my mother. I felt very alone.” (JUAN CARLOS)

“I found myself in the middle of their arguments more than once, trying to avoid what was often inevitable. I obviously sided with my mother, as she couldn’t stand so much violence. I learned that mediation was a good strategy to avoid expressing my anger. I do it ironically now, and even though I allow myself to get angrier, sometimes I find myself cutting off this impulse for fear of overflowing.” (NÉSTOR)

This function has been experienced in family relationships, where the E7, in the physical or emotional absence of the father, often took on the role of alleviating the mother’s pain or depression. For boys, this has meant a distant relationship or rejection of the father; for girls, it has meant fulfilling a masculine role, forsaking the feminine dimension (whether emotional or erotic).

This support function did not manifest as it does in E1 (through rigid responsibility), but instead led to a compulsive need to please and be recognized as a skillful harlequin—someone who serves others while retaining personal advantages.

One more testimony illustrates how the rigidity of Self-Preservation 7 develops in an emotionally ambivalent environment:

“When I was a child, I didn’t know what atmosphere I would find when I got home from school—whether my mother would be singing or beating us. Even though my father attacked my mother, he didn’t hit us. It was my mother who did. I was moody, and I have a lot of difficulty dealing with people who have abrupt mood swings. Many times, we believed my father would kill my mother and us too. The need to preserve physical integrity, the fear of touch, not allowing others to get too close—this began very early. If someone comes at me suddenly or eagerly, it scares me. My body becomes stiff and cold, and I freeze, even though I need a hug.” (JUSSARA)

Sometimes it is not only the father, but the mother, who is secretly aggressive and exercises violence, either explicitly or through emotional manipulation. She seduces but sometimes leaves the child, who feels betrayed: "Mom adores me (or, more honestly, seduces me), but leaves me."

“My mother’s aggressiveness was through her suffering. She was always complaining, ‘With everything I do for you,’ always emotionally blackmailing me. Her way of feeding me was anxious. I was very thin, and her biggest concern was that other mothers might think she didn’t take good care of me. More than feeding me, she fattened me. I remember my

mother’s complaints and suffering like a drum in my head. I didn’t understand why she suffered so much, and I remember telling myself: ‘I’m not like you, I’m not going to suffer.’” (JUAN CARLOS)

In the family environment, the final feeling is that the father is either a threat or an obstacle, and he is discredited. It could be said that, with the mother’s collaboration, the father becomes redundant, so there is no paternal figure to rescue the E7 from maternal seduction.

“The chasm between my father and I opened up very early and only deepened. My mother actively contributed to this. Her relationship with him went from bad to worse, and I was clearly positioned on his side. My father’s presence became accidental. For me, that was enough. It is painful to discover how my mother used me when I was so little, how she confronted me with my father, how she exposed him to the shame of being confronted by a girl. Even today, my father feels self-conscious when I speak to him, like a child hiding his guilt. I was a shy and sensitive girl who had to swallow her fear.” (ORI)

On the other hand, sometimes the father not only doesn’t exercise authority but is also unable to enforce credible punishment, failing to make the child take discipline seriously. There is no ethics, no superego, no organization. Sometimes even punishment is followed by a reward.

“As a child, I often refused to eat. Then my father would take off his belt and threaten me. I was terrified but resisted the blows. I knew that in the end, he would get tired and tell me, ‘Go to the bar and buy yourself a couple of Tigretones.’ I’d get up from the table with a sore backside, receive the money, and walk out the door, wiping away my tears, with a bittersweet feeling of self-pity and joy at my father’s loss and at the sweets. Along the way, the little respect I had for him went down the drain. I was five years old.” (DAVID)

A Me-You Without Him

Albert Rams argues that the Self-Preservation 7 often experiences an "I" that is constituted as a kind of intimacy, which is erotically charged by the mother in the case of men, and by the father in the case of women. In the first case, the father fails to fulfill his paternal role because he is subject to the mother—either due to excessive authoritarianism or because he is perceived as weak. As a result, there is no paternal responsibility or law in place.

The norms, the limits, become unreliable. In the case of women, there appears to be a "father-not-father," a father who doesn't make it clear enough that his wife is the mother and not the daughter, who is often seen as "daddy's girl."

Paradise—the false paradise—seems to be truncated or broken (through separation, abandonment, trauma, etc.), and we are left with the belief that it was a lie... Then everything becomes a lie... Consequently, the idea arises that one can do whatever they want because there is no law; anything goes.

Thus, adult life becomes dedicated to the search for and restoration of that primordial paradisiacal state, that family setting in which the Self-Preservation 7 holds a privileged place. One seeks to flee from dysphoria, from loneliness, from unpleasantness, from emptiness, and from boredom—because of that infantile environment of lack. "Not touching the unpleasant emotions, the sense of time running out, impatience, the need for everything to be okay permanently."

In this "I-you" relationship, intensely eroticized by the mother, there is no space for a third party. According to Alejandro Napolitano, the Self-Preservation 7 exhibits an intense bond with the maternal archetype and a conflicted relationship with the father (the "number three"). In adulthood, this results in a closed universe where there is no room for surprises, third parties, or otherness. There is also no room for authority, which is considered good for others, but not for oneself.

The Self-Preservation 7 tends to disregard authority, circumvent the law, and even congratulates itself for doing so. In reality, we are dealing with an arrogant character who sees no one but those within their "me-you" orbit. They love those they consider "theirs," but the rest of the world does not exist for them; they simply don't care. Their disdain for humanity is reflected in their expulsion of the third.

Enneagram seven belongs to the mother, remaining solely her child, bound and subdued by her due to either overwhelming influence or lack of personal agency. In this subtype, matriarchy shows some of its most fearsome excesses and reaches its saturation point. To be connected to the mother means, in this case, to be psychologically fascinated (fascinum means 'malefice,' and fascia, 'bond'). It is about the endogamic bond between blood and the material, which culminates in its most nefarious symbolic expressions—represented by the spider's web, the octopus, and the gallows. "Blood ties" dominate over all other types of pacts.

The alliances of law, which would normally open to exogamy, are neutralized here because the relationship with the law, agreements, contracts, or commitments are completely subordinated to blood loyalties, with all the implications that arise from this. Being the only child of the mother means contempt—not fear—towards the father and the law. In E6, the conflict with the paternal principle leads to a fear conceptualized by Freud as "castration anxiety." The decapitation or castration in myth is replaced by images of Saturn striking down the son with a ray of his gaze or devouring him like the worst of cannibals. These are tremendous images.

This maternal influence gives rise to omnipotent and infantile fantasies, which result in behaviors that transcend boundaries, as well as further disqualification of the father. These behaviors manifest as transgressive, self-indulgent, and contemptuous of authority, which forms the basis of narcissism.

One consequence of the lack of a father figure is a difficult relationship with time. This is not just about a tendency to be late, which can be corrected with effort. Napolitano notes:

"The psychological structure of Enneatype seven, particularly the conservative one, shows a specific difficulty in connecting with temporal becoming, with the deep roots of this difficulty tied to a conflicted relationship with the archetypal figure of the father. [...] Some known characteristics of type seven appear linked to this particular relationship with temporality: flight forward in time or morbid planning, the vital center of its evasive and strategic disposition."

The testimonials speak for themselves:

“I was very happy when, about to turn ten, my older brother came to rescue me from my father's house, where time had stopped for me, to take me back to my mother, who had run away from home because of my father's threats. My father said that I wasn't going, but my brother confronted him. While they were arguing, I had already packed some clothes and got into my brother's car. My father stood still. I said, 'Goodbye, Dad!' and left, finally happy. We were going to start a new life away from that alcoholic and violent Falangist whom I loved, feared, and despised, but above all, I was ashamed of.” (DAVID)

Partner of the Mother

In some way, both the Self-Preservation 7 boy and girl are chosen by the mother as a "husband" or surrogate partner, taking on a role as problem-solvers in practical matters. Many stories exist of women (and some men) of this character who have had to care for their mothers during illness or life, especially in the absence or inhibition of the father.

In general, Self-Preservation 7 women do not necessarily experience this "paternal substitution" as an overt conflict with the father but may even seem to be in alliance with him, sometimes even admiring him. However, assuming the father's role often puts them in hidden or overt conflict with the father figure.

Sometimes, we find in the biographies of women of this character that fathers are seen as figures they feel protective toward, just as they feel toward the mother. Simultaneously, this protection, along with the typical absorption of "masculine values," often comes with a

disqualification of the father (and men in general), as the girl learned to do through her mother, either explicitly or implicitly.

“Personally, I have the experience of becoming my mother's savior or protector, and that gave me a place and recognition for life. My father's absences didn't help, of course. The result was that where there was a void in the role of authority, I quickly moved to occupy it. My father didn't placate my mother's emotional outbursts or protect her from her fears and shortcomings, and I had to do it. I don’t know if she chose me among her four daughters or if I took a step forward. In either case, the result is the same. My survival depended on her being calm and content. I wasn't going against her, but against Dad. Now I see more clearly that both of them put me in that situation, but as a child and adolescent, my feeling was to blame my father all the time.” (ORI)

“I took great care of my mother's health. At eleven years old, I witnessed the first abortion of my life, attending to my mother in the bathroom with blood everywhere. As a teenager, I clashed with my father because he didn't realize that his wife was killing herself with abortions, as the scenario repeated several times. Ten years later, my mother died of cancer. I took her to the doctor, to radiotherapy, to the hospital—not my father. He found himself incompetent for the task. I think that's when I began to disqualify men, finding them weak.” (JUSSARA)

Thus, we can see how the position in the original family triad is, for both boys and girls in the Self-Preservation 7 subtype, quite similar: an alliance with the mother and a displacement or devaluation of the father, beyond specific nuances and unique personal experience.

Reverse Oedipus

At this point we can affirm that, regardless of its sex, the Self-Preservation 7 is a character strongly kidnapped by the mother: we have seen how the child becomes the father's placebo substitute, the «mama's boy»-absorbing in this I protest the values of the mother. And how the girl tends to become likewise the masculinized partner of the mother (due to the absence or inhibition of the father), and sometimes also in “girl/daddy’s playmate”; his place in the family triad is that of an alliance with the mother and an opposition/seduction (undoubtedly an ambiguity) with respect to the father.

“It was usual for my father to have romantic and sexual relationships with other women. My mother was aware of some of them and finally separated. I also knew about this parallel life of my father, but I kept it a secret. I always sided with my mother and acted in front of my father with a layer of nonchalance.My father became violent at random. My

confrontations with him were looking into his eyes, without speaking and showing him that I was not afraid of him. The relationship with my mother was one of compassion and defense against my father. Although I always felt that she was mad at me for something. Until I became a woman, I was not aware of the guilt I was carrying, feeling that she was angry.” (ANONYMOUS)

The mother, halfway between seduction - she makes the child feel special and emotional manipulation - complains or is anxious, trying to get the son or daughter to satisfy their emotional needs, and often even material ones. These projections of the mother are introjected by the boy or girl of this character, so that they become his neurotic "values." The girl, as we have seen, tends to "occupy" the role of "husband", with a tendency to despise or invalidate the father and to incorporate values typically considered masculine - which often also derive from projections of the mother.

In Tenderness and aggressiveness, Juan José Albert describes this process using the hypothesis of an inverted Oedipus: an identification of the self with the parent of the opposite sex, with which the boy takes the values of the mother, and the girl, those of the father. -because "the same-sex parent is invalidated as a liberating figure from the seductive erotic possession of the other parent and, therefore, as a figure that completes their gender identification". At the same time, there is “a tenacious internal resistance to the authority of the parent of the opposite sex, who has been experienced as powerful, possessive and, whether fantasized or not, incestuously protective”.

It is typical in Reichian analysis and bioenergetics to call character E7 a "rigid passive-feminine" although in women we might call it a "passive-masculine" character instead, especially, as we have seen, in the Self-Preservation subtypeprecisely because of this identification with the values of the parent of the opposite sex, “the only available parent, under whose complicity [the E7] feels powerful, but at the price of falling into a passive attitude based on the need to have to inhibit part of his aggressiveness”,

Thus, by the way, the component that would lead to the satisfaction of his desire is inhibited, which avoids the anguish of incest but also individualization and complete independence, Albert concludes.

In addition, the figure of this parent [of the opposite sex], the object of intense incestuous desires, is also feared as generating anxiety by being suffocatingly possessive. Before her, the child finds it necessary to inhibit his aggressive impulses, including the hostile ones that may later manifest in a sadistic way, which will imply the renunciation of his phallic position of independence, even though it is already anchored and defined. genitally.

As a phenomenological sample, without claiming it as a proven fact, we will read below a couple of testimonies that coincide with the reverse Oedipus hypothesis:

“My mother worked all day, while my father roamed the bars getting drunk "with the money he takes from me," she said, or participating in violent demonstrations. My unconditional support towards her was total: it was order (and also seduction) in the face of chaos. Because of her I became a good student, a promising student, and for a long time I denied the thug demon that (despised, like my father) also lived inside me.” (DAVID)

“Father and mother. He, the night; her, the day He, the party; her, work. He, the rebellion; her, the responsibility. He was the most beautiful and desired man in the neighborhood; she, a common and demure girl. I became my father's doll; funny, shrewd, brilliant in his eyes: an accessory he displayed to feed his vanity. With my mother I became a rival. I didn't understand why she suffered so much, always poorly dressed and in a bad mood. I was ashamed of my mother and I remember that I didn't want to be like her. It took me a long time to realize that my most faithful relationship was with my mother. I idealized my father; the distance was so great that it became Platonism. I became very much like him, but it was because of her that I became a free, independent woman. It was because of her that I had many men. I wanted revenge. I felt that I was not like her or like any other woman. She felt that she was like a superwoman who functioned like a man, but even more powerful because she was a woman.” (DAVID)

Oral-aggressive character

In the Enneatype Self-Preservation 7, this renunciation of the aggressive impulses described by J. Albert is not as clear or as great as in the social and sexual characters, since the boy or girl of this subtype has a character with more psychopathic compromises. or of greater phallic intensity than the other E7. In this way, the submissive identification with the figure of the parent of the opposite sex, which hides an attitude of pseudo-rebellion, can emerge in a much clearer rebellion, and even in a fierce contempt and aggressiveness.

Although E7 has been defined as an oral-receptive character, we could say that Self-Preservation 7 is an oral-aggressive character (like sexual E4). His aggressive attitude has to do, to a great extent, with the fantasy of being devoured by his mother. There is a fundamental ambiguity in this, an attraction/repulsion towards the mother, who appears at the same time as someone who, metaphorically speaking, nurtures but can devour, castrate, annul. Hence, then, that the Self-Preservation 7 is a character that is both extraverted and introverted.

The testimonies reflect a deep ambiguity in the relationship not only with the parent of the opposite sex but, in all cases, with the mother:

“I have always seen her as a tremendous manipulator from whom I had to defend myself. Before her, I have spent my life with the whip in my hand, trying not to get tangled up in her emotional shenanigans. Born in the post-civil war and daughter of a single mother, with the social stigma that came with it, she is a strong woman, but at the same time, an innocent and fragile girl whom I adore and hate. In the end, the relationship becomes very that because I get warm with it it takes up too much space and suffocates me, and if I withdraw emotionally, then I freeze.” (DAVID)

“Mom has always done with me and my brothers what she wanted. When he has a problem, we all have to go or he starts telling everyone that we don't pay any attention to him. But when I was little I was never there. She would place us at her friends' houses and would pick us up after days. Then she emotionally contacted us very strongly, she seduced us, but then she disappeared again and we were left hanging, missing her. Today it is still the same. She removes and puts on as she pleases, she continues to despise our father and in the end we always do what she wants. She still has the power, but we all have a lot of anger with her.” (ANONYMOUS)

Adolescence

Once the boy or girl grows up and becomes aware of the maternal kidnapping, they will try to break that bond with all their might. The adolescent Self-Preservation 7 becomes a radical independent, often from a very early age, showing great aggressiveness with everything or those who intend to exercise the limits with him that should have been put in long before and that he will now viscerally reject.

Soon he stops giving explanations at home, he isolates himself from everything that hurts him from the family of origin, even despising it or feeling that he has "outgrown it", and projects all his attention on the professional and social world. The rebelliousness manifests itself in all its splendor and will surely achieve economic independence very soon, although it will often move in a polarity between a libertine life and a responsible attitude towards work or studies.

“In adolescence I began to feel hatred towards my father and, later, towards my mother. I didn't want to be the good girl anymore. Uncontrolled aggressiveness was on. The Eight in me emerged and took center stage. I would attack anyone or anything that I felt was a threat to me. The softness made me angry and pity too, I wanted justice.” (MARÍA MARTA)

“We changed neighborhoods and I decided to continue in the same school; I felt attached to my classmates and teachers. So I fought to impose my position and every day I saw myself crossing the entire city alone, by subway and bus, when I was ten years old. From then on, I began to do more and more of what I wanted, reinforced by the fact that I had very good grades and seemed to have everything under control. pulled out” (DAVID)

“At the age of fifteen I began a relationship with the man with whom I deflowered; He was eight years older than me, a cocaine and heroin addict. This led me to know the world of drugs in depth: consumption, trafficking. Until I returned from a trip to South America, at the age of seventeen, where I was involved in the trafficking of a kilo and a half of cocaine. My audacity and some guardian angel made sure that no one in the family found out and that I didn't end up in a reformatory.” (MARÍA MARTA)

The feeling that "everything is a lie", that adult authority is not respectable, only becomes more and more ferocious. Greater skepticism and a defiant and competitive attitude also begin to take shape. The limits have not served to curb gluttony. But limits also have a protective function for people: they delimit the internal territory of security and self-confidence. In his absence, the adolescent Self-Preservation 7 will fully develop his strong instinct for self-protection, with the aim of avoiding what he interprets as an atmosphere of constant threat to his survival.