Why are people so controlling?

Where does the need to control come from?  

Safety. 

Safety is a subjective experience, meaning it looks different for everyone. If you’ve been following me for some time, you’ll hear me talk about the stress response system… A LOT. So it won’t surprise you that we are headed in that direction yet again. 

As we experience stressors (demands), your stress response system is processing information at lightning speed to help move you away from threat and toward safety. Threats can be external, such as an unhealthy relationship or work environment, or internal, like limiting beliefs or chronic mood impairment.

And this takes us right back to the stress response system.

You create a sense of safety when you know how to regulate stress responses and learn to manage stressors. You will have the best outcomes if you regulate yourself first, then problem solve what is happening in your life.

Sometimes the threats are historical, but they haven’t been resolved (the essence of trauma). So, if someone has a pattern of behavior, it’s better to ask, “What happened to you?” rather than, “What is wrong with you?” Understanding someone’s experiences does several things. It creates connection and support (I’m here with you) and it is how we begin to figure out what function the behavior serves; what need is going unmet. 

Controlling the outcome of any given situation may not lead to ideal outcomes, but it will likely lead to less stressful ones (or at least we think so, and that’s why we do it). Novelty and uncertainty activates the stress response system; predictability reduces it (even if it’s just a little bit).  

Here’s a pretty benign example to illustrate the point. If you’re like me, I STRUGGLE BIG TIME to try new menu items at restaurants I’ve eaten at before. Once I have found a dish I like, I usually stick with it. Why? Because I’d rather have something I know will be good, then risk getting something that is just okay, or worse yet, GROSS. 

As a therapist, I’ve seen people wrestle with far more challenging scenarios: addiction, returning to abusive relationships, etc. But the underlying principle is the same: familiarity, even familiarity of a bad outcome, is less stressful, because we know what’s coming and we can prepare for that.