F.O.B.A.P.O.S - an acronym blokes need to know
Fear Of Being A Piece Of Sh*t.
Eagles are pretty great. Not pieces of sh*t. Despite the tacky American hyper-nationalist aesthetic link.
F.O.B.O.P.A.S is far more widespread than I was aware. It’s also something that I’d experienced in some form, in all my relationships.
So how does F.O.B.O.P.A.S birth itself in a person’s psyche?
ORIGIN STORY
A long time ago, I was fairly rogue-ish bloke, armed with an English accent enjoying my singleness in L.A. It was an easy lifestyle and one that satisfied my libido and ego in equal measure. My heart? Not so much. But I didn’t knowingly care back then. I was getting enough ego-lifting “drugs” where I didn’t have to self-examine and I simply wasn’t aware.
Back then I was not the kind of guy I’d want my imagined daughter or sister to date and my awareness of that existed as a mute ghost I could easily silence with cannabis, booze, or a succeeded sexual conquest.
So I didn’t have to face any of the guilt, shame, disgust at self, or other things I was told I wouldn’t feel if I lived like this, aka “more of a man”. And if I did feel them, it’s because I hadn’t become “man enough” or some other bullsh*t. So I then had to do it more.
Yeah I know it’s dumb now. Of course I didn’t know this then.
AND THEN IT HIT ME
So one day I came to the realization that I was and had been behaving as “a piece of shit”, at least within my relations with the opposite sex. All the coping mechanisms, numbing and denial could no longer support the weight of bullsh*t I’d created to hide this from myself.
Whoops.
It all came crashing down and I finally could feel the truth. I hated my actions. I hated myself. I would now opt never to forgive myself for the choices I’d made and the way I treated some of the women I dated. If I didn’t forgive myself for those choices, then surely I would not make them again? Yep. The plan was fool-proof.
Self dialogue : “This is how I don’t act like a piece of sh*t anymore! - I simply never forgive myself. What a great idea!”
That was maybe 20-ish years ago.
As I evolved and dated other women (and stopped behaving as I had in my 20s), I started seeing more of who I really was, alongside where misogynist conditioning used to appear. Turns out I like dating one woman at a time. Moving slow and thoughtfully. Getting to know who I was with. And I wasn’t as selfish as I thought I was. And I wasn’t objectifying myself as whatever I thought “a man” was, so I wasn’t objectifying others either.
Anyway. Regardless of these changes, the shadow of F.O.B.O.P.A.S hid in the deeper corners of my psyche, festering slowly and quietly. I didn’t realize it until relationships that actually felt meaningful began to happen, and glitches would appear. I’d have jarring personality glitches come out when feeling vulnerable, and this previously secret part of me would lash out.
Afterward, I’d look at myself like I had some Temu version of werewolfery. A were-wanker? Unaware-wolf? Regardless, it was jarring and un-nerving. What the hell is this? Am I destined to alienate people I deeply care about when I feel “too vulnerable”? I don’t feel in control of it. How do I be rid of it?
Of course, none of these thoughts were helpful, but I had no idea at the time. I figured the best way to get rid of something I didn’t like was to get super resentful, judgmental and HATE it out of my system with the fury of a thousand suns. If you’ve read some of my other pieces, you can probably guess how that went.
Probably not the energy you want to call on for healing a part of yourself.
So F.O.B.A.P.O.S.
Where do you think that came in? I hadn’t truly made peace with my past actions even though I certainly learned, evolved and improved. The part of me I asked to be hyper vigilant in hating those behaviors of past had done such a great job of making me hate that version of myself! It successfully could be credited as having prevented my reversion into arseholery. However…
…My choices to evolve the fearful protective parts of self to more loving versions are what did that. My self-hate certainly inspired the call to evolution, but I didn’t need the self-hate to evolve. The self hate was the voice protecting me from my Fear Of Being A Piece Of Sh*t and nothing more. It was a weight I carried, thinking it was protecting me.
Here’s what can happen when you copy this pattern;
If someone treats you like you are not a P.O.S, the part of you that you’ve coded to hold onto self-hate - so that you don’t become a P.O.S - will protect you from hurting others by running the part of your personality that acts like a P.O.S.
By enacting those behaviors you hate, you are unknowingly trying to protect yourself and someone else, from those demonized parts of yourself. This also cycles a fresh reminder of why you hate that part of self, by pushing away someone you actually want to be with, and affirming that this belief and mechanism is “correct”.
Bit of a brain-f*ck, but it’s quite common.
The moral of this story :
If you suffer from F.O.B.A.P.O.S, you are not alone.
And the work is to move towards forgiving the parts of you that got you here. Even if they were utter bastards, or just misguided fools you now judge harshly.
There’s no need for it anymore. You learned. That’s why you’re here. That’s why you are afraid of being a piece of sh*t. You might still have work to do, but it moves faster with kindness and love in my experience.
If you need help transforming it, book a session and I can help you make peace with your “P.O.S.”