On the pre-emptive strike

I would like to understand why I sometimes shoot myself in the foot. This week, a work situation came to a head, prompting me to realize that it's an old pattern, prompting me to remember an early iteration of it: when I was a kid, my parents would sometimes get fed up with the state of my room (which was always horrendously messy, or so they thought) and close me in there until I had cleaned it. I would always resist, staying in there without cleaning for hours on end, missing meals, feeling like I was going to starve, but still refusing to clean. Finally I would crack, but it was always such a painful process. And I always knew that I would have to be the one to cave, that my parents never would.

So why did I keep doing it? Why put up a fight I knew I couldn't win? And why did my brother do the same thing?

I was extremely compliant in most other ways. Somehow I took my stand on this one particular hill, but I never won, and I never hurt anyone except myself. So why?

This isn't a rhetorical question. Not that I expect anyone else to have the answer.