What Is Processing The Trauma?

[Rumors]

Your hijacking ravens thread sol. Rightkind was having conversation with raven and you replied negatively to a post that rightkind was having with raven. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and allowed to work through this by whatever means they find useful. There is no reason for you to personally attack anyone. However, if one sentence can elicit such a response, perhaps you are in fact suffering. You are so angry and I am sorry for you.

 

[Nicolette]

SOL please be mindful that all opinions are to be respected and no member is to be personally attacked. From what I see you have taken it upon yourself to personalise opinions as a reflection of yourself which they are not. It's actually not all about you nor were posts directed against you. You are also coming close to trying to force your opinion 'not to talk' onto others. Remember the rules and respect others for the way they deal with their trauma thank you.

 

[rightkindofme]

Sooner or later someone will tell you point blank to SHUT UP and then it'll hit home that maybe you shouldn't talk about it anymore.

I "talk" about it here, but nowhere else. I choose to not have my other relationships be trauma-centric.

If I were to shut my mouth I would have to suffer in silence. If you took that as a statement about you, well, there isn't anything I can do about that.

For every person who has dogmatically yelled at me to shut up as you so eloquently put it I have had at least ten people who thank me for speaking and then feel motivated to share their own stories with me.

I don't talk about a singular trauma over and over, but thanks for insulting me. As my life goes on I deal with different layers of experiences. Each of my twelve rapists occurred in very different circumstances. I don't talk about any one in particular very often. I have a partner who assures me that I do not beat dead horses. I keep moving on to different things to process. I'm sorry I have so much of it that I need to talk and am thus offensive to you.

People telling me to shut up makes me feel like I have two choices: get angry or die. I choose to get angry at the people who tell me to shut up and believe that their experience of the world is just not my problem.

I don't walk up to strangers on the street and dump on them. I very carefully cultivate relationships. If I have to Molly coddle someone they aren't friend material for me.

You are allowed to have different standards, of course.

 

[rightkindofme]

Honestly, I don't know. I don't know what people want. People would tell me I was cold. That's how I had to be to survive as a kid. I don't know any different. I've just always felt empty and alone or lonely and no idea how to change it. I was not allowed friends as a kid much.

So, this may sound a bit weird but you might want to talk to autistic folks. I have a very close friend + on/off lover whom I have known for thirteen years now. He is autistic and as an adult he went on to study NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and tantra and sex magick and all kinds of interesting stuff. He has stacks of certificates because he has been through all of these different training programs. He didn't get his autism diagnosis until he was in list mid 40's.

(I'm not implying you have autism.)

I have learned a lot of tricks from my friend. I understand that my friend's level of motivation towards trying to understand relationships is not common. But he talks about the coldness. He talks about how to deal with the emotional component of being in relationship with someone while not experiencing the same set of emotions at all.

I feel empty and alone and lonely. I'm "happily" married and I have two kids. Those feelings inside me are just feelings. How many people have you known for five years? Ten years? Twenty years? Just because you don't have warm fuzzy feelings that doesn't make something "not a relationship". How do you manage to gain access to sex--it sounds like you can manage that. Are they all one night stands?

I'll tell you--if you are good at picking up one night stands then you have some skills that you can use toward building relationships.

I fake being happy for other peoples benefit. Not in big dramatic ways but like I've worked on my facial expressions. I have had to spend a bunch of time in front of a mirror trying to learn how to soften grief lines and not look angry. Naturally, left to my unconscious, my face looks like my life. I have had to work hard on looking "welcoming". I have had to learn that most people don't want to know anything about me. (See above advice to just shut up.) They want to hear light and fluffy positive things and that is it.

I try not to take it personally that they don't care about me because frankly... I don't care about them very much either. I mean, I have the standard "Oh no my herd is rejecting me THAT MEANS I WILL DIE!!!" kind of internal response but I have learned to ignore it. I try to be conspicuously dense about rejection. I tell people, "I go through life with a certain feeling in the pit of my stomach that everyone hates me and wants me to die so I have to overcome a lot of little signals to get here. Thus if you have a problem with me you will probably have to tell me very directly or the subtle signals will get lost in the mire of what I am already ignoring in order to be here."

And then I just keep showing up. I don't have intense relationships with very many people. But I have a lot of people I have known for more than ten years. Do you have any hobbies? I like vintage dance, historical reenactment events, bdsm, and role-playing game communities for finding friends. The folks in those communities tend to be on the weird side so they have more tolerance for my quirks. :) Where do you feel comfortable?

Not everyone gets to have the coupled-up-partner type of relationship. That's a fact of life. But that doesn't mean you don't have relationships. One of the easiest ways to form a relationship is to note when someone kind of close to you has a kid. Start showing up and offering help. Like, go do the dishes. Make them food. Don't over-extend yourself or commit to being a slave or anything but there is a natural transition period there where people are extra helpful. If you show up as "a member of your extended community" and you help and make their lives better (and new parents need help--believe me) then people will be inclined to include you in the circle of oxytocin inspired love fest.

I've been surprised at the people who have done this with my kids. It wasn't who I thought would do it. Those people didn't show up. But other people are trying hard to form relationships. Several friends who are just to the point of realizing they won't have children this lifetime. I feel so blessed to have them.

Have you ever heard of polyamory? It is the idea that you can love more than one person, basically. I have had consistent problems over my life with the difference between prescriptive relationship labels and descriptive relationship labels. I want to "decide what kind of relationship we have" and then just treat someone like that. I have boxes in my head I stick people in. Like A list friend B list friend C list friend. I categorize them based on "how much this person actually cares about me". Polyamory gave me the language of primary, secondary, or tertiary partner with there being some kind of hierarchy of time and emotional energy spent. (Lots of people in the community HATE this kind of pyramid and want everyone to be "equal".)

I have a lot of really weird, non-standard relationships. Like the one with my close friend + on/off lover mentioned above. We go long periods of time where our relationship kind of goes dormant but he always comes back. At this point my husband and I have decided that we need to be monogamous so that we can stop using our bonus energy for sex hunting and use it for other life pursuits instead. My close friend is forming relationships with my kids. He is the only "uncle" they have from me because my family is not in the picture. Let me tell you, this isn't what I expected when I met him through kinky sex experiences when I was eighteen. Ha.

I don't think I "feel close" or "loving" the way other people do. I don't identify with how they talk about their kids or husbands or parents. I feel numb. But I understand that what matters is my behavior. It took a lot of years of reading and studying for me to decide "what kind of person" I wanted to be. I have worked towards it unrelentingly. I want to be someone who is connected and has relationships. I don't want to be alone even though I really like being alone in a room.

It's all so very confusing. I feel like I have had to go through a process of understanding that I will never have many relationships that fit into any standard molds. My husband and I are both very very weird people. He's autistic. (I love me some spectrum men. They don't get "triggered" by me having emotions and I can have a rational conversation with someone while crying they just have to be able to ignore my outbursts. It works in a very weird way.)

I guess it comes down to "what do *you* want from a relationship?" I want to be able to go out and see a few consistent groups of people about four times a week. I want to cycle between more or less the same people for the next twenty years. I'm careful what I talk about with which groups. (I'm err not as out with the home schooling group as I am with the bdsm crowd. But the home schooling group is aware I wrote a book about incest and some of them read my blog where I am completely OUT. But that's an opt-in space.)

Are there people who dislike me? Sure. I made sure the people who run the groups understand that people will probably complain about me and I would like a chance to deal with anything proactively before I am put on "probation" or kicked out and I find that bringing it up in advance makes people do what I want. Manipulation 101.

I was moved more than fifty times before I was eighteen. Before living with my husband the longest I ever lived in one place was with my Owner in a 24/7 Master/slave relationship. That relationship was basically completely non-emotional. He's one of the coldest men I've ever met. But he did exactly what he agreed to do so it worked at the time. I didn't have friendships as a kid either. I've had a really weird set of adult relationships.

I'm going to stop now. :) I hope I'm not irritating you. I understand that I irritate people sometimes. Ha.

 

[raven123]

RightKind,

This is me, save the actually ever treating a real person like that. I read this like 3am in the morning. Been too hot today to run the computer.

"First of all, when you are getting neglected and you are spending a lot of time alone, what happens is you don’t know what it means to be connected or relational to other people. You spend a lot of time alone daydreaming and making up fantasies in your head that make you feel better because what you are making up in your head in fantasy will chemically change your body and create a sense of joy or relief. That [chemical change] is what they are actually addicted to. The addiction isn’t to love as much as it is to the fantasy.
When these individuals get old enough, they begin to form a fantasy in their head of somebody rescuing them from being so alone, of making them matter. The fantasy usually takes the form of being rescued by – it is like Cinderella — a knight in shining armor or a wonder woman, who will take care of them and help them come out of their dilemma of being too alone and worthless and not knowing what to do. They will put that face of fantasy over the face of someone who comes into their life and is walled-in, non-relational and shut down."

I had no role models as a kid for anything relationship-wise (or anything else) so I watched TV and movies and read fiction learning everything from there pretty much all my childhood. I really had no friends at all till like 11/12 because we moved all the time and didn't really have any big buddies. And, my sperm donor wouldn't let me have any and controlled any that I did. Probably to cover his abuse. Only friends I ever had were in my head. I was bullied a lot, too. To deal with crushing loneliness and depression (and wishing I was dead a lot), I just dreamed of something like I saw and read and that was it.

I didn't know what that was till I read that early this morning. It's called love addiction. In me, I just don't have the abusive wives or ex-girlfriends. And, I'm a sex addict because of rape and it was my only escape. I knew lots of people that liked casual sex. It is not hard to find in those circles. Picking up women is ridiculous when you know how to find them. Big deal all that sex, it didn't mean a thing to me or them. Easy to not get involved when everyone is unavailable.

If you have parents that actually do love each other, whatever that is, or adults around like that, as a kid, you learn it. When you are raped at a young age like me, and all the other abuse for years and years that ruins pretty much everything. Imagine being told you are worthless day in and day out as a kid on top of being raped, and having a brother that both parents prefer over you. There is NO core self like in the average person for me. There was also no child development in me. I became an adult at like 5/6 years old knowing all I was ever good for was two sickos that raped me. My sperm donor hated me and my mother preferred my brother and let my sperm donor abuse me mentally and physically as to curry favor with him.

That Pia Mellody woman made sense on that love addiction. I really have no idea what is real anyway. No wonder nobody wanted me and turned me down, except for sex. So, truthfully, there is NO fixing me myself. I have no clue what's real anymore and what else was lies I believed in. The religion I was taught was a lie. Good, cause I hate it. Do I hate life? YES! I also HATE THE PRICKS THAT RUINED MINE AND WISH THEM EVIL! THE SAME EVIL THEY GAVE ME!!! F**K THEM ALL!

Now, if anyone else wonders why I have so much anger inside, gee, not sure what else I'm supposed to tell you. I also had to be perfect, unemotional or the emotional and physically abuse was even worse. It's all been a lie.

I'm glad you met that guy and hope he's made you happy. I really don't know what I'm looking for. Nothing makes sense except it seems I've been cheated every way possible out of almost everything.

 

[raven123]

ScaredofLonely,

"This is why therapists exist. You talk to them in a structured setting. They are not emotionally attached to you and are trained to deal with such info."

Unless they lie their butts off like mine did. Not all therapists can deal with rape and many shouldn't be. I think ethics in the "therapy" profession is pretty low. Even some of them I've met online (posted how my shrinks did me) have said so. Treat anything for a buck, despite what it does to the client, is the motto of most IMO. Mine didn't even want to hear about my rape. Because I was a trusting FOOL who didn't know any better, they humored me, took my cash and we're okay with me dumping them cause they couldn't help anyway save the three losers who told me I was a "hopeless case".

 

[raven123]

Love Addicts usually didn’t have enough appropriate bonding with their caregivers…Caring transmits the messages, ‘You’re important, you matter, and you are loved,’...when children do not get enough connection and nurture from a parent, they experience serious difficulty with self-esteem. Love Addicts usually experienced much deep pain and sadness and an acute sense of loss during childhood, because a part of themselves was denied the opportunity to grow properly when their caregivers failed to take care of them. This pain and sadness I call ‘the pain of the precious child.’ It goes very deep and back far beyond the earliest conscious memories. As children, Love Addicts experienced enormous fear because they were helpless to create a connection with their caregivers. In counseling they often describe that child-fear as a sense of having a loss of their own breath, as if their air supply had been cut off and they were literally dying. They also describe being empty because they weren’t filled with nurture by their caregivers. And because they weren’t nurtured for who they were, they had trouble being or liking their natural selves.”

“One way such children may escape the pain of severe abandonment by the parents is to fantasize about being rescued by a hero of some kind.Little girls may imagine a knight and shining armor who has loving feelings for her and who does things that demonstrate this love by connecting with her, finally giving her life meaning and vitality…Children spend so much time in this fantasy world because it creates a state of euphoria. I spent hours as a child daydreaming about my knight in shining armor. If I felt bad I could play out this fantasy in my mind, get high in about ten minutes, and stay there for at least two or three hours.”

That's what I did. I didn't know any better.

It's also why we freely give sex--looking to fill our emptiness. I knew that. I just didn't know why we did it, where it came from.

If you abuse your kids, you ARE a low-life piece of shit.

 

[rightkindofme]

The more you write about the circumstances of your life the more we sound like twins separated at birth. I have buried myself in books and fantasies. I learned how to treat people by reading Jane Austen books. I f*cked half the western seaboard.

Things got better for me when I decided that my parents destroyed my childhood and I was going to go out and meet hundreds of people so that I could find one or two who like me. It's hard to put so much effort out. I'm kind of tired of people feeling free to tell me how much they dislike me and disapprove of me. I try to comfort myself with the belief that despite me being the "broken one" they are much bigger assholes.

I understand that you have been given the short end of the stick. I understand how hard this is. I really do. It sounds like we had very parallel lives. My father raped me continually from babyhood. I understand not having parents who love you. My dad wasn't the nice kind of incestuous father who mixes nice with mean. He was just evil. :(

Your life isn't over. But you will have to decide what you want to use your prodigious energy to work towards. If you are that angry then you have energy to burn. You could do something with it. Is it easy oh god no.

I mentioned you to my shrink. She is sadly unsurprised by the difficulty you are having locating a therapist. I asked her to hunt for someone in north Florida in her contacts. (I said someone in my online support forum is having a hard time finding a therapist to work with male rape clients and asked if she could ask around for a good person. I hope that is not violating confidentiality.) I will let you know what she finds.

The only reason I have relationships at all is I went out and pursued having sex and relationships as a major hobby. I wanted people so bad. I was to tired of being alone. A lot of people haven't liked me. I've made some stupid mistakes and lost friendships. I have to keep going or I will die. There are always new connections to be made. There are billions of people in the world.

All of this has to come from you though. That's the hard part. Deciding that even though you feel useless and broken that you are going to move forward acting how you want to act and accommodating your various personality quirks.

I wish I could bottle the will to live and send it to you. Lately I am reading books about resiliency and the survivor personality. Apparently one of the dominating characteristics is being contradictory. Being patient and impatient. Loving and cold. Etc. goodness that's me! Ha.

I think about you many times a day.

 

[raven123]

Rightkind,

Thank you so much. It sound like we are twins. I'm very sorry you suffered so much. I wish it was different for us. Your dad is as sick a f*ck as mine. I say sperm donor since mine wasn't remotely a dad, or a human beingI've helped a lot of people and fat lotta good that did me. I kept a lot from not killing themselves.

I met a lot of people. Unfortunately, I attracted the bad ones more than any good ones. Repel the good and attract the bad. That's that love addiction. I posted all I've found on it below. Keep in mind, I literally have learned that stuff in the past 48-72 hours about me.

That fantasy is all we knew how to do growing up in abuse. I split when I was raped at 3 1/2 years. Split again at 5 years when I realized me being raped was never going to be heard and, since my "brother" (I really am not his brother since I'm not the original person) was the preferred one and I think my mom even hated me on occasion. I don't think you can love somebody and let them be abused for your own selfish needs like my mom did. She had the perfect childhood herself so I give her no excuses. Today, she's having an emotional affair with my brother. Neither of them know they are doing it. LOL I keep my trap shut. None of my business.

I was resilient. I'm just tired and sick physically. I have an enlarged heart and one of my lungs is bad. Congestive heart failure courtesy of my very long battle with thyroid issues, which was caused by abuse. Loneliness IS my problem and it's killing me. I wasn't allowed friends as a kid that could do me any good. That was so my sperm donor wasn't found out.

I have no doubt had we stayed longer where I was raped, it would've been a long-term sex abuse thing. I think once that innocence is stolen, you don't ever get it to know it. It's lost. Life is precious people say. Mine just wasn't to anyone as a kid. A lot of people could've done something and didn't. A lot of people in a lot of churches have lots to answer for one day. They knew what my sperm donor was and never offered to help me, my mom or my "brother". Other than being raised like in a cult, it's why I hate Christian churches.

In 1998, I went to a pastor of this huge Baptist church and asked for help cause my therapists sucked. I told him about my rape (just I was raped at 3 1/2) and asked about counseling. He knew where to find rape and sex abuse counseling, too. Son-of-a-bitch told me to see my shrink. We can't deal with those mental people was what he was thinking. F*ck him! At that moment, I thought then, God doesn't give a f*ck. God hates me just like I was raised to believe. Jesus is indifferent or hates my ass, too. I quit that church a week or so later. I went Catholic. Baptist bother you to do all kinds of shit for them and then don't want to associate unless you are in certain cliques. The Catholic bunch doesn't care one way or the other if you show up or not. They leave you alone. They don't pretend selfish and hypocrisy, they live it. ROFLMAO! Worked for me. God gives a f*ck. It's the ones claiming God that really don't I've found.

Thank you again. Even if your therapist finds one near me. I'm broke with no insurance or income to afford them. :(


*****

ADDICTED TO LOVE – WHAT IS LOVE ADDICTION?
“Love is all you need.” For the person addicted to love, this becomes more than a popular lyric. It becomes literal truth. What is love addiction, and why are some men and women addicted to love? How can the problem be identified, and how can those addicted be helped?

A Psychological Addiction

Love addiction is a psychological addiction, a result of unfulfilled childhood needs. Children whose needs remain unrecognised may adjust by learning to limit their expectations. This limitation process may take the form of core beliefs such as, “My needs don’t count,” “Getting close will hurt” and “I’m not lovable.” Such beliefs do not satisfy childhood needs, leaving them still to be met later in life. As adults, addictive lovers remain dependent upon others to care for them, protect them and solve their problems.

Those with love addiction are characteristically familiar with desperate hopes and seemingly unending fears. Fearing rejection, pain, unfamiliar experiences, and having no faith in their ability–or even their right–to inspire love, they wait, wish, and hope for love, perhaps their least familiar experience.

According to Pia Melody author of Facing Love Addiction there is a distinct pattern of love addiction. There is the love addict and love avoidant. Both of which do a distinct and toxic dance with each other in which the love addict pursues and wants the love avoidant to love them back, to be with them, to pay attention to them etc. and the love avoidant who is afraid of engulfment, turns away from the love addict. At times the love addict may then turn away, and the love avoidant turns back to chase them, but they are rarely facing each other, they are rarely in the same place, committed to the same relationship.

Characteristics of Love Addiction

· Is all consuming and obsessive.
· Is inhibited.
· Avoids risk or change.
· Lacks true intimacy.
· Is manipulative, strikes deals.
· Is dependent and submissive.
· Demands the loved one’s devotion.

Effects of Love Addiction

Love Addiction can become an obsession with finding the world in one lover. A person’s own growth and development has been hindered early in life, and addicted lovers attach themselves to their lover’s identity. Often, this dependency results in their drawing unearned pride from their lover’s accomplishments. Sometimes it leads to their demanding, for themselves, undeserved recognition for their lover’s achievements.

Fearful of change, addictive lovers will neglect individual development of self and find the ultimate security in believing they can become indistinguishable from their partner. Sometimes the fear of change is so great all individual development of abilities, interests, and desires is suppressed. Stagnation is a common characteristic of addictive love relationships.

The desperate need for security leads to emotional scheming. Addictive lovers are inclined to think that doing things for their partner will secure their love. The resulting opportunities for disappointment and resentment are sufficient to make such scheming pointless. But addictive lovers are obsessed with impossible needs and unrealistic expectations. Love demands honesty and integrity.

Love Addicts Anonymous (LAA) is a 12-step program for individuals that admit to being powerless over distorted thoughts, feelings and behaviour when it comes to love, fantasies and relationships. The love addiction assessment consists of 40 Questions to help determine if someone is a love addict. If you can answer yes to more than a few of the following questions, you would be considered a love addict. Love addiction can come in different forms and if all questions do not apply it can still indicate behaviours of addictive love.

1. You are very needy when it comes to relationships.
2. You fall in love very easily and too quickly.
3. When you fall in love, you can’t stop fantasizing—even to do important things. You can’t help yourself.
4. Sometimes, when you are lonely and looking for companionship, you lower your standards and settle for less than you want or deserve.
5. When you are in a relationship, you tend to smother your partner.
6. More than once, you have gotten involved with someone who is unable to commit—hoping he or she will change.
7. Once you have bonded with someone, you can’t let go.
8. When you are attracted to someone, you will ignore all the warning signs that this person is not good for you.
9. Initial attraction is more important to you than anything else when it comes to falling in love and choosing a partner. Falling in love over time does not appeal to you and is not an option.
10. When you are in love, you trust people who are not trustworthy. The rest of the time you have a hard time trusting people.We all do crazy things for love, sometimes we humiliate or demean ourselves, but love addiction is a pattern of engaging in relationships that are unhealthy.

Visit http://loveaddicts.org/40questions.html for the full love addiction assessment.
Other characteristics of love addiction are (which apply to both men and women) from the book, Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood:

1. Typically, we come from a dysfunctional home in which our emotional needs were not met.
2. Having received little real nurturing ourselves, we try to fill this unmet need vicariously by becoming a caregiver, especially to people who appear in some way needy.
3. Because we were never able to change our parent(s) into the warm, loving caretaker(s) we longed for, we respond deeply to the familiar type of emotionally unavailable people whom we can again try to change, through our love.
4. Terrified of abandonment, we will do anything to keep relationships from dissolving.
5. Almost nothing is too much trouble, takes too much time, or is too expensive if it will “help” the people we are involved with.
6. Accustomed to lack of love in personal relationships, we are willing to wait, hope, and try harder to please.
7. We are willing to take far more than 50 percent of the responsibility, guilt and blame in any relationship.
8. Our self-esteem is critically low, and deep inside we do not believe we deserve to be happy. Rather, we believe we must earn the right to enjoy life.
9. We have a desperate need to control people and our relationships, having experienced little security in childhood. We mask our efforts to control people and situations as “being helpful.”
10. In a relationship, we are much more in touch with our dream of how it could be than the reality of our situation.
11. We are addicted to people and emotional pain.
12. We may be predisposed emotionally and often biochemically to becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, and/or certain foods, particularly sugary ones.
13. By being drawn to people with problems that need fixing, or by being enmeshed in situations that are chaotic, uncertain, and emotionally painful, we avoid focusing on our responsibility to ourselves.
14. We may have a tendency toward episodes of depression, which we try to forestall through the excitement provided by an unstable relationship.
15. We are not attracted to people who are kind, stable, reliable and interested in us. We find such “nice” people boring.


We have all known her or him. The serial dater. The one who drags you to the party or event so she won’t be alone when she’s out there looking. The friend that rapturously describes every detail of her ideal lover in the heat of summer, but who you just know will be out there looking again by Halloween.

It can be difficult to understand how the gifts of love and romance can evolve into destructive, compulsive patterns. Yet for the love addicted, romance, sexuality, and emotional closeness are experiences more often beset with painful emotional highs and lows than gifted with real intimacy or love. Living in a chaotic, sometimes desperate world of need and emotional despair, fearful of being alone or rejected, the love addict endlessly longs for that “special” relationship, his or her other half, the one that will make him feel complete. She lives in fear of never finding HIM, or worse, afraid that when she does meet that special guy she herself will be found unworthy of love. No matter how clever, how smart, how physically attractive or successful, the love addict feels incomplete and haunted by a desire for partnership that if fulfilled would somehow make life complete.
Joni, a 28-year-old banker had this to say about her search for love.

Eventually I began to hide my dates. I didn't want my friends to know that I met someone new because so many times in the past I had said, “He’s the one,” and then have it not work out. I thought they would laugh at me if I brought yet another guy to the table. In desperation I tried dating clubs, speed dating, Internet sites, and even attending synagogue – though I’m not Jewish. I asked everyone I know to introduce me to someone they could see me dating.

And then there were the hobbies I didn't even like, desperately hoping to find HIM while making ceramics, going hiking, or playing bad tennis. When I found one sometimes I would have sex right away hoping that would work, other times I would avoid sex until we knew each other better – trying to find the mix that would get it to WORK OUT but it never did. For a while I thought maybe I wasn't cute or smart enough, later I just blamed the guys I dated for being screwed up. Ultimately it seemed no matter how hard I tried or where I put the blame, I ended up alone. Over time, my life became more and more about looking for the right guy and less and less about enjoying myself and doing the things that make me happy.

Caught up in the constant search for a partner, the love addict’s endless intrigue, flirtations, sexual liaisons and affairs often leave a path of destruction and negative consequences in their wake. Ironically, he or she has likely had many opportunities for a ‘good enough’ loving experience, but all they know is the intensity of “falling in love” or the drama of “the problem relationship,” while ignorant of the relative calm of true intimacy. Struggling to have the spouse or relationship that everyone else seems to have and he or she does not, they attempt to resolve these painful circumstances by engaging in even more searching, desperately looking for THE ONE.

A sad irony is that even when dating someone who is safe, stable, and appropriate, he or she often becomes steadily more dissatisfied and anxious. Bored and fearful of being trapped with the wrong person, the love addict will shove aside a perfectly acceptable situation or start looking outside of their good relationship for yet another new intensity or “love” experience. Thus the cycle begins anew.

Addictive relationships are characterized by unhealthy dependency, guilt, and abuse. Unconsciously convinced of their lack of worth and not feeling truly lovable, the love addict may use seduction, control, guilt, and manipulation to attract and hold onto a romantic or sexual partner. At times, despairing about a cycle of unhappy affairs, broken relationships, and liaisons, he or she may try a “swearing off” period, not unlike the anorexic stage of an eating disorder. They may for a while decide that “not being in the game at all” will solve the problem, only to later find the same issues reappearing whenever intimacy is reattempted. Their denial of the problem can be seen in the ways he or she avoids taking responsibility for past or present relationship problems, blaming date after date rather than looking in the mirror. Like the alcoholic who offers up stressful jobs or financial problems as justification for his excessive drinking, the love addicts’ cycle of dramatic and empty relationships keeps her ever distracted from taking stock of herself or gaining the insight required for change.
Recovering love addicts who have worked on themselves in therapy and 12-step programs like Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) can relate to the idea of having used a well-rehearsed repertoire of manipulation to find and hold on to sexual and romantic partners. Jose, a 32-year-old gay male designer put it like this:

I never once went to a gym without looking around for someone to date or if that failed, at least someone who I could get to have sex with me. In life I was always dressed to find HIM and always hunting in one form or another to find the special attention and sense of importance that only HE might make me feel if I could just find HIM. It was necessary for my healing and recovery for me to recognize all the sexual and other strategies I used to employ to attract and manipulate men for what they were. As I slowly began to cast these aside, with the support of 12 step members, friends, and therapy I actually began to learn my own value and real human worth, which over time has helped to remove the powerful and empty fantasy life that I lived in for so long.

Unlike the kind of partnership and dependency that many of us seek to compliment our lives, the love and romance addict searches for someone outside of themselves to provide the emotional stability they lack within. Working to escape their own emptiness, they may find troubled or emotionally challenged partners to focus on, thereby giving away to others what they most want for themselves.

Ultimately as their own emotional needs remain unmet, the love addict may act out through verbal or physical abuse of a partner or though excessive spending, sex addiction, affairs, or drugs, experiences that will ultimately reinforce the very feelings of shame, self hatred, and loneliness that he or she seeks to escape. When love and sex are sought as a means to distract from emotional pain, partner choice becomes skewed. Compatibility becomes based on “whether or not you will leave me,” “how intense our sex life is,” or “how I can hook you into staying” rather than on how much we have in common and whether you might truly become a peer, friend, and companion.

Here are some typical signs of love or romantic addiction:

· Frequently mistaking intense sexual experiences or romantic infatuation for love
· Constantly searching for romance and love
· Using sex as a means to find love
· Falling in love with people ‘met’ online yet hasn’t met them in real life
· Problems maintaining intimate relationships once the newness and excitement has worn off
· Consistent unhappiness or anxiety when alone
· When not in a relationship, misusing sex to mask loneliness
· Consistently choosing abusive or emotionally unavailable partners
· Giving emotionally, financially, or otherwise to partners who require a great deal of care-taking but do not or can not reciprocate what they are given
· When in a relationship feeling detached, fearful, or unhappy; when out of a relationship, feeling desperate and alone
· Using sex, money, seduction, drama, or other schemes to “hook” or hold onto a partner
· Missing out on important family, career, recreational, or social experiences in order to find, create, or maintain a romantic relationship
· Giving up, by avoiding sex or relationships for long periods of time, to “solve the problem”
· Being unable to leave unhealthy or abusive relationships despite repeated promises to self or others
· Returning to previously unmanageable or painful relationships despite promises to self or others not to

For those seeking a long-term a relationship, healthy romantic intensity is the catalyst that brings about the bonding necessary to sustain love and attachment. The beginning stages of a potential love relationship are the most exhilarating because that emotional state helps us to bond and attach. This is when how that date looks, walks, talks, eats, and thinks is the subject of endless fantasy, excitement, and late night phone calls. Romance itself, with or without sex, does encourage personal growth when we are open to learning. Only then can each new relationship offer insight and self-awareness. Most people easily relate to that “rush” of first love and romance, the stuff of endless songs, greeting cards, and fantasy, but understand that it is a temporary state and not the final product of a healthy relationship.

More than romance, intensity, or even great sex, real intimacy is an experience of being known and accepted by someone over time. Loving relationships develop in part as those first exhilarating times together form a foundation of a deeper, long-term closeness. It is that deeper closeness which ultimately feeds our hearts and keeps us content long after the rush of new romance has passed. Those with significant patterns of problem love and sex relationships like those described above need to get help –and help is available. With the support of therapists trained to treat sex and love addiction, 12-step and faith-based groups, and taking a “time out” from dating in order to learn and grow, the romance/love addict can move beyond the desperate search for a partner and into the long-term intimacy, health, and the dignity they truly desire.

1- TYPICAL LOVE ADDICT

The Typical Love Addict illustrates, on the whole, the most common and recognized love addict type there is, demonstrating the most predictable relational patterns for the majority of people who fall into addictive relationships. Time and again they become preoccupied and obsessed with attaining or keeping a the perfect person, "Soul mate", "Superman" or "Wonder Woman" who will make their lives meaningful; and give them unconditional love/positive regard they are so desperate for. In their obsession, fantasy and denial they quickly fall into and become infatuated in relationships.

Essentially their identity is formed only through their relationship with their partner. Because of impaired boundaries- they are in constant pursuit to merge with their partner; therefore, they become clingy and smother their partners. They take all focus off the themselves (escaping) while throwing themselves into their partners life. They try to earn love and attention that will guarantee they will not be left, abandoned, and alone. one of their greatest fears.


2- ROMANTIC LOVE ADDICT

Romantic Love Addicts are "romantic junkies" and relationship "hoppers"... they compulsively hop from one infatuated relationship to another in an attempt to keep their supply (dependency/addiction) going. Initially, they often believe they're in love with a person they start a relationship with, but they don't truly fall in love. Romantic Love Addicts are addicted to the fantasy created in their minds- and have false hopes (unrealistic expectation) that one day they will find the right one who somehow will keep the "rush", passion, and intensity going all the time; which is an impossible task for anyone.


3- ANOREXIC LOVE ADDICT

The Anorexic Love Addict compulsively decides to avoid intimacy. the AVOIDANCE of giving or receiving sexual or emotional intimate contact. Their emotional state becomes a rigid and compulsive avoidance of relationships. The Anorexic Love Addict falls victim to in an obsessive state in which the physical, mental, and emotional task of avoiding romantic relationships rule one?s life. Again and again (sometimes it may be just one painful experience) they experience the painful grief and withdrawal symptoms when a relationship.

They come to a point where they are tired of feeling let down and betrayed and decide, "No more relationships." In their distorted perception- the experience of feeling betrayed, abandoned and rejected again and again is too much to take. Anorexic Love Addict types move from one emotional polar extreme to the other with no in-between. Their reality becomes either all black-or all white (either desperate for love, or desperate to keep away love). Even if the Non-Romantic love addict is in a committed relationship or married- they can become emotionally attached, dependent upon and addicted to someone outside without romantic or sexual intentions- including someone of the same sex.


4- NON-ROMANTIC LOVE ADDICT

The Non-Romantic Love Addict becomes obsessed to another person but has nothing to do with love and romance. They can become obsessively addicted to anyone-- an acquaintance, friend, priest, teacher, co-worker, child, or celebrity.


5- AVOIDANT LOVE ADDICT

The Avoidant Love Addict type is the partner Typical Love Addicts most commonly and repeatedly fall for in relationships. They become dependent on their partners neediness and are only attracted to people who they can control. They rely on feeling empowered from a person who looks up to them, worships them, puts them up on a pedestal, which provides a kind of narcissistic supply. Traits of narcissism-- being wanted, needed, and worshiped is their drug. It is why they are attracted to love addict partners in relationships.

The sense of having control in relationships is very important- and control feeds their grandiosity and sense of being entitled. Feeling power, and therefore, control over their needy love addict partner- provides them a source of self-worth and meaning in their own lives. Moreover, it keeps them from potential intimately connecting and being vulnerable in relationships, which is often one of their greatest fears.


6- ABUSIVE LOVE ADDICT

The Abusive Love Addict is an individual who, in relationships, employs both emotional and physical abuse, violence and intimidation. Abusive Love Addicts virtually always attract ''Typical Love Addicts'' willing to tolerate callous and spiteful acts against them. They exhibit the same elements of the emotionally ''Avoidant Love Addict''- but with the added element of becoming abusive. Their goal is to keep their partner in prison, emotionally and physically. They feel empowered and secured when they control their partner.


7- BATTERED LOVE ADDICT

Battered Love Addicts are love addict types who routinely tolerate and stay in relationships with ''Abusive Love Addict'' partners just Woman and men who fall into abusive relationships are virtually always dependent at some level to their partner despite the harm they receive. Battered Love Addicts are much more often than not, females; however, there are a small percentage of males are of this type as well.


8- SEX AND LOVE ADDICT

The Sex and Love Addict type display the uniform patterns of the Typical Love Addict, but the additional characteristic is the Sex and Love Addict type also is highly preoccupied with sex and sexual fantasies with only ONE particular person, usually a romantic partner. They aren't in love with their partner so much as they are in love with the sexual acts with their partner.

The Sex and Love Addict rarely seeks sex outside of a romantic relationship (unlike pure Sex Addicts).The sexual obsession to one partner becomes a significant driving force for staying in a relationship. Like most love addicts- they will tolerate misery and pain in a relationship, however, they do it solely for maintaining sexual intimacy with that one person. It is not love that's the problem- but choices the Parental love Addict Types make in the name of love.


9- PARENTAL LOVE ADDICT

The Parental Love Addict type is unlike other love addict types given that romance is not involved. This type is a parent who loves too much, not a romantic partner, but their own child. The Parental Love Addict becomes dependent on, and reliant to, one or more of their children to escape their feelings of inner emptiness and impaired sense of self. They become enmeshed in their childrens daily lives. They see their children as extensions of themselves. Intensely over involved with their children, they have a great need to make their children anything that makes them (the parent) feel secure.

They want their children to like them at the cost of providing healthy parenting. They placate, give too much, and do too much leaving the child feeling inadequate or invalid, even suffocated. They can't see that their children are doing badly while claiming to do good. They violate the boundaries of their child frequently. They share too much information, vent, or manipulate a child for the gain of only themselves.


Love addiction is a condition in which individuals do not fall in love with someone who will return their affection. Rather, they are attracted to somebody who will neglect the relationship. For more insight into the subject, we turned to an expert: Pia Mellody, Senior Clinical Advisor for The Meadows and Clinical Consultant for Mellody House and Dakota, who traces the origins of love addiction to early childhood trauma caused by neglect or abandonment.

In the following interview, Mellody discusses the ideology of the addiction, how to recognize it, the stages of addiction from attraction and fantasy to denial and obsession, and the recovery process for love addicts based on 12-step work and counselling. Truth be told, Mellody reveals that she herself was the inspiration that led her to research the subject, which led to her writing the book Facing Love Addiction.

“I originally really watched myself doing this crazy stuff and my partner reacting to me and me reacting to him,” she says. “I told a friend about it and she about fell on the floor. She copped to it, too. I started talking about it to the patients here at The Meadows, where I have worked for years, and they [admitted], ‘I do that.’ It was stunning. I was surprised that everybody else was doing it, so I wrote a book. Of all the stuff that I do, and I have been around a long time and have written four books with two more in the hopper, this is what people really relate to.”

What are the signs of love addiction?
Pia Mellody: The ideology of it has to do with neglect or abandonment in early childhood, where somebody is getting neglected or the parents aren’t really being very relational with the child because they are wrapped up in their own life, they leave or they die. This is somebody who the mother doesn’t attach to. Birth through five, if you have a lot of neglect in there and that continues that is when you will form these dynamics.

Is there a personality type that is more susceptible than another?

Pia Mellody: What makes people more susceptible is simply neglect. There is not a personality type. You can be the king — or queen — of the world, but if you have neglect, this type of thing is going to go on, although people may not recognize it for what it is.
Is there something that people can recognize in themselves or their family should recognize?

Pia Mellody: This is what goes on with them: First of all, when you are getting neglected and you are spending a lot of time alone, what happens is you don’t know what it means to be connected or relational to other people. You spend a lot of time alone daydreaming and making up fantasies in your head that make you feel better because what you are making up in your head in fantasy will chemically change your body and create a sense of joy or relief. That [chemical change] is what they are actually addicted to. The addiction isn’t to love as much as it is to the fantasy.

When these individuals get old enough, they begin to form a fantasy in their head of somebody rescuing them from being so alone, of making them matter. The fantasy usually takes the form of being rescued by – it is like Cinderella — a knight in shining armor or a wonder woman, who will take care of them and help them come out of their dilemma of being too alone and worthless and not knowing what to do. They will put that face of fantasy over the face of someone who comes into their life and is walled-in, non-relational and shut down. That will be the trigger. Then they go into the fantasy and somehow who the person really is will show up and they go into withdrawal from the fantasy.
Then what happens is they will either go into treatment, or they will medicate the fantasy by sexually acting out to get even, or eating themselves into fat serenity, or drinking, or smoking, or working to stabilize the withdrawal experience. Then if the person comes back into their life, they go, “You really love me,” and they go back into the fantasy. It is a whole cycle. I have treated people who were love addicted to their boss, but the boss knew nothing about it, because it was all in their head. There was no relationship whatsoever except a boss and a secretary, say, and it was all in her head. She was high as a kite at work all the time and the guy didn’t even know it. There are people love addicted to Elvis Presley. They get high from making up that they have a relationship with somebody.

Do you think this is a real addiction like drugs or alcohol?

Pia Mellody: Yes. Let me tell you what happens. It is called love addiction because they describe what is going with them emotionally inside their body as love. It makes them feel like they are loved or as if they are in love, which has a sexual component. What happens is they get high off the fantasy. They get addicted to the fantasy. They get addicted to the effects of the fantasy. When something happens that blows the fantasy up, like they discover their partner being sexual with their best friend in their own bed, or something crazy like that — that is an exaggeration, but you get the drift — the fantasy blows up and they go into withdrawal. When they go into withdrawal from the fantasy, they go into a psychiatric meltdown. They get homicidal, they get suicidal, they get into cycling panic attacks and they often wind up in the emergency room in the panic attack. It is a psychiatric withdrawal that can be very pathological.

I was going to ask if love addiction could be two-sided, but it sounds as if not because it is one person’s fantasy?

Pia Mellody: Sometimes two love addicts get together and form what I call a dependent relationship, but they never go into treatment because they hang on to each other for dear life and go through life like that.

Does love addiction require an intervention?

Pia Mellody: Usually they are deluded about it. What usually happens is when they go into withdrawal, they are put in some sort of a psych unit or somebody understands that they really need psychiatric help or counselling. If somebody can recognize it for what it is — love addiction — and not treat it as depression, rage or something like that, but recognize the dilemma this person is in in their own head and the cycle, they can get help.

What is the treatment? Is there a program you work, or do you have to go to rehab for treatment?

Pia Mellody: Usually if you are in withdrawal, you are going to have to get some professional help, be put on antidepressants probably and then hope that somebody follows up and engages this as an addiction. Usually if you go into that full-blown withdrawal, somebody is going to notice that you are really failing and get you some help. When you go into withdrawal is when you are treatable. When you are in the fantasy, you are not treatable because you are into that just like somebody smoking dope, snorting cocaine or medicating on tranquilizers. That fantasy is like dope for them. You can’t treat somebody that is medicating with the fantasy. It is only when they go into withdrawal that they are treatable.
Sometimes they will kill their partner, sometimes the affair, sometimes both of them. Sometimes they kill themselves. There was an incident here where I live where a young woman was married to a policeman and had two little babies. What happened was the policeman started an affair and left her, divorced her, for the other woman and she went into this withdrawal. When he went on his honeymoon, she broke into his house, shot her two kids and shot herself, so when he came home from his honeymoon, he found that mess, which blew up his marriage.

Note: Mellody cites as love addiction the murder that took place in Houston in 2002 when Clara Harris, a dentist, ran over her husband and deliberately killed him with her Mercedes when she discovered he was having an affair. Harris is still in prison and her sons were placed with family friends. Another instance she believes was a case of love addiction was married astronaut Lisa Nowak, who, wearing diapers, drove 900 miles from Texas to Florida, and armed with a BB gun and pepper spray confronted a woman she believed was a competitor for the affections of Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein, an unmarried fellow astronaut.

Are there different levels of love addiction? If someone isn’t an extreme case, can they just attend a group similar to AA without checking into rehab?

Pia Mellody: Oftentimes, we do work on it in a 12-step program called SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous). Sometimes there is a sexual addiction component to what they are doing and sometimes not. But people can get help there. Some of them spin off and form their own love addiction 12-step meeting, where they focus on the fantasy as the drug and really examine who the person is they formed the fantasy around: Who they think they are, who they really are and gradually work into the reality of who the other person is instead of what they made up about the other person.

Most of the time, they need to be under the care of a counsellor plus going to a meeting like that where they get a sponsor, get some help and get some backup counselling or therapy. But it is really a very intense addiction issue and it is very hard to treat. It takes a long time to get over it. The usual thing that happens is that if they meet somebody who is walled in and shut down, and kind of attending to them out of their own issues, they will go into a fantasy with the next person who mimics the dynamics of the last person they are withdrawing from. They will leave treatment, get into that and then they will go into withdrawal again and then they will go back to the counselor for help and they will cycle like that — back and forth with other people — until somehow they finally wake up and say, “I can’t do this anymore. I am destroying myself.” Then they will get help. Usually they don’t just get over it. Usually they have to go through cycles – with the same person or with different people — before they can give up the fantasy. When they go into withdrawal, they go into a very young state. They have a trauma reaction. This is not as simple to describe as someone who is addicted to marijuana or alcohol. It is more complex because they are addicted to a fantasy.

Is love addiction widely recognized?

Pia Mellody: It is not widely recognized, but I have worked at The Meadows for many years and I have trained many, many therapists on this model. If they go to a therapist who is trained to pick this up immediately by their assessment techniques, they will get proper treatment.

Anything else we need to know?

Pia Mellody: What happens in terms of treatment or getting over it, generally speaking, what you have to have is somebody work with you on fantasy vs. reality on the person they are addicted to. Who is he/she really is vs. what your fantasy is and really keep on them so they can move into reality. But basically, you have to work with the addictive process, the fantasy, the denial that protects the fantasy, the withdrawal from the fantasy, the medicating withdrawal and returning to the relationship and return to the fantasy, or spinning off and doing it with someone else. That is what happens at a 12-step meeting where they really look at that, or with a therapist or counsellor who knows what they are doing. Then you have to do trauma work with the original neglect or abandonment. Then you have to do what I call core work: teaching them how to esteem themselves and how to take better care of themselves. That is where they are really weak: it is self-care and self-esteem. That is what they have to do recover from it.


Love Addicts usually didn’t have enough appropriate bonding with their caregivers…Caring transmits the messages, ‘You’re important, you matter, and you are loved,’...when children do not get enough connection and nurture from a parent, they experience serious difficulty with self-esteem. Love Addicts usually experienced much deep pain and sadness and an acute sense of loss during childhood, because a part of themselves was denied the opportunity to grow properly when their caregivers failed to take care of them. This pain and sadness I call ‘the pain of the precious child.’ It goes very deep and back far beyond the earliest conscious memories. As children, Love Addicts experienced enormous fear because they were helpless to create a connection with their caregivers. In counselling they often describe that child-fear as a sense of having a loss of their own breath, as if their air supply had been cut off and they were literally dying. They also describe being empty because they weren’t filled with nurture by their caregivers. And because they weren't nurtured for who they were, they had trouble being or liking their natural selves.”

“One way such children may escape the pain of severe abandonment by the parents is to fantasize about being rescued by a hero of some kind.Little girls may imagine a knight and shining armour who has loving feelings for her and who does things that demonstrate this love by connecting with her, finally giving her life meaning and vitality…Children spend so much time in this fantasy world because it creates a state of euphoria. I spent hours as a child daydreaming about my knight in shining armour. If I felt bad I could play out this fantasy in my mind, get high in about ten minutes, and stay there for at least two or three hours.”

 

[rightkindofme]

I want to come back and respond to the stuff you posted but my brain is distracted by daily life. Here is what my therapist said (before I forget):
I don't know anyone personally, but I would have him try to find a therapist via the international EMDR website: emdria.org

Even if he doesn't want to do EMDR, they would be the most trained in trauma...and not being re-traumatized themselves.

[DLMURL]http://www.emdria.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=235[/DLMURL]

So that's not a slam dunk and you can't go right this minute anyway. But it's something to keep in mind.

 

[raven123]

RightKind,

For the past near two days I've been writing about my rape. The details of it. If you wish to read it, I can send it in a PM. Not sure I want to post it anywhere public. This site may not want that posted in public anyway. I'm hitting the bed in a few minutes. Tired after writing it and then typing it up. Thank you for the website. I'll keep it in mind for the future. :)

If anyone wants to read it and we've talk

 

[rightkindofme]

Sure, send it to me. I will talk with you about it.