10/19/2023
Musk’s biography offers a window into his psyche, early on we learn of Elon’s childhood trauma, more specifically his father wound. Like many others living with CPTSD he exhibits a complex blend of defense mechanisms, avoidance and hypervigilance.
Elon’s father Errol is described as having narcissistic traits as he is unpredictable, volatile and egocentric. At times loving and attentive and at other times cruel, abusive and shaming – walking on eggshells around his father's polarizing mood swings proved to be deeply emotionally scarring for Elon causing him developed an appetite for risk, toil and uncertainty which could be seen as morally masochistic but also matches the state of his nervous system in the formative years.
Children with trauma don’t want to feel, so they avoid. Elon is described in childhood as aloof, checked out and zoned out however he was in fact dissociative. Dissociation or "the protective fog" is a defense mechanism used mute the pain of intrusion trauma.
As a wounded child, Elon learned to seek comfort in reading books, comics and computers. A rich life of fantasy and possibility created some semblance of freedom and hope. This created a necessary solace for him in a harsh and lonely world. He learnt to befriend a pervasive feeling of fear in his childhood and now courts it rather than avoiding.
For him the elixir to this wound may be harnessing freedom, optionally and choice through power, wealth, multiple partners, multiple business and even multiple planets to live in, deeming that he would never feel as trapped as he did in those early years of childhood trauma.
