Monthly Archives: November 2011

Compromise, sharing and sacrifice…Ugg!

Posted on by l0velyjune
3

Five days ago I was sitting on the rue Saint Germain de Pres with D, sipping a cafe au lait at Les Deux Magots, happy as can be, all about me and my journey of finally getting back to Paris. Today, I am grumpily laying around in my ugly pajamas, kinda feeling the weight and discomfort of D’s ex now living in the house across the street, feeling out of control with all the kids running around in my space, and mostly pissed off that I couldn’t pick out the dish set for the house that I wanted.  I actually had to compromise. And I hate that.

This latter part is the crux of my problem lately. Recovery teaches you to love yourself, be independent, take care of yourself and not depend on anyone else. More than that, years of addiction creates in people the need to be  in control also. How so? Well, all my relationships were with avoidants, so it was basically like I was in a relationship with myself– no need to share, no need to compromise. The men were never really around to share a decision-making process, so I did everything myself. If I look back even further, I was an only daughter, with two younger brothers who were very close in age. I was constantly shut out and alone and made up games all on my own. No need to share my toys either because I was the only girl.

So, lately, I feel a bit frustrated. I feel as though I do not have the tools or the patience to be part of something bigger than me at all times– like this relationship. For example, D places healthy expectations on me, like, wanting to be included in the process of picking out dishes. Or wanting my input on who we hire to rake our leaves. He wants to hold my hand when we walk down the street. He wants to help me make dinner and then he wants to help me do laundry and cover the bed and put up the Christmas decorations. Well, sometimes, I want to put up the Christmas decorations by myself. And sometimes I don’t feel like holding hands. And I rarely want any help cooking. And I could care less who he gets to rake the leaves. And I especially want to pick out the style of dishes I want on my own. Me, me, me.

I don’t want to share. I find it difficult to compromise. I want to be in control. And I feel like all the independence I have struggled so hard for over the years through recovery (and by virtue of living alone, despite there being an avoidant male around) has been sacrificed for the sake of this union.

It’s not that I feel completely erased or without an identity. I still feel true to myself. But I feel frustrated. And I am a little angry that recovery doesn’t teach you anything further than how to love thyself. It doesn’t prepare you for the normal, healthy friction of coupledom. It merely teaches  you how to build the foundation (the Self), which is necessary for all other relationships. Well that’s all fine and good. But then you’re standing around without a road map. Worse yet, you’re built for independence, a life alone, and then thrown into an unfamiliar situation where you’re required to co-exist, share, compromise and sacrifice much of your independence for the sake of a union.

Even the 12-Steps fail to offer a set of principles based on compromise, sharing, letting go and being part of something bigger than yourself (except when it concerns your relationship with God). Service is a component of the 12-Steps. But let’s be real- you can still be totally egocentric and offer advice to further inflate your ego.

But in a relationship– a healthy one–you cannot exist on an egocentric plane. If you do, you’re doomed. Your relationship is doomed.

And so, I am currently looking for books that not only help in the recovery process, but in the longterm management of healthy relationships and basically how to be part of one . It’s more difficult than you’d think. There’s more of a cultural leaning towards “no compromise” and books on “sharing” are almost exclusively for kids! When I find something, I’ll let you know. Until then: do not want share. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Related articles

Susan Peabody, interview on DVD

Posted on by l0velyjune
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I’ll just say up front that this blog is a shameless plug for Susan Peabody, author of Addiction to Love and Co-founder of LAA and our own LAA boards. Despite reading her book, and knowing her as I know a good (albeit virtual) friend for almost four years, I can honestly say today was the first day that I’ve seen an interview with her, let alone one that made me proud to know such a valuable woman who has inspired so many.

Now that I’m back home from Amsterdam (still basking in the success of the premier of Love Addict , which ended up being a completely sold out premier), I’ve been able to watch the DVD Pernille, the director, gave me. Not that I want to see the film again (though it can and should be watched a gazillion times mind you) but the team that created the DVD has since added supplemental material in the form of interviews with leading therapists and experts such as Pia Mellody, Jill Vermeire (Celebrity Sex Rehab with Dr. Drew), Alex Katehakis, Wendy Merril (Falling Into Manholes), Tony Stiker, Rachel Resnick (Love Junkie), Howard Samuels and of course, Susan Peabody (Addiction to Love).

In Peabody’s interview, over 20 minutes of priceless commentary on love addiction and recovery , she gives a general description of what love addiction is, followed by the many different types of specific love addicts, such as co-dependent, narcissistic, romantic, ambivalent and torchbearer love addicts. She also gives incredible descriptions of seductive withholders, avoidants and other “obsessive” types.

When asked if love addiction is prevalent in America, Peabody responds by saying that she believes our culture is a very hedonistic one. We are “pleasure seekers, indulged by guilty parents” and that “love and sex are [often] the most exciting things on this planet.”

Aside from her expert descriptions of addiction, she offers a glimpse of critical recovery tools in the way of matter-of-fact advice. For example, she is a firm believer in the psychological term “projection.” Most of the love we feel or think we feel for another person, is based on projection, not what actually exists, but rather, what we think exists. She gives an example of this from her own life story in that she held a torch for someone she loved in high school, all the way up until their 20-year reunion. When he was 16, she said, he was blond, good looking, clean shaven, and handsome. Twenty years later he was 300-pounds overweight, in a wheel chair, with a full beard and completely drunk. She didn’t see any of that. What she saw, instead, was the sixteen year old kid she fell in love with twenty plus years ago.

This was, in essence, the story of my very first boy friend. I was madly in love with the pop star Prince, and when this skinny, uneducated, unattractive kid, named B came around and watched Purple Rain with me, I turned him into Prince. I didn’t see him for who he really was. I saw him for what I wanted him to be. Why? So that he fit my description of perfection and allowed me to experience love. Ah, projection!

One of the most valuable aspects of Peabody’s interview is witnessing her raw, exposed confessions of her own experience with the turmoil of this disease–and ultimately sharing in her recovery. Unlike the others, who, for the most part keep their interview to a safe third-person description of what a love addict is, Peabody reveals herself and she does so in plain, down to earth language, as opposed to using loftier more therapeutic terms. “Demystify the object of your desire,” she says, and always “interject logic” into your decision making process. This suffocates the “fantasy” that all love addicts hold on to.

I recognize that this is like dangling a carrot in front of some of you, as the DVD has not yet been released in the USA and I am only giving you a fraction of what Peabody said in her interview. It’s not yet for sale in Europe either. So, how do you get it? Well, you wait. It’s coming soon. ANd until then, there are several things you can do in the meantime…

Related articles

Falling without a net

Posted on by l0velyjune
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I came to a stark realization today. I have been falling without my net. Well, at least it feels like that.

Let me put it into plainer terms– I came to understand that my love addiction was my protection. It was in place all those years for a reason. It kept me safe. It kept me out of danger. If I was expending my energy on someone else’s issues, or getting someone else to love me, I didn’t have to confront the disaster that was ME.

When I think back, before my LA tendencies popped out, I was a very insecure, raw, nervous, awkward child. I felt very cumbersome in my body and had horrible stomach problems all the time. My stomach problems were so bad sometimes that I would lose friends over this. If my parents were not home to take care of me and work me through the pain, I would call friends and desperately beg them to come over to be with me. When this wouldn’t work (who the heck at age 16 wants to come over and take care of a crazed friend?), I would scream at them and say things I would later regret.

I suppose to avoid this ugly behavior, and this feeling of loss of control and self-hate, I learned to deal with it in what I thought was a more acceptable way: I dated (and ultimately married) men who didn’t care for me– men who, first and foremost made me feel the way my father made me feel–insecure, neglected, ashamed–and who took away the inconvenience of dealing with the hot mess that I used to be. Being in love, falling in love, longing for a man–these things all made me feel NORMAL and good and happy. Bouts of crying over the loss of some guy was far easier for me to handle than sitting with the emptiness of me. Sitting with the emptiness of me was horrifying. It was fraught with sickness, stomach problems, awkwardness and massive feelings of insecurity.

So, what’s the point in me telling you this? It’s this: when you recover, when you take away your security blanket that has protected you all these years, watch out. You need to do it slowly, carefully and consciously and you need to know that there will be many moments of feeling raw, naked and exposed. Oh yes, and this: you won’t be entirely successful.

Now that I am where I am, I am back to facing myself and sometimes it ain’t pretty. I no longer have the emotional highs and lows and the drama of love addiction to hide behind.  My stomach problems have returned. The awkward gawky child in me is back and she’s shaking her fist at me telling me to hide her away again–she doesn’t want to be out in the world. She doesn’t want to grow up.

On Thursday, I went on antibiotics for stomach issues of some sort. The antibiotics threw me into a deep depression and ended up hurting my stomach even worse. As I lay with the pain, I tried to face it, but at times it was unbearable. Then, I thought a very strange thought: I never had  stomach problems during the years I was with Avoidants. And why would I? I was too preoccupied with flagging them down and trying to get them to change their bad boy ways. I was also mired down in the fantasy of wanting a better life for myself, fantasizing about unrealistic things. The more I thought about this, the more I realized the importance and value of fantasy and love addiction. It’s not entirely bad. We all need SOMETHING to protect ourselves, otherwise the world will eat us up. Unfortunately for most of us, we take it too far and love ends up being a rather faulty defense mechanism that hurts us more than protects us. But I went the opposite extreme. I was trying to remove every single solitary one of my defenses and be this perfect, flawless individual. I even gave up fantasy almost completely. Who needed fantasy when reality was so perfect? Bah.

Reality is never perfect.

With that, I moved to the side of my bed and picked up my iPod and placed the earbuds in my ears. I flipped through the menu, back, back, way back to the 2005 Playlist and summoned Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams.” I hit play. In an instant I began to sob. This was a song I have not wanted nor needed to play in almost six years because it was the song I used to play repetitively that allowed me to dream and cry of G. To long for him.

G was a singer and a drummer and many years ago when I would go on gigs with him he’d sing that song to me. When he was gone, or almost gone, I conjured up that song as a means of soothing myself–and it worked.

I suppose this is what some, in recovery, might call a slip. I did, after all, betray D ever so slightly by going back and revisiting a long dead emotion: longing. I haven’t longed for someone in years. And while that is ultimately a good thing, it’s not without recognition that longing is still part of the spectrum of human emotion and not an entirely bad thing.

Does this mean I’m all into G again and have feelings for him? Absolutely not. It’s not the person I summoned yesterday, it’s the emotion, the drama, the feeling that used to transport me. In that sense, I didn’t slip. If anything, I realize even more that it was always the emotion I was going for more than any man that helped me to feel it.

As for D, I love him more than ever and I am grateful for him daily. I wouldn’t trade him for the world. But he does not inspire in me the more unstable, irrational emotions that I had become so accustomed to–that I grew up with. Instead, he inspires new emotions, new feelings of love, security, trust, friendship and passion. Those are all good, wonderful emotions, but from time to time, I now realize that it’s important–it’s imperative to the essence of who I am–to go back and experience the ugly from time to time. It’s like the story of Pygmalion– Eliza Doolittle is pulled from the gutters of poverty and transformed into a Lady. With the help of the Professor, she is able to pass herself off as a Duchess.  And  yet, the poor cockney flower girl is still inside  her. You can take the girl outta Brooklyn but you can’t take Brooklyn outta the girl.

So, remember that on your way out of love addiction. You will need some sort of net to protect you and you might not be able to totally exchange who are for someone new. And why would you want to? At least that’s what I am trying to tell myself today.

Feeling out of control & insecure

Posted on by l0velyjune
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I am up at 4:30 in the morning, trying to begin to acclimate to European time before I actually get there. I am excited to be heading to Amsterdam, but I am nervous as hell and filled with anxiety. Leaving my kids, flying off to Europe, missing the holidays with my family, and sleeping in a small room with D for five days straight is causing massive stomach problems. It’s like there’s a writhing snake pit in my tummy. This latter issue (sleeping in a small room with D for five days straight) has nothing to do with D in particular as much as it has to do with the fact that I desperately need my privacy and need lots of space–to wake up, to go to bed, and to be alone when I need alone time. My desire to have that alone time, in fact, had me dreaming of getting my own room at the hotel. Like an adjoining room. That’s not unreasonable, is it? It reminds me of the movie The Sheltering Sky. In the beginning, Kit and Porter are in a hotel in Tangiers, Morocco, and they are in separate rooms. The husband explains that, because they travel so much and spend so much time together, they get their own rooms. To me, this is a romantic notion. To be so close to someone, and travel so much that you have to have separate hotel rooms is pure romanticism.

In my case, however, it’s pure egocentricity and the need to control my situation. Truth is, and I am ashamed to say this, but I am unable to be too close to someone. I am very much a loner (loners have one hundred percent control over their lives and what happens to them). It’s difficult for me to “share” my surroundings sometimes. I notice this about myself when all the kids are present in a room too– I, generally, have to leave because I can’t handle the noise and commotion.

And while D and I get along very well when we travel together, if I don’t get a little time by myself everyday, I start to get moody, cranky and short-tempered. When we went to Spain two summers ago, the traveling was a little hard on me. The rooms were so small and the bathrooms were located RIGHT by the side of the bed! Hello? Who puts a bathroom right by a bed? We were very much at the mercy of foreign ideals of comfort. Our trip to Sedona, however, was perfect because they upgraded us to a five-room suite. I had tons of space! I could write outside on the back patio in the morning, I had my own bathroom, and in the afternoons, I could go into the living room and watch TV, while D stayed in the bedroom or went out on the patio for a swim. We had a wonderful cycle of coming together, moving apart, coming together, moving apart again. This, of course, sounds high maintenance of me. And spoiled. I do realize that. But if I don’t get some time alone, the writhing pit of snakes in my stomach starts acting up and doing crazy things and ultimately making me miserable.

What’s making me so nervous now, is that I had no control over booking the hotel room, so it is most likely small. And I am now taking antibiotics for stomach problems, which paradoxically, gives me more stomach problems. Small room + stomach problems + man in room = disaster!

I told D yesterday, I am nervous as hell about what he will think of me and how he will deal with me up close and personal for six days in a row. I am not used to exposing myself like this, without the safety of privacy or running away.  His response? Lighten up. You’ll be fine. I love you. As anyone with anxiety can attest, this approach didn’t really calm me. In fact, I started obsessing it about it more throughout the day. And then, at around two o’clock in the morning I realized that much of my time is spent on managing food, drink and mood so as to SEEM perfect and flawless for HIM. I am focusing so much of my time on thoughts of HIM and HIS comfort, worrying incessantly that my true ugly self will be exposed and offend him.  How nuts is that?

D’s right. I really do need to lighten up.

But how? This part of me has not healed yet. I am strong, but not that strong. I am true to myself, but not 100% true. I am OK with some compromising in a relationship, but I still notice my tendency to want to control things. And I am mostly able to be myself in front of him, but not completely. Heck, after almost three years, I JUST now started to be able to walk around naked in front of him. Let me tell you, it’s liberating! But it took a long time to build up the courage to do that and feel comfortable with it.

Anyway, I have some more work to do on me, some insecurities that need to be faced. Courage that needs to be got. Tomorrow, we hop on a plane and I need to be OK with whatever happens. I need to let go of controlling the situation and D’s response to me. Above all, I need to accept my own humanness and not try to seem perfect or invincible. This, by far, is the hardest part of healthy living for a former co-dependent, love addict like me. My inherent need to seem perfect is what propelled me, in the past, to seek relationships  with sub-standard people. It’s what still moves me to control my environment. Now, I’m on a level playing field and things are out of my control. It feels uncomfortable, unnatural and scary. And I can only hope I am able to mentally and emotionally resolve it quickly. Wish me luck!

 

 

World premier of Love Addict, documentary

Posted on by l0velyjune
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UPDATE: The program times and screenings are now available online here or below. Please note that the first entry on the schedule is theater, second is date, third is time.

Munt 10 Mon 21-11 19:45 tickets
Munt 11 Tue 22-11 12:45 tickets
Munt 12 Wed 23-11 14:00
Tuschinski 5 Fri 25-11 16:30 tickets
Brakke Grond Rode Zaal Sun 27-11 12:15 tickets

NEWSWIRE: Danish documentarist  Pernille Rose Grønkjær‘s Love Addict documentary was selected for the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA), one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world for documentaries. The festival, which will be held from November 16 to November 27, will feature over 250 of this year’s hottest documentaries. The festival is open to anyone and guest passes and tickets can be purchased here. The IDFA site also has hotel recommendations in the area for visitors. There will be at least two screenings of Love Addict, both of which will be followed by a Q&A sessions, not only for the producer and director, but the stars of the film, as well. Eliza, Christian and Tracy, three individuals whose stories all unfold in Love Addict, will be in Amsterdam from November 21 to November 23.

Love Addict is a film that follows the lives of several individuals who are addicted to their relationships. For more information, please read a review here.

Closure is so Hollywood

Posted on by l0velyjune
6

From time to time I read about people’s longing for “closure,” that moment where your ex gives you the opportunity to ask questions, get stuff off your chest, find answers and basically help transport you to this emotional place, free and clear of longing now that you ‘ve had that moment.

Here are my thoughts on closure. I hope you’ll add your own:

1. It’s pure fantasy. Most of us never get the opportunity for true closure, and those that do get the storybook moment almost never feel real resolve afterwards. You know why? Because there are always more questions! And there are never enough answers. True closure, when you expect it from outside yourself, doesn’t exist. Once again, you are depending on him to be something he cannot be, and do stuff he cannot do.

2. It’s not something someone gives you, like an opportunity to “understand the truth.” YOU KNOW THE TRUTH. You just don’t want to know it. And you don’t need him giving you one more thing. He’s done enough, don’t you think? Besides, has he really been all that honest with you from the get go? What makes you think he’s willing to be truthful now? We give closure to ourselves. Period.

3. Break-ups are messy. They oftentimes make no sense;  and they mostly have no definite beginning, middle or end. Most of the time they are MYSTERIOUS and we will never know WHY they happened, let alone why they didn’t. We need to be OK with not knowing everything. We do not have a right to the secrets of the universe. And trying to find out WHY, only seems to antagonize us more. Letting go is less complicated and more dignified.

4. Expecting closure is for control freaks. No offense. I was one of them. But think about it. It’s like expecting to read people’s minds, or know about death before it happens. Impossible. And the whole “I have a right to know why you dumped me,” line? Ahem, you actually don’t have that right. You wish you did. At best, you’re lucky if your ex will let you in on his reasons. But chances are, he doesn’t even know himself.

5. Waiting for closure is yet another excuse to HANG ON. We’re so scared of letting go. Why? Ask yourself, what’s the worse thing in the world that could possibly happen to me if I just walk away and never looked back?  Letting go is a risk worth taking. Trust me! Not only does it give you the freedom to find someone more appropriate (I know you don’t care right now), but it also gives you much needed time to focus on YOURSELF as opposed to the relationship. Hello? Don’t avoid or neglect you (didn’t he do that?) Give yourself everything he was unable to give you, and more.

So practice a little zen, and just sit with the discomfort for a while. You make your own closure. You are in charge of your own happiness. You can even create your own answers. Whatever works. But depending on someone or waiting for someone else to give you that feeling of satisfaction is pointless and irrelevant to the struggle within you. You determine your own course. No one else.

Related articles: Instead of Getting Closure

Dreams do tell

Posted on by l0velyjune
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I had this dream last night, which kinda started out real dreamy. D and I were trying to find the perfect house—one with enough bedrooms for all the kids and enough space where I could have an office and a room to retreat. So, we somehow end up at this huge house, completely decorated in a style similar to mine—black and white photos of Paris on the walls, big red velvety sofas in the library, and bedrooms galore, each with its own bathroom. Who knows where the owners were! Away on vacation, maybe. So, I start covering beds and cleaning up a bit, as if we were planning on simply staying a night or two. Once I put the kids to sleep, I start wandering through the house and come upon several hidden rooms, all of which make me desire the house even more. The next morning, the owners come home. The woman in particular is a blond and she’s angry. But she’s impatient to sign the papers and get rid of the house.

D and I are all for it and he starts signing. As he does that, I walk around the house in awe of how beautiful it is, and how much of this woman’s stuff she’s willing to get rid of. I greedily hope to possess it all. And the more I look around, the more I am shocked that she even wants to leave. There must be something wrong.

After the papers are signed and she leaves, a wild storm comes upon us and shakes the house. Pictures fall off the walls. The floor boards rattle, walls collapse. We all start running through the house to look for cover, when I come to a part of it I’d never seen before– the back– which looks out over a huge body of water. In the distance, I see a tsunami-sized wave approaching and all I keep thinking is “D had to have an lake front!” and “No wonder that woman was so quick to get rid of this place!” From across a shaking room, I say to D, “Can we get out of the contract????” And then I woke up.

When I told D the dream this morning he asked, “What do you think it means?”

I said, “Not everything’s perfect? Trouble in Paradise?”

He didn’t respond, and went about pouring his coffee. I didn’t pursue a conversation on it either. Maybe it was a bit mean of me to say that. But the truth is, I have been feeling overwhelmed lately with the idea of moving. I mostly want to move, and in my dream of dreams, it’s a better house than this one. But then I have a dream like this and it shakes me to my core and makes me realize that, subconsciously, I am terrified of losing everything I worked so hard for and I don’t want to undervalue my own possessions. The grass may not be greener.

And yet, a move is inevitable. I almost have no choice. This house is far too small for us. And so I think, life is all about change, adaptation and re-adaptation.  And sometimes we need to let go of things that haven’t harmed us, so as to search the unknown for something new.