Tag Archives: Sexuality

What if you placed value on something other than “love”…

Posted on by l0velyjune
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Romance Stories of True Love No 50 Harvey, 1958 SA

Romance Stories of True Love No 50 Harvey, 1958 SA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What if you were stranded on a deserted island with only your family or your friends (people you loved, but could not date) and there was NO ONE else in sight, nor would there ever be. And for the remainder of your life, you had to live this way.

Keep in mind that the island would be tropical and filled with beautiful plant life and abundance. There might be tons of books left on the island for reading, and there were an abundance of activities. Life could be FULL with the one exception that you could not find a romantic partner.

To a love addict, at the height of his or her addiction, this might seem like certain doom. But in recovery, how do we deal with this idea? If you think about it, it’s a “sink or swim” situation and when you face it, and really imagine it, you find out what kind of person you are and what kind of recovery you will continue to have.

When I did this little exercise I had just been dumped (ouch!) I was 40 years old and I TRULY believed there was no one else out there in the world for me. I believed that S was the last. Faced with such a seemingly depressing future, I had CHOICES as to how I would react to that situation.

I could have easily sunk into a permanent depression. I could have run out to the nearest bar and tried to pick up any guy I could find that might want to have sex with me, and lived like that. I could have given up and become a hermit. OR I could have started to look at the world in a different way and started to believe that I was put on this earth for more than just romance. Maybe, just maybe, there areother things in this worldthat i could be focusing on and enjoying.

I chose the latter.

I started to see the world in a different way. Before, I always believed it was supposed to give me stuff and introduce me to love. But when I changed my perspective I started to believe that maybe it was my time to start to give back to the world. To enjoy my children. To be grateful for what I did have, NOT cry over what I didn’t have.

This change in perspective came not when I imagined being stranded on an island. I already felt like that! It came after seeing a documentary on a man with no arms and no legs. He was born that way and he was in his 30′s and his expectations of the world were very different than mine. He could not expect to casually meet women and fall in love like I could. He could not expect that one day he would get married and have children and live a NORMAL life. He couldn’t expect to play football or attract women like other men could.

But wait, he COULD expect these things from life (and if he did he would be MISERABLE because chances are, he would not meet those expectations, nor would anyone meet those expectations for him). But he DIDN’T expect those things. He didn’t consider any of those things to be a viable part of life. He chose to see his life as valuable and full WITHOUT those things.

How was that possible, I thought? How can anyone be happy or feel fulfilled without romantic love?! But then I realized that that was my addict brain thinking. Needing my drug of choice. How can an addict live without his or her drug?

But it IS possible. Millions of people live without romantic love and are perfectly content. They have found VALUE in their lives despite what they lack or do not have access to.

And so, I am asking you to think about your own life. I am asking you to think about who you are and what your value is without a significant other.If you could never date again, what would make you happy? Who would you be? WHat would be your joy in life.

Answer these questions and you can heal. Answer these questions and live your life as if they were true, and a miracle will occur.

Conversation with a struggling love addict

Posted on by l0velyjune
Reply
A couple dating in a cafe.

Image via Wikipedia

I receive a decent amount of email from readers, but the below was a conversation that I couldn’t resist sharing. There’s too much great stuff here not to post it.  

ANONYMOUS READER:  After reading your posts both on here and on your LovelyAddict blog for eight months, I figured it was time to reach out to you…to say THANK YOU. You are a brilliant writer and your words have helped me more than you could ever imagine. Trying to crawl from the depths of this addiction have rocked my world the past year–it has made me feel incredibly crazy and like a waste-of-space. I, too, was married to a sex addict (who had a secondary addiction to alcohol and went into rehab when I was pregnant with our second child). I actually handled things quite well (or so I thought) for the first two years after the divorce, but when I started dating last fall things when downhill fast…but that relationship brought me here, which I am incredibly grateful for! I did the whole torchbearer thing until someone new came along in August…and things have ended badly again. Both guys were avoidants and I lost myself in them and/or tried to rescue them (which I swore I’d never do again–grr). Tonight I reread “A fish is not a bird,” “You are entitled to something better than scraps,” and the “500 pound elephant in the room“…I GET IT intellectually…but emotionally my mind stays on the roller coaster. I know there’s a bigger picture in all of this. I know I have everything I need within me…but I just can’t get past needing external validation.

Anyway, I could not have made it through these last eight months without your writing. SO THANK YOU for the time you have taken to help people like me move forward. THANK YOU for showing up and sharing your experiences and your wisdom. And THANK YOU for your honesty so that I know I’m not alone!

LOVELY: This is one of the best letters I’ve ever gotten. Thanks so much for reaching out. It had a huge impact on me today. Never not reach out to someone!

And I hear you. I too was in your same situation. I mentally GOT IT. But still, nothing could change my behavior except a string of distinct happenings in 2008. Sadly, no two paths are alike. For me to learn what I had to learn took dating some real weirdos, and I wouldn’t suggest you do anymore of that! But how about this: I am actually working on two posts today (that may go up over the next day or two). There are both on relevant topics, so I suggest you look out for them.

And what about your values? Do you ever post on my blog? Write out your VALUES. Your values force you into making correct decisions for yourself. For example, one of my values is “WIll not ever, never, EVER date an alcoholic man.” When that makes it on to my values list, it becomes the highest goal. Higher than dating anyone. So, when I do go out to date (or when I did go out to date someone) I made sure they were not an alcoholic or any kind of addict. If they were, I walked away no matter how cute they were. Same with “avoidants”. Put them on your list of values too! “Stay away from avoidants.” But how do you know if you’ve got an avoidant??? It’s tricky but here’s a blog post about it.

ANONYMOUS READER: Thank you for the post today on avoiding avoidants. Loved it and I really needed that! You rock! I have never posted…too scared. I do have a rough draft of my values but I really need to officially get them into writing. I’ll work on that.

I have a question for you. I am a person who has a lot of energy. I’m very loving, affectionate, happy, etc. so when I’m in a good place people love to be around me. Unfortunately, if I’m in a bad spot (PMS, mega stress, I’m around an avoidant-LOL) I have that same amount of energy but in a negative way. My question is this: in a normal relationship, would a man just see me through those short episodes without shutting down? I’m “one of those” who, the more a guy shuts down, the more I obsess/text/call and can’t let go. Not pretty and I can’t seem to stop it in the moment.

Also, I have a very hard time going at a snail’s pace (not physically by any means, but emotionally and wanting to spend a lot of time together). Will that be easier if I fill my life with my own stuff and stop losing myself in the guy? I would guess so. Again…intellectually, I get it…but the childlike emotions seem to get the best of me when a man comes into the picture.

LOVELY:  So, let me help you out here a little, and please try not to take offense. This is from my own experience…

It’s wonderful that you have lots of positive energy! But it may be too much. And I say that because if you are balancing out all that great positive energy with an equal sum of negative energy you may be off balance. What I mean by that is this: Love addicts tend to operate in extremes. We gain extreme highs from love, only to feel extreme lows from a loss. Some of us impose solitude (which sometimes turns into sexual anorexia) on ourselves for months or years just to recover from the highs and lows of a tumultuous relationship. The more balanced you are on the inside, the more balanced your behavior. That’s number one.

Number two, there are not many healthy people I know, men and women alike, who can tolerate bouts of negative energy, especially when and if it’s directed at them. We have no right as humans to expect people to tolerate that kind of behavior. And those that do seem to tolerate it are most likely unhealthy themselves. But I believe this kind of behavior, maybe it’s anger, comes from the frustration you feel when you are with an avoidant. Yes? Do you exhibit this same kind of anger when you are single as well, or with people you love? If so, it’s something you need to address. I too was always angry every month…and frustrated by the men I was with. It was because I was dating the wrong man! I was dating losers! When you date someone who is kind and good and attentive and loving, it has a calming affect upon you. I almost never get these huge mood swings anymore, where before I got them every month.

So, to answer your question, a healthy (loving) guy would surely see you through genuine pain and suffering. He may even put up with moodiness or anger temporarily. But a healthy guy would not go avoidant on you and stay. He would leave. And who could blame him? That’s not appropriate behavior. It’s not an appropriate way to communicate. A man who loves himself would not put up with abuse. So, try to figure out the source of this negative energy and see where it’s coming from. That should help.

To address your last concern: I’m guessing it’s hard to go at a snail’s pace for you because you are ruled by your emotions. This is one of the most difficult things to control for most LAs. But I think the difference lies in the type of man you date. If you start dating a man who is also falling in love fast, this isn’t exactly a good sign. You said you have kids, which tells me there’s a bigger picture there. When you date, you can’t let your emotions do the thinking for you. You have to think of your kids, your reputation, your safety, etc.

This kind of runaway train mentality, when it comes to a man, also signifies that you are making men and relationships your highest priority. They shouldn’t be. You and your kids are your highest priority. If you have a list of values, they should be your highest priority. And YES, when you have a life for yourself and other interests, you are less inclined to risk everything you’ve got for the sensation of fallling in love. When you’ve got nothing, when you’ve built nothing, you’re more incline to take uncalculated risks. So, going at a slower pace is not just an action. A lot more goes into WHY you should take it slow and that’s probably where you need to focus.

Here’s a helpful tip to remember the next time you are confronted with a date or the possibility of a relationship: love addicts have NO interest in cultivating a relationship (which takes time and takes deferred gratification and takes not always getting what you want when you want it). They only want two things: to be saved, and to forget themselves becasue they do not have a strong sense of self worth. People who have a strong sense of self-worth are MUCH more careful about who they date, who they sleep with, who they introduce their kids to, who they INVEST in. So, they wait until trust is built, before sacrificing their emotions to someone else.

SO, the next time you are faced with a hot guy, remember that. Remember what you want as a love addict and compare it to what you want as someone with a decent amount of self-worth. Align your behavior accordingly. It’s hard! But you will get it and you will change when you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.

ANONYMOUS READER: I’ve reflected upon whether or not I have my high and low emotions when I am single. I don’t think so. Not that I don’t have normal emotions and get sad/angry/emotional at times, but when I’m single I feel carefree, generally happy, and pretty confident. I surround myself with people who I enjoy and when I’m around people who drive me batty, I turn to Al-Anon literature to get a grip. But the difference is, I don’t expect anything from any of those people. But I do from my PoA. For instance, I have struggled from some health issues the past few years, so I have debilitating migraines.  My ex-husband was very loving and supportive through these health issues. So now, I would like the man in my life to also be supportive when I am struggling physically. This last PoA (R) was not emotionally supportive at all. Could that be a value for me? I want someone who is emotionally supportive when my health issues get unbearable? My two PoAs after divorce were quite opposite…one only showed me attention when I was sick and the other wouldn’t give me any attention when I was sick, unless I kinda begged. Umm, happy medium, please? Yes, the anger I feel is definitely coming from the avoidant’s disconnect from me and his defense mechanism of shutting down…he did that when I thought things are going well and wanted to talk a few nights a week or see each other on a regular basis. But that d**n texting…I drove him batty. Oops.

The source of my negative energy, I think comes from an instant downhill spiral in self-esteem when a man enters the picture. I never felt as though my ex-husband was attracted to me. I come with daddy issues in that same area but I think I’m now so worried about making sure that someone is physically attracted to me, so my self-esteem goes down the tubes immediately. But when I’m single, I’m happy with how I look. When my health allows me to, I exercise regularly, I eat well b/c it helps with inflammation, etc. I think I may even be okay and feel somewhat confident when I’m with a man, but when he doesn’t compliment me, I start to question myself. Compliments are one of my “Love Languages”–love that book!

When you wrote about making men my highest priority, you nailed it. That entire paragraph is life-changing for me…THANK YOU! I really need to especially cling to: “wait until trust is built before sacrificing emotions to someone else.” I do the opposite….here are my emotions…save me! Yikes! I may feel good when single, but I must not have a STRONG sense of self-worth. It’s time to actually open my Self Esteem Workbook!!

Oh, one more thing, if you are willing…I really feel awful about spewing so much negative energy on R at the end. Is there a time down the road when I can apologize, or do I need to let it go and chalk it up as a learning experience? I just really feel guilty and sad about making him so upset.

LOVELY:  I’ll answer your last question first: let him go. Leave him alone. There is no time “down the road” to make amends to this one. He made a CLEAR request of you, and you need to respect it. So often LAs don’t HEAR men’s requests because we didn’t respect them to begin wth. Respect his wishes to be left alone. And forgive yourself. You did the best you knew how at the time. You didn’t kill anybody, rob, cheat or steal. You simply interacted with him the only way you knew how at the time. He’ll be OK. And so will you. And guess what, your whole life will not be judged by your interactions with this one person. You will be able to make amends with others. You will be given a second chance! TRUST ME!

Second, this is GREAT news to hear that you are happy and carefree and relatively balanced when you are with people you enjoy. I’ll get back to that in a minute. As for the people who drive you batty, of course you can manage them and walk away and don’t have any expecations of them…YOU DON’T LIVE WITH ANY OF THEM. They are not in your space. And you probably have great boundaries when it comes to people like this. I have a drug addicted friend. I love him to death. But we are a safe distance away that I do not depend on him for anything, so I can remain friends with him without being hurt in anyway. But hell if he moved in. I’d be very unhappy. With a spouse or a bf it’s different. You have expectations of YOURSELF and how you wish to live your life, and when you’re dating someone “batty” your expecations of the way you want to live your own life are not being met. Because dating is so intimate, boudaries have to be down. You can’t really “protect” yourself against the person you’re dating, and so, if he’s batty, or not your type, you feel raw and exposed, which then probably makes you angry and frustrated.

So, two things are an important lesson here:

1. You need to study the people who make you happy, who you enjoy. Write a list of them and look deeper into their qualities. These people do not trigger you. They probably also share your same values. PLUS (and here’s the biggie) you know and trust that they love you. This is who you need to date…men like your favorite people. This is who will keep you relatively calm and happy. We are, after all, different with different people. Don’t think you can just date and fall in love with anyone. You can’t.

2. Along with that, you may have to let go of some of your expectations of the care and effort you expect men to put into your life. I get the sense that you want them to maybe not pamper you, but “fill a void.” Do any of the people in your life you enjoy have that same responsibility? Maybe you secretly wish they did, but you know that you’re responsible for your own happiness and so you do not demand it so much from them. You know your place, so to speak. But sometimes we think that a man should be responsible for our happiness. He should not be. It’s not his job.

Read my post on NEEDS. ”You DO have a right to be loved. And you DO have a right to be respected. And you DO have a right to have your needs met in a commited relationship. But you do NOT have the right to demand it from someone who is unable or unwilling to give it.

This is one of those moments where you simply need to say to yourself, “Grow up! Not everyone will love me, and not everyone will meet all my needs.”

This means that not just anyone will suffice. And it is also a really good argument for taking your time and choosing someone who shares all your core values. When that happens, your needs are already built into the fabric of who that man is and what he is capable of giving you. That’s a tricky concept. But here it is in a simili: You can fulfill your need for food at a restaurant or a grocery store. You CANNOT fulfill it at an auto mechanic shop. Make sense?

As for your medical issues, YES, it is absolutely imperative to your health and well-being to find someone compassionate about your condition. But again, you have to understand (whether you like it or not) that you cannot force or beg someone to be compassionate. It has to be built into the fabric of who he is. You can’t date some guy who you believe is perfect in twenty ways but one. That ONE issue, even though it’s just one, is like the one hole in a boat. You’ll sink. You have to share all your values (“Must leave toilet seat down” is NOT a core value, by the way). And so yes, put “must be compassionate about my condition” on your values list. It’s part of who you are and that need needs to be met. If I had only one leg, why would I date someone who had an aversion to amputees? Strange analysis, but it’s the same thing.

Lastly, yes again! Get thee to a library or book store and pick up the Self Esteem Workbook. I don’t care if you’re fat, thin, pretty, ugly, if you have purple hair or you’re a midget. Beauty is all relative! Nothing defines your looks but YOU. And when you believe you are good and beautiful, others feel it and believe it too. This is the kind of lesson you learn by turning to celebs. Superficial, I know. But, take a look at Rosie O’Donnel, or Oprah. Imagine them WITHOUT their fame and fortune. Imagine them with low self esteem. They’re pretty average looking, right? They’re both overweight, they’re both relatively unattractive (to me, anyway). ANd if they were just average citizens, they wouldn’t have much to offer the world because none of their fame and forture was attached to them. Right? Wrong. They were average citizens and nobodies a long time ago. But they believed in themselves. What right did they have to think they were beautiful and talented? No more right than you, my friend.

ANONYMOUS READER: It means a lot to me that you’ve taken the time to write such in-depth responses to my questions. So please know you have helped me immensely!! Thank you! I’ve clearly had enough pain/misery and am ready to do anything it takes…and I am ready to let L go. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but I needed to hear it. Your explanation really helped me put it into perspective.  I truly appreciate you and am so grateful for your help!

Posted with permission.  

Related articles

Selfish?

Posted on by l0velyjune
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“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” - Oscar Wilde

I always thought it crucial to be a little (or a lot) selfish in the early stages of recovery. It’s your Me time. Your time to heal. Time you get back from your youth all that you lost. Eventually, however, it’s something you need to give up, maybe not completely, but enough to allow  you to recognize your responsibility and your adult obligations. Because let’s face it, you’re “supposed to be” giving and you’re supposed to learn how to share and compromise in a healthy way.

But not everyone agrees. SOme think it’s wrong to be selfish any time in recovery. One addiction website offers two opinions on selfishness in early recovery. One takes my stance above, that selfishness in early recovery is necessary. But here’s the other:

2. It’s wrong to be selfish in early recovery

In active addiction, addicts and alcoholics are by nature selfish. Addiction is a self-centered disease, which not only feeds on the mental, physical, and spiritual elements of the self, but drains the lives of loved ones. Responsibilities and obligations do not matter to the active addict, but should become more important to an addict in recovery. Otherwise, it is unfair to the people that have been “taken hostage” during addictive periods. Continued selfishness in early recovery can be a refusal to grow out of an immature state of mind, and needs to be overcome.

So which is it? DO you have an opinion on this?

Here’s mine: I have never considered Love Addiction (and co-dependence)  to be a selfish act, but rather a self-Less act (as in, we had no identity), and so we needed early recovery to experience the Self, at least for a while. I also think it’s important to be selfish in recovery, at least in the beginning, because your focus is to maintain your values and re-learn how to grow up– something you may never have time during the years when you were supposed to be selfish (i.e. childhood and teen years). Key words though are “at least in the beginning.” There’s no place for selfishness after at least a year of heavy recovery work. And the reason is simple: you need to move forward into the next stage (Middle Adulthood: Generativity vs. Self absorption or Stagnation) of growing up if you are to have a complete recovery or a fulfilling life.

I have to be honest here and say, I am having a bit of trouble giving up some very selfish behaviors.

I don’t want to send the wrong message. I am not entirely selfish. I am a great mother who takes great pride in the way I raise my sons. I am very giving. I help people all the time when they are in need. And I will sometimes put my own needs aside if others really need my time. And yet,  I feel  like I don’t have enough time to myself. I also feel like, lately,  I am giving up too much of myself to care for others who are not my own kids. Bottom line: Lately, I feel as though I don’t want to be burdened by anyone else’s struggles. I want to be free of them, except where it applies to my own struggles which I can handle. I feel as though I have given up a lot in my life (career, goals, activities, education, etc.) that I no longer want to give up my time to other people anymore. I feel I’ve done it for too many years. That it’s MY TIME now to be selfish.

And yet…

My goal is to live with D and to invite his children into my home and if I want that,  I can’t be as selfish as I’d like to be. I can’t live a selfish life alone, with someone. 

In my journey to figure out what’s best,  I came upon this one website. I have also been reading Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” It’s mostly about the business of sales and “selling” but it has served as a great inspiration in helping me deal with others. Lastly, I recognize that selfish behavior is not entirely good or bad, right or wrong. But a choice, depending on your goals. If your goal is to advance in your career then you must make a few selfish choices to move in that direction. If your goal is to have a family and share your home with someone, you may have to make more sacrifices than you might like. Either way, it’s a CHOICE.

recovery vs. addiction

Posted on by l0velyjune
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Choose your path today…

In active addiction we want to possess and control

In recovery, we recognize the power of relinquishing control, and we are OK letting go

In active addiction we want answers

In recovery, we learn to ask questions, even though there may be no answers

In active addiction, we want immediate gratification

In recovery, we finally understand the meaning of deferred gratification

In active addiction, we want guarantees

In recovery, we know life is a mystery and there are no guarantees

In active addiction, we want what we cannot have

In recovery, we appreciate what we do have

In active addiction, we are starving

In recovery, we’ve learned to pace ourselves through each meal and thus, we are content…

In active addiction we feel pain and hide from it. We numb ourselves with love and sex and torchbearing.

In recovery we feel pain, and face it. We find the tools we’ve learned for survival and use them instead of acting out and running away.

In active addiction we hope the other will change and love us

In recovery we recognize that people don’t change that easily and if we are to be content someday we need to move away from tension and conflict and find people and situations that are more loving and peaceful.

In active addiction we try desperately to figure out the PoA. We analyze, focus and try to figure him or her out. We believe if we understand who he is, we will understand why we were attracted to him.

In recovery we realize that nothing the PoA does or says has any bearing or relevance on knowing who we are. That focus needs to be placed on us for true healing and health…no where else.

In active addiction, we are children whose growth has been stunted and so we act immaturely

In recovery we are not afraid of growing up and taking on more mature responsibilities like taking care of ourselves and not depending on others for our happiness. We recognize that with self growth comes freedom.

In active addiction we think and act with our emotions alone

In recovery we have learned to control our emotions and thus, we think with our logical minds and use our hearts sparingly

In active addiction, we have no identities. We see ourselves through the lens of the PoA

In recovery, we have finally put denial and avoidance behind us and we are able to look at ourselves for who we really are and we’re OK with that

In active addiction we want Hollywood romance; we want a life of fantasy and perfection

In recovery, we come back down to earth and have accepted our reality and start to work to improve it or make peace with it

Are you a “great catch”?

Posted on by l0velyjune
1

One of the things that always confused me about the “love addict” label was that, despite the fact that I had trouble with men, I had other debilitating issues that had nothing to do with men or dating. For example, even without a guy around  I was insecure and slightly paranoid that others didn’t like me. I didn’t have many friends and many of the friends I did have didn’t treat me well. I also had little faith in my ability to complete tasks and sadly, never completed many things. I was a quitter. I had no interests outside of boys (except writing), I was lazy, egocentric, pessimistic, needy, immature, prone to living in a fantasy world, oversensitive, wimpy, somewhat of a bully and I had zero work ethic (i.e. I always got bad grades in high school and took menial jobs after high school where I could call out sick all the time).

I was definitely not what you would call a great catch, that’s for sure.

So where’s the surprise when I went out into the world to look for my “second half,” only to find avoidant, neglectful, pessimistic, egocentric, immature types who didn’t have much to offer? In my mind, I was this perfect goddess who needed no changing, but who frustratingly only dated losers (thus today’s GREAT photo!)

So often, when we give support on the forums, we say things like: You deserve better than that jerk, or You’re worth more than someone who ignores you or treats you badly. And, it’s true. No one deserves to be treated badly. But, chances are you need to do some work on you first, before you begin to attract better quality people.

Trouble with love addiction is, we don’t want to work on ourselves. And if we do, we want to do it with our PoAs around to keep us company. So, basically here’s the absurdity of what we really want: we want to keep a neglectful, immature, avoidant, unloving guy around (for sex, friendship and love) while we become mature, optimistic, loving, self-sufficient, confident individuals.

We want the impossible; we want the absurd. And that doesn’t happen in real life. One of the hardest things to accept in recovery, one of the things we are most in denial about is that “like attracts like.” That we may be as ugly as our PoAs. That’s horrifying. But it’s one of the most important reason I constantly advise people to stop analyzing the PoA and turn inward. It’s so much easier to analyze the faults and idiosyncrasies of others. Worse, it keeps you perpetually trapped in your own disease of avoiding yourself.

Here’s my unsolicited advice today: Love addiction is the avoidance of the Self. And when you avoid yourself and lose yourself in fantasy over the imagined love of a PoA, you are unable to recognize that YOU are the one that needs changing; you are the one that needs work. Take a good look at you and determine what changes need to be made to make you a better person. Start doing the work of changing today! And like it or not, you probably need to do this work alone. Recovery is a direction that takes you up and out of the hole you are in currently. Ditch the PoA and start climbing. Your life depends upon it.

Take Inventory: Make a list of all your good qualities, and all your bad. Circle the qualities that you can change immediately. Pessimist? Start being aware of the language in your head, the self talk and change the negative to something positive.

The battle within

Posted on by l0velyjune
5

To better understand this dis-ease within ourselves that we call love addiction is to look not at addiction, but avoidance. Avoidance of ourselves. It is to look at the alternate side of addiction. What is the logical opposite of addiction? Avoidance. It is not about men or our inability to find and/or keep a man. It is certainly not about how rotten somebody is treating you, if you choose to stay.  And it certainly isn’t about love. If I keep choosing the wrong men then that is an issue unrelated to love addiction. Love addiction is merely a struggle within the Self, to AVOID the self, which manifests itself in the realm of love and relationships. To be a love addict, per se, has little or nothing to do with the object of my affection. It has to do with the Self and the Self’s inability to find peace and understanding within while in certain situations.

When I obsess, when I struggle, when I fear, when I feel disgust, and I point all those emotions at YOU, are you the problem? No. I am. When I get involved with a man who ignores me, neglects me, doesn’t love me, is that HIS problems? No. It’s mine. When I feel insecure and unloved and keep chasing after someone who doesn’t want me in his life, is that HIS problem? No. It’s mine.

So often we point the blame outside ourselves. So often we say, if only he would change. So often we look to the rest of the world to do the work of making peace for us. We are blind to the fact that change, peace, understanding is within us. That there is a STRUGGLE going on within us that needs to be quieted and we are the ones responsible for it. No one else. In fact, if we should name ourselves anything it should be “avoidants” not love addicts. By focusing so deeply on someone else for our salvation, we are AVOIDING ourselves.

My love addiction isn’t so much that I am addicted to loving someone. My love addiction is a distraction to a deeper problem within me. I am afraid of responsibility. I am afraid to live. To have a life of my own. I cannot choose a career. I cannot find my purpose. I am easily distracted and don’t stay with jobs for more than 3-5 years. I get bored. I don’t feel connected to anything. Nothing has heart. Most of my day is wasted doing menial things. I don’t put any effort into my life. I rarely take risks. I do not have something I am passionate about. Something to which I can devote myself. And because I lack ALL THAT, I welcome the opportunity to save you, I welcome the distraction of falling in love, I welcome  your problems in my life because just me, all alone, is completely BORED OUT OF MY MIND.

Love is my passion. Love is what I become devoted to. Love is what I depend on. Love saves me. Love rescues me. Love is my life.

This, of course, is escapism at its finest.

I am trying to understand why I do the things I do. I am trying to love myself in spite of all my shortcomings. In spite of this mess. For the first time in my life, I can see a light flickering at the end of the tunnel. I now know WHY i do what I do when I am in a relationship. The fact that I choose men who don’t match up to my standards is something else entirely. I cannot confuse the two: love addiction and attraction. Heck the only way one fits into the other is that the more messed up you are, the more exciting my life will be.

This leads me to believe that having a PoA (person of addiction) is incredibly misleading and damaging to recovery. It puts the focus on the PoA and NOT on the Self. If I am constantly thinking about someone, who they’re with, where they are, why they did what they did, if they love me, I am not so much addicted to them as I am avoiding something within myself. I am ESCAPING from dealing with my own personal responsibility to me and my issues, that’s all. Having a PoA draws the focus away from the Self and allows me to place blame on something else. It allows me to accept that someone else has power over me. This is not true. Sure, we are all influenced by other people. But if we are going where we don’t want to go it is our responsibility to change, not someone else’s.  Fretting over all the little stuff: “he called me,” “he’s getting married,” “he has a Christmas gift for me…” “he pinged me,” is simply more escapism. More avoidance. It’s ALL missing the mark of what recovery is.

Recovery is the SELF. It is facing your own demons. It is exposing yourself to the point of shame and embarrassment and eventually grace and freedom. The more I talk about myself in relation to the men in my life, the farther away I am from the truth. The farther I am from myself. The more i lose myself in a man, the more I lose my Self. The more I focus on his issues and his love or lack thereof, the more distant from my Self I become.

I do not have a PoA in my life now or ever. I am addicted to no one. But I am prone to avoiding my own issues and that is what I am working on. Sure, I will have waves of thinking about someone. I will hold out hope of seeing someone. I will dip into obsessive thought for a day or maybe a week. But I now know and believe it has nothing to do with whether or not I am addicted to them. It has to do with the fact that I have chosen to AVOID myself.

The 500-pound elephant in the room

Posted on by l0velyjune
7

I had a very difficult night last night. But it brought me to a place of enlightenment. Or rather, I shall say, awareness.

I had been thinking that the “purpose” of this recovery and alone-time was to learn how to survive and love myself without a man around. I’m kinda doing that. It’s hard, but it’s getting done. However, I’m wrong. That’s NOT what my recovery is really about. If i think it is, i am fooling myself and simply remaining blind to the truth of my own personal addiction.

What it is, is this: I keep failing to see the 500-pound elephant in the room. There is a bigger, uglier facet to my life that I have refused to face for YEARS and very possibly the driving force behind how i came to be a love addict…

Let me be clear: my love addiction has little to nothing to do with love or men. It has to do with what I have been avoiding in myself. And this is it– I do not have a career. I do not take care of myself the way I should. I am NOT a productive member of society. I am dependent.

This is very possibly the ugliest side of me. The monster in the closet.

Sure, you might be thinking, “She’s just exaggerating,” or “It’s not as bad as she’s making it out to be.” But it is bad based on this fact: In order to claim bragging rights to adulthood and maturity you need to be able to take care of yourself. Plain and simple. And I’m not entirely doing that.

I do have a job. I do earn money. And I do have two children for which I care for and love. But there’s a catch and one in which I won’t go into here for the sake of anonymity. Just trust me when I say, that if it weren’t for the help of my family and my fiscally responsible accountant, I would not be able to care for myself and my children on my own. I do not produce anything of any great substance and what’s more, I do not give back to society. I cannot offer a service. I do not teach, volunteer, educate, produce or create anything which may benefit humanity.

I merely survive. And that’s simply not good enough.

I believe THIS is what I am running away from. I am running away from being Productive. From working. Every time I begin to date someone new, it’s like this waiting to exhale moment comes over me….Ah! Now i don’t have to face finding a real job or going back to grad school…now I can lose myself to someone else and keep avoiding the ugly truth. The ugly, nagging, festering truth is that I have no real life. It’s not about my parents anymore. It’s not about what my dad did or didn’t do to destroy my life or create me this way. It’s not about some lost love. It’s not even about some deceptively attractive idea of a “fear of abandonment.” I CAN be alone. I have been abandoned and left and I have been OK with it.  Trouble is, when I am alone, it’s easier to see that I am left with the ugliest part of me that I have refused to confront. And that’s what i don’t like. That is why I’d prefer to be in love.

I came to this conclusion haphazardly. I was reading essays from freshyarn.com yesterday. If you get the chance read: Diamonds, by Jill Solloway and/or A Man of Great Principles, by Todd Levin. Both brilliant.

I started to peruse the writers’ bios and the more I read the more sick to my stomach I became.

I’ll give you an example:

Meredith Hoffa had her first essay published in The Boston Globe Magazine when she was 18. After college she pursued journalism, working most recently at PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

or how about this one:

Jenny Bicks was a Writer/Executive Producer on Sex and The City. She joined the show in the first season. Her work on the series has earned her anEmmy, multiple Golden Globes, Producer’s Guild Awards and two WGA nominations… In 2001, Jenny created and executive produced Leap of Faith. She is currently the creator/Executive Producer of Men in Trees…

It gets worse:

Doug Gordon is the author of The Engaged Groom which was published by Harper Collins in 2005. He has appeared on The Today Show and the Martha Stewart Living Radio Network and has been quoted on the subject of weddings in newspapers and magazines across the country. He is also a TV writer and producer and was on the staff of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire for four years. His credits include shows for VH1, Court TV, The History Channel, and a series of public service announcements starring Meredith Vieira.

Granted, these bios are all quite self-serving. There is no mention of saving the environment or working on fighting land-development. No memberships in Amnesty International, or writing credentials that include the journalistic exposing of child soldiers in Africa. These people’s bios are entertainment driven. None of them are probably saving the world. But they are achieving in their field. And that, to me, is huge. I have done neither. I have neither achieved anything in my “field” (I don’t even have a field) nor have I produced or worked toward anything potentially world-changing.

I thought of my own bio. How it would read. Of course the over-dramatic version came to me: Tracy lived at home until she was 27, quit college in ‘95, married, had babies. She moved to the suburbs, changed a million diapers, attended horrifying Longaberger Basket parties and became highly skilled at redirecting the focus of her spouse’s sex addiction to online porn rather than herself. She has written voraciously for most of her life but, to date, has only published one 4-page, double-spaced short story in an online magazine that has a readership of 5000. She is, however, a great kisser and has fallen in love nearly 40 (count ‘em FORTY) times. 

I sure know a hell of a lot about hooking up.

The beast is rearing its ugly head and laughing at me, saying, “what have you done with your pathetic life but chased after men?”

So, what does this all have to do with love addiction? Well…I remember when I was being interviewed by Pernille. Despite being a successful documentarist, she is also a love addict. And she said to me once, “why is it that I cannot have both? A career and a relationship? When the relationship comes, I am all-consumed by it and don’t want to work or do anything else.”

The difference between she and I is that she is willing to put a lot of effort into her career during alone time, so much so, that she has won 28 film awards for her documentary “The Monastery.” I, on the other hand, have only been willing to put most of my effort into men. In between “gigs,” so to speak, I merely pass the time waiting, doing mundane things. 

This disgusts me. And I need to change. 

I wanted to sing. I wanted to write. I wanted to be a therapist. I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to make movies. I wanted to own a restaurant. I wanted to write a book. I wanted to write a screenplay. And yet, I have put no effort into any of that. When and if I did I (graduating from college), I stopped and gave it all up for a relationship– and a bad one at that.

Bottom line is this: i have to face this monster. I have been, since October, taking steps to do so. I have re-applied to grad school for Creative Writing. I have kept a promise to myself that I will have my work continually submitted to magazines and publishers. I have begun this blogs to help educate people on love addiction. I am writing more and more. I am even looking into ways to not only donate money to causes of my choice (forest conservation, stopping land development, keeping the democrats in the White House), but to actually work towards enlightening people on these issues and hopefully raise money in the process). I know I have it in me to see myself as a success. To be a success. But I must work harder. Be better. The object, though,  is to redirect  thinking AWAY from men and put my brain to better use.

The addictive nature of what drives me to remain in love is essentially MASKING something far more sinister: an inability to stand on my own and be, in my eyes, a success. My goal is to overcome this. My goal is to not only recognize the 500-pound elephant in the room, but to ask him firmly and kindly to leave.