By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
Each one of us has more power than we generally perceive we do. Some people, in fact, do not recognize that they have any power over either what happens to them, or to how they react to what happens to them. Yet, we are totally powerful people; we have total power over what goes on inside us.
Recognizing that I am a powerful person with ultimate control over my emotions and actions is a heady feeling, and a scary feeling too. It is heady because it gives us a feeling that we can control ourselves, but it is scary because we also realize that there is no one else who can save us if we fail to exercise that power fully or competently.
When we were children, if we became frightened or sad, we could call on the god-like adults in our world to make us safe and to keep us safe. They could turn on the lights to scare away the monsters that might be lurking there when we could not reach the switch.
At some point in our lives, though, we must recognize that no one can do for us what we must do for ourselves, and that is to exercise our power to keep us as safe as possible from external events and internal tidal waves.
External events
Sometimes things happen externally that devastate our internal and external worlds: A trusted friend/family member/lover dies or betrays us, or a recession, depression, bankruptcy, or war intervenes in our carefully built and safe life that we could not have foreseen. This external event sweeps us away into an abyss of loss and despair. We see our own mortality, or that our life is half gone and we have not accomplished the “you should do x-es” that we had always thought we would do.
We let our sense of devastation externally and internally push us into an abyss of grief and pain. How do we take back our power when we feel so powerless, so naked and vulnerable? How will we ever feel safe again?
Recognizing that we are not in complete control of external events is a scary feeling, yet one that we must, as adults, face. Recognizing the truth that our plans for our future may not all be possible at this point in life is also necessary, and may sadden us.
Phases of life
Just as a child grows through various stages from birth to leaving home, adults too pass through various stages of adulthood. Erick Erickson described them as x, y, z. Unfortunately he did not describe them in great detail, but left his theories for others to expound upon.
I agree with Erickson that we go through various phases in adulthood as we move through the decades of the twenties, thirties, forties, etc. We are not the same person in each of these decades of our lives. We have different wants, needs, skills and knowledge as we move through life.
While it is easy to see that it would be an inappropriate thing for a 60-year-old woman to be sad that she could not marry, conceive a child and raise a family at that age, sometimes, we are saddened because we cannot have all the options at age 30 or 40 that we did at age 20.
Taking stock
When an external event precipitates a major change in our lives, or even an internal tidal wave of regrets or realizations of our lives makes us “sit up and take notice” of where we are on the life-time continuum, we pass through a stage where we may feel powerless over our emotions.
An encounter with a psychopath may be the precipitating external event in our lives, but it can be anything, or nothing in particular. A painful encounter, though, gives us the opportunity to take stock of where we are, where we wish to go, and who we are in the next phase of our adult lives. It is a time to truly recognize that we will not live forever, and that we are subject to the natural laws of this world, and yet, to rise above this and to find significant meaning in ourselves and in our lives.
We can use the external events to grow and refocus our lives, realizing that we do have power, complete power, over some things, and that we have no power over other things. We can live while we live, and find meaning and satisfaction in each of the stages of our lives.
Louise
kim:
Thanks for this. I love this link and it reveals a lot, but I do have some questions. What about someone like me who never typically does these sorts of things, but did it with just this one man? I think when someone is a Love Addict, they repeat these patterns over and over again, but what if a person does not normally fit this mold, but has exhibited these behaviors with this one man? Does that make me addicted just to him and not to love? Hell, I don’t even believe in love. So many of these questions are bent towards people who seem to not be able to be alone. I have been alone for 20 years; I love being alone. I guess I am just trying to figure out what is wrong with me if I am not a Love Addict? Maybe I was really just blindly “in love” with the wrong guy? Maybe I was just a Love Addict with him? I don’t know…
skylar
Louise,
Kim told me about this story.
http://faculty.weber.edu/Jyoung/English%206710/Good%20Country%20People.pdf
Good country people.
It’s an enjoyable read, if nothing else. I particularly like it because it describes an encounter with a spath by a girl who really felt that she was “jaded”. She said she didn’t believe in anything.
Yet, when the spath came along… well I won’t ruin the story.
kim frederick
Loise, I can’t really answer your questions. I do know there is something called trauma bonding, and perhaps that’s what was going on with you…but, again, these lables all seem to overlap, and what is really important is finding a solution to the problem. I think the twelve steps work as a solution to a trauma bond, because it is essentually an addiction. Have you read anything about trauma bonds. Google it sometime. It is very enlightening.
Also, Oxytocin, the bonding hormone.
But, what I like about LAA is the steps. Specifically designed to heal a spititual dis-ease,(un ease). I think it was Tom Bradshaw, who wrote,”Healing the Shame that binds You” who wrote, We feel like we have a hole in our guts, with the wind ripping through it, and we are willing to stuff anything into the hole….but nothing fills us, because the hole is a God-shaped hole”.
Anyway, are you a love addict? I don’t know. But I know the steps can help you, if you’re honest, open-minded and willing.
MoonDancer
Louise,
I think we were brought up in a very dysfunctional family and we learned the concept of love in all the wrong ways. Also being abandoned by one or both parent’s, unloved for being this or that. Wanting and seeking attention and approval and never getting any makes one addicted to love, ya think? By the time we are adults what we think is the way to love is really all wrong. So we prolly picked the wrong guys to begin with, the sociopath fills all our needs like no other can. In the beginning that is.
still reeling
Kim, like the site a lot…personally, it’s somewhat confusing and a tad upsetting because I see both myself and Godzilla in the same categories/descriptions! Then I start thinking maybe he’s a love addict and not a path??? Wow, *that* I do not want to even get into. No way I want to try and feel sorry for his a**.
I most defnitely see myself as a love addict and always have. My dad used to say, “You’re in love with love!” when I was a kid! And he was right. I’ve always fantacized about love relationships and do to this day. I spoke out loud to Godzilla countless times and answered for him – I shamelessly admit. Hey, it was fun but did leave me depressed. Don’t do that much anymore.
As I’ve said many x, Godz was and still is a distraction from worries and obsessions. I did see that on the Love Addiction link….it helps quell anxiety. That is true. Remember, I never left the office with him and when the opportunity arose I didn’t go for it. I had been ill and was afraid I was too thin and would disappoint him. In other words, I didn’t trust him. And for good reason.
I thought of you Louise, reading that link! Exactly the things you said in your post above. I suppose like most other self-help info, groups, etc., you relate to some stuff and not others. I’d be interested in others’ opinion but I do think maybe being a “Love Addict” or falling into some of the categories of a love addict could be qualitative, not quantitative. You may be a picky love addict. Doesn’t happen often, or maybe even once (please G-d) but perhaps if you think about it, you are obsessive-ish in other ways???
Path brought this out because he’s well,….a path. Possible?
Hugs to you both and thanks Kim..I am going to bookmark that one and check it out a little more…that overlap kind of bothers me but I think I can get past it…I do see a lot of myself in there. I just don’t want it to make me drag Godz closer to myself.
kim frederick
Oh, Skylar, on another thread you mentioned “the super male brain” and testostorone…it’s interesting to note that T interfers with Oxytocins bonding effects.
still reeling
Skylar, Kim and Hens! Good stuff!!! I agree, Kim, and was going to say but forgot the same thing you did about the important thing being, not so much to understand exactly *what* happened but to do something about it to help us get detached from it. If not, it’s just wheel-spinning and the effect of that is depression and sadness.
kim frederick
Still reeling, Yeah, I get it. I see my x hub there, too, and I think it does complicate matters. I understand NOT wanting to go there. I still can’t say for certain my x is spath, or Narcissist or sex addict, and it keeps me in cog dis…but, I think it helps me more than it hinders me, in the long run.
If I fit him into the profile, I see him as the romance addict type. And the Narcissistic type.
I’m in there as a codependant type and the relationship addict, but, as much as I hate to admit it, I have a tad bit of the seductive witholder, too.
I look at it as just more information, and a guide to getting better.
skylar
Kim,
that’s “extreme male brain”, not super. 🙂
here’s an article by baron-cohen on a similar theme.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/01/anders-breivik?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
skylar
My spath seemed to be “in love with love” too.
so much for that…
his favorite holiday was valentines day.
He asked me each year to be his valentine.
In a way, I could say that despite his evil, he really was in love with the idea of love, simply because he could never feel it. That’s why it fascinated him.