Why do you suffer: what is secondary gain

Photo byTribute Media

People waste years of their lives: on other people's expectations, on role models that don't work, on their own unrealistic illusions. Naturally, few are ready to admit it. What's more, most are incapable of noticing that they are throwing time and energy down the drain.

And even a conscious person can fall into a trap called "secondary gain." Its roots go so deep that we are unable to distinguish them and track the source of our failures - it must be sought in the subconscious.

Change a person

You've probably heard more than once or twice sad stories about people who return to places where they definitely shouldn't:

• how a girl renews a relationship with a partner who does not show care and respect for her;
• how a friend regularly receives reprimands from a negligent boss, but remains in the same position and does not think about changing companies;
• how an ambitious, passionate person gives up a business that is interesting and dear to him in order to maintain the support of his family.

And everything in these stories seems obvious: you have to leave, you have to defend yourself and your own independence. But people choose to carry this cross further, trying on the role of a great martyr and wasting precious years of life in vain.

This path leads to nowhere. No one will give them a gold medal for sacrifice and humanism. And it would seem that everyone understands this, but they do not want to change anything.

The Benefits of Being Unhappy

Unhappy is the child who receives attention only when he is ill. He is practically doomed to grow up into a weak adult. After all, the association is clearly fixed in memory: when I feel bad, they start to take care of me. Illness turns into a means of satisfying needs and resolving internal conflict.

This is exactly how secondary gain works:

1. Yes, I live with a rude and inattentive man. But no one will call me a "divorcee" or accuse me of lacking feminine wisdom while I'm married.
2. I suffer from terrible management and am constantly under stress. But my salary is above the market rate and I have no fear that tomorrow my children will have nothing to eat.
3. I am studying for a specialty that is of no interest to me, so that my parents will be proud of me when they brag to the neighbors.

Of course, a person is usually unable to admit such things to himself. Only in the long term does it become clear how expensive the lost time is, what a hole secondary gain can lead into.

Self-help

A drowning man must save himself. Don't try to move someone else's business forward unless they ask you to. It's a different matter when it comes to yourself.

It would seem: you just need to find the courage to look the problem in the face. Isn't a conscious person able to look at the problem objectively? But reflection and self-analysis are not the same thing. To find a common language with the subconscious and reliably determine the secondary benefit of the power of thought is not enough, special tools of self-analysis are required.

Have you ever noticed that you are in no hurry to solve a problem, even when the solution is obvious? Share your experience in the comments and tell us if you managed to change your life.