Addiction to Misery
Posted 08-28-2009 at 08:26 PM by grewupinabarn
I am having another painful evening of trying to get work done. On a alanon twitter posting I saw this repeated and asserted by several people: Change happens when the pain of holding on is greater than the fear of letting go. What I think is happening is that I really enjoy the pain, and maybe the fear to. This may be 'addiction to misery' as described by
Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. (of Potatoes not Prozac) The following quote comes from the Alanon Family Group on the activeboard forum.
I think this is me. I often feel a rush of blood to my face and a warm feeling when I am being severely criticized. This is disturbing, really - could I be this warped to desire being made miserable, to actually get physical pleasure from it?? yuck!
I have to realize that this pain is not pleasure, that it is un-desirable, that my HP doesn't want it for me, that I don't need/deserve it, that it just plain sucks, that it is just pain. And I need the HPs help because I am powerless over it.
Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. (of Potatoes not Prozac) The following quote comes from the Alanon Family Group on the activeboard forum.
Quote:
I have often reflected on why some people stay stuck in being miserable. No matter what life presented them, they would pick out certain variables to show that once again life was against them. This pattern went beyond your basic garden negativity. It was more like "I will continue my attachment to misery no matter what. It doesnt matter what good comes to me, I know it is not real."
This pattern defied logic to me. Why would perfectly thoughtful, intelligent people want to live this way? My first clue in sorting this out came when I noticed my own physical response. I withdrew energy, disengaged and did not want to hang with misery or the miserable. When I realized that nothing I did or said changed anything, I just backed off.
One day, in the shower, I had an incredible thought. My body was responding to les miserables just the way it does around active alcoholics and addicts. If someone commits to change, asks for help, listens and moves, I am there in a flash. But stay stuck, go round and round, whine, stay miserable no matter what, I just dont want to spend time on the boat with it. The more I have healed my own codependency the less I can do rescuing.
As I was rinsing the shampoo, I thought, "What if we can be addicted to misery?" As soon as that thought passed through, I knew it was true. It would explain the tenacious holding on, the energy, the devotion to it.
So then I trundled off to do some research on this. My books, google and PubMed all gave clues. Yep, misery evokes beta-endorphin. Misery evokes the same brain chemical activated by alcohol, heroin, morphine and sugar. When we are miserable, our brains release BE so we feel better. It soothes us until it wears off and then we have to go back for more.
We become attached to it. We get romantic and intense about all the bad things that have happened to us. We do woe is me!. Andsignificantly, we become tolerant to it, just like with any drug. Then we need bigger misery. More, more. We amp up the feeling of less than, not good enough, poor, not smart enough, not rich enough, not educated enough. And if life does not cooperate by offering enough brutal events, we create them in our minds. We need to feel worse to feel ok.
We create catastrophe in our minds, we exaggerate, we munch to create drama and perpetuate the BE feelings. The increasing tolerance creates immunity to the little negatives, so we need more misery. We then take neutral events and shape them into desperate drama. For example. Perhaps you live on little money. You feel bad because you are poor. And you have low BE because you are sugar sensitive. So you overdraft your account, you pay late, you skip your taxes. And your tolerance grows so things get worse and worse.
And when you try to change this pattern, you actually go into withdrawal. So you need to find other misery to grow. You stay in a horrible job, an abusive marriage, a bad apartment. You go round and round and misery becomes your way to being in the world.
When you first hear this, it may be confusing. You dont feel you are seeking it; you arent looking for a "high. But think of it another way. BE is a painkiller. When life is hard, your natural tendency is to look for ways to soothe the pain. You unconsciously turn to things that do that, and then you get hooked. You didnt know. Just like you didnt know sugar was a drug until you were way in.
Les miserables is a hard one to face. You might feel shame at first and think, oh dear gawd, not more!
But the joy of healing is that now you understand. Now you have a name for what you thought was just circumstance. Now you can make sense and take action. You start to laugh at yourself. You get amazed at the skill your little inside addict hasit can find ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to make you feel ok. It has a good heart, it is trying its best to have you not feel pain. It is just a little misguided and now, in your recovery, you will do something a little different.
You will kiss it on its little black nose, and say ah, nice try, baby, but we arent doing that anymore.. You will see that you do not want a life of les miserables. You are ready for something different. You can go to school, you can find ways to work with little money, you can leave abusive relationships, you can find a life of joy. This is what recovery is about. When you do the food, you do way more than give up sugar. You are HEALING addiction on a cellular level. Healing is real and it is yours for the doing.
This pattern defied logic to me. Why would perfectly thoughtful, intelligent people want to live this way? My first clue in sorting this out came when I noticed my own physical response. I withdrew energy, disengaged and did not want to hang with misery or the miserable. When I realized that nothing I did or said changed anything, I just backed off.
One day, in the shower, I had an incredible thought. My body was responding to les miserables just the way it does around active alcoholics and addicts. If someone commits to change, asks for help, listens and moves, I am there in a flash. But stay stuck, go round and round, whine, stay miserable no matter what, I just dont want to spend time on the boat with it. The more I have healed my own codependency the less I can do rescuing.
As I was rinsing the shampoo, I thought, "What if we can be addicted to misery?" As soon as that thought passed through, I knew it was true. It would explain the tenacious holding on, the energy, the devotion to it.
So then I trundled off to do some research on this. My books, google and PubMed all gave clues. Yep, misery evokes beta-endorphin. Misery evokes the same brain chemical activated by alcohol, heroin, morphine and sugar. When we are miserable, our brains release BE so we feel better. It soothes us until it wears off and then we have to go back for more.
We become attached to it. We get romantic and intense about all the bad things that have happened to us. We do woe is me!. Andsignificantly, we become tolerant to it, just like with any drug. Then we need bigger misery. More, more. We amp up the feeling of less than, not good enough, poor, not smart enough, not rich enough, not educated enough. And if life does not cooperate by offering enough brutal events, we create them in our minds. We need to feel worse to feel ok.
We create catastrophe in our minds, we exaggerate, we munch to create drama and perpetuate the BE feelings. The increasing tolerance creates immunity to the little negatives, so we need more misery. We then take neutral events and shape them into desperate drama. For example. Perhaps you live on little money. You feel bad because you are poor. And you have low BE because you are sugar sensitive. So you overdraft your account, you pay late, you skip your taxes. And your tolerance grows so things get worse and worse.
And when you try to change this pattern, you actually go into withdrawal. So you need to find other misery to grow. You stay in a horrible job, an abusive marriage, a bad apartment. You go round and round and misery becomes your way to being in the world.
When you first hear this, it may be confusing. You dont feel you are seeking it; you arent looking for a "high. But think of it another way. BE is a painkiller. When life is hard, your natural tendency is to look for ways to soothe the pain. You unconsciously turn to things that do that, and then you get hooked. You didnt know. Just like you didnt know sugar was a drug until you were way in.
Les miserables is a hard one to face. You might feel shame at first and think, oh dear gawd, not more!
But the joy of healing is that now you understand. Now you have a name for what you thought was just circumstance. Now you can make sense and take action. You start to laugh at yourself. You get amazed at the skill your little inside addict hasit can find ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to make you feel ok. It has a good heart, it is trying its best to have you not feel pain. It is just a little misguided and now, in your recovery, you will do something a little different.
You will kiss it on its little black nose, and say ah, nice try, baby, but we arent doing that anymore.. You will see that you do not want a life of les miserables. You are ready for something different. You can go to school, you can find ways to work with little money, you can leave abusive relationships, you can find a life of joy. This is what recovery is about. When you do the food, you do way more than give up sugar. You are HEALING addiction on a cellular level. Healing is real and it is yours for the doing.
I have to realize that this pain is not pleasure, that it is un-desirable, that my HP doesn't want it for me, that I don't need/deserve it, that it just plain sucks, that it is just pain. And I need the HPs help because I am powerless over it.
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