Happy Life with a Russian Wife

Posted By admin on November 15, 2009

The list below would give you the idea of the survival syndrome as I understand it:
• You always expect a dirty trick, even in the happiest circumstances.
• You make choice of and value people based on the principle, “If s/he has survived or knows how to survive, s/he will not demand much from me.”
• Your requests are extremely modest, even if your resources provide better opportunities.
• You express covert or overt dissatisfaction with the partner when s/he is too happy or behaves “carelessly.”
• You always tend to put yourself and others in a situation of survival.
• “I am always here for you when you’re feeling bad, but Lord forbid if you’re feeling good. I do not know how to behave with you then, I do not know how to share the joy, and I do not know how to express it. My love is when you are feeling bad, when I see your suffering and struggle.”
• “Generally, people are worthy of attention and respect only when they are fighting for survival.”
• “We are together to survive. When it is not necessary to survive, we do not even know what to talk about.”
• “To be liked by you, I need to struggle for survival.”
• You pay attention only at those moments when you might fail and at your weaknesses which lead to failures in plans and situations.
• You cannot stand people who are happy without any reason.
• You reject happiness inherently.
• When happiness accidentally breaks through into your life, you feel tremendous guilt.
• You save everything “just in case.”
• It’s awfully difficult for you to throw or give anything away
• You tend to either hide in a burrow, or to be available all the time, because when you are always available, it is most likely nobody will dare to kill you.
• You depend very much on the opinion of the people senior to you, their “superiority” being determined solely by your own standards (administrative and social status, wealth, “Someone knows something better or has more.”)
• Inwardly, you depend on others all the time. It does not even imply approval or disapproval; it is always a striving to keep everything in sight (but you cannot focus and control everybody all the time, hence the frustration and aggression against others, “How they dare to disappear!”). And
• You cannot trust anyone. If you agree to carry the calf, they’ll make you carry the cow. (or, as they say in Russia, “Might I hold out a hand, they would bite it off by the elbow.”) You expect booby traps all the time.

When you survive:

• You may not take care of yourself and your needs.
• You may not take responsibility for your own life.
• You may spend your time dully on habitual rituals just because that’s the way the ball bounces. For example, you might walk around the house with your shoes on, or scatter things only because your father did so and that symbolized a certain authority in the house .
• You may endlessly postpone something really important for later, when the “best time” comes.
• And when the best time has come, you may delay it again and again, saying something about fatigue and the need to relax.

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Tags: Choice, Crisis, Failures, Feeling Bad, List, Personal Growth, Resources, Survival, victimity