Addictions

We’re all familiar with the obvious ways addictions can show up: recreational drugs, alcohol, food, sex and drugs

Those can bring us into dark territories and serve to numb and sedate us, and fill an inexplicable void.

Then there are the innocuous ones like coffee and work which are typically normalized and not so extreme

But what about the ones like love, sugar, social media, technology, adrenaline or feeling bad about ourselves?

In the past few years, my diet has become a lot cleaner. As I venture farther on my spiritual path I’ve stopped imbibing in alcohol and any sort of drugs as my body becomes more sensitive and as I stop partaking in normalized social behaviors. When I worked a full time job, it was expected of me to grab a drink with coworkers, or friends after works, or even clients. Alcoholism seemed so embedded in our social etiquette and in our coming of age narratives too. Everyone thinks of college as the time of experimentation with drugs, alcohol and sex.

Although I’ve gone months to a full year sometimes cutting out alcohol, drugs and/or sex, as my life becomes cleaner it forces me to re-evaluate where “softer” addictions still occupy spaces in my life and why it is that society normalizes these addictions, as well as what I’m trying to distract from by using them.

For instance, I’ve recently cut out sugar as part of a preparatory cleanse. This made me conscious about how sugar is literally in everything. For a day or two I felt depressed because I couldn’t engage in my life normally. With cutting out caffeine entirely, too, (I haven’t had any coffee in years but I do like green tea and matcha), my life drastically change and took on a new consciousness. I had to read food labels carefully. I couldn’t go to “grab a matcha” whenever I was feeling antsy at home or to distract from how tired I was some days. Without sugar, I quickly realized how hard it was to eat out, even at healthy vegan restaurants. Even my salad dressing has maple syrup in it!

Beginning in January I also stopped dating entirely and deleted every dating app. I started to realize how much of my time/energy/attention was being sapped by just scrolling through dating apps when I was bored. This was time that could’ve been spent on myself, instead it was spent swiping. I also took a break from all social media for a few months and did a technology cleanse for a few days. It became more apparent how inextricable it all is to our functioning- our addictions become essential to being productive in our lives.

I noticed I also had a habit of trying to make myself feel bad about myself. I used to be codependent, and codependency is an addiction. When we are addicted to narcissistic dynamics, we are obsessed with feeling bad about ourselves or finding ways we are dysfunctional or unlovable. This pattern felt so much a part of my life because it was modeled after caregivers that I didn’t even recognize it as an addiction I could free myself from.

All of this is making it clearer for me to see where it is I’m still “dependent” and where I have absolute autonomy in my life. The wonderful thing is that the more we take control over these aspects and clear our more addictions, more ways we give away our power, the more confident we feel in our lives. It is directly related.

I write this to encourage you to take inventory of your life too. How much of it is based on forms of addiction? What is it that you’re distracting yourself from, and what is it filling in your life? Often times we default to addictions because of unhealed patterns, not to mention addictions fill the spaces between the connection with ourselves. When we avoid things, we usually opt for addictions, even if it’s just anxiety that we’re smoking or drinking away. Maybe it’s loneliness and emptiness that fuels someone to engage in compulsive sex or dating. Some of these patterns of behavior feel so normalized in modern day, but that doesn’t mean that they’re adding to our health and happiness. In fact, I’d argue that they’re drastically decreasing our wellbeing. These mechanisms serve to sever our connection to ourselves more.

The more addictions I clear out, the more I notice more of what I’m suppressing in my emotional body. Although I’m well aware of my internal processes at this stage of my life, I get to see more nooks and crannies so to speak, the more I rid of these coping mechanisms. This is difficult, but this is the challenge of being human and the clarity, self control that’s achievable on the other side is well worth it, in my mind.

Stepping Away from Family : The Taboo of Estrangement

I am estranged from my family by choice. I chose to do something as extreme as this for my health and wellbeing, so you can imagine how difficult this choice was, how deliberate it was, and what must’ve happened to make this a necessary outcome. Within that choice are layers holding all the years and attempts I’ve made to shift the dynamic. All the self-work that was met with the same toxic reactions, all the attempts to destroy any self-esteem I was building. Eventually, I reached a point: enough is enough. I cannot grow with this in my life. And, I let go.

To me, this marks a huge stride in my own empowerment, self-sufficiency and self worth. I didn’t realize it at the time I committed to this choice, it was just a fact of life. I’d been pushed way past the point of pain and suffering. However, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t have my qualms about it.

Especially because of the cultural piece— family’s are a huge part of Chinese culture, and because of our general, collective attitude towards the family unit, it’s a doubly hard endeavor. I think all I ever wanted as a little girl was a happy family. I have a tendency to romanticize and idealize sometimes, and of course, I always had the fantasy that my familial relationships would be fixed, people would come to realize their contributions and take responsibility. But that’s wishful thinking. A lot of people don’t, that’s a fact of life. It’s much better to believe that and be pleasantly surprised than to expect someone to change who doesn’t want to, and then to be disappointed over and over, in my opinion. So, I can step back and accept the reality and let time show me what I need to know.

I will just say that in our society, and I’m speaking for American culture specifically, there is a tendency to exalt family. It becomes the centerpiece. Anything that deviates from the family unit is unacceptable. While I was struggling, I had a therapist (who I terminated at a later point) who continued to tell me that family is part of someone’s framework of wellbeing and it’s our responsibility to make things work. My family was falling apart at the time for many reasons and she continued to insinuate that it would cause damage to my wellbeing if I didn’t fix it. She continued to try to push her agenda on me, her belief on me, instead of seeing my situation for what it was. Abiding by her framework, yes, and, sometimes wellbeing means family needs to be out of the picture entirely.

If you’ve experienced the same abuse and toxic behaviors in a family no matter what you do, how much you feel over responsible, how much you become over functional, the truth remains the same for this and any toxic relationship: you cannot fix it if the other person (people) aren’t willing to do the work. They will never realize unless you LEAVE otherwise your presence continues to enable their behavior.

Shutting the door for now does not mean shutting the door for good. Sometimes, people return to their families years later to shift the dynamic after they’ve come to a certain point in their healing. Sometimes, there’s more and more distance as people come to more and more realizations for why the relationship is damaging. I am not at the point of contemplating a return, yet, and I will admit it is painful for me to know that there are years passing that I won’t see, or know, in the lives of the people that I love no matter what. My love for them makes me want to know how they are, to watch them grow older, to fight for them at all costs. My love for them excuses them for any bad behavior- but, loving without realistic limits is unhealthy and we can have all that love for them but choose to love ourselves, too, instead of needing to be the one who constantly sacrifices their own self-love and respect for the other. Notice if ever you are in a dynamic that forces you to choose either you or them. That’s already a big red flag.

If something in this post is resonating for you- just know that if you let society’s expectations outweigh your own wellbeing, if you’re afraid of what people might think or say if you deviate from the norm, then you will never find what you’re looking for. You may put up with the pain and suffering in avoidance of the pain and grief of loss if you made that cut, but the second option allows opportunity for growth. You get, along with it, several gifts of strength, resilience and self worth.

For all the people out there who are estranged from your families and either are open about it or find it hard to talk about- I just want to say that I understand. I may not know the whole story and it may not have been similar to my experience, but I can only imagine what took you there. And, you are so brave. You are not alone.

For those of you who are thinking about making this choice but are still holding on out of unconscious fear- here’s your reminder that you have the permission to make those hard choices, and to take care of yourself.

The best response I’ve ever gotten from someone when I said, “I’m estranged,” was, “good for you for taking care of yourself,” let’s all normalize this conversation and shift it over to that response and attitude.

A note to clients: I will NEVER try to enforce that estrangement is THE way to go. It is what I chose to do and I consider it a last option, but it is not what is right for everyone and when I look at your situation, I look at it as YOUR situation and do my best to mediate any unconscious biases and clear my subjective filters. In the past I’ve worked with people who projected themselves onto me, who got overly and inappropriately involved in my life choices, and I know how harmful it can be so I am especially careful about this.

Root Causes of Unworthiness and How to Address It

Here’s a little video I recorded a while ago on unworthiness, not enough-ness and inadequacy.

I thought the image that popped up for the video was funny so I didn’t replace it.

Enjoy!

Narcissistic Abuse

This is speaking on behalf of the narcissistic abuse victim—

Pathological narcissists rely on fracturing their victim’s identity, so that they’re cut off from themselves. That’s why there’s so much gaslighting, denial, blame shifting and usage of distraction mechanisms. When you’re cut off from your inner knowing, it becomes harder to see the truth.

An example of this is, say, a narcissistic partner is cheating on you. You may get an intuitive sense that something isn’t right, but every time you ask, you’re put in the spotlight or told that you’re crazy. Examples of how this can take place:

1. How can you accuse me of something like that? I’ve never done that in my life (lying, denial, blame shifting- because now you’re the bad person, you’ve accused them)

2. Can you give me the benefit of the doubt? (blame shifting- it’s your fault)

3. You’re too sensitive (gaslighting)

4. You’re imagining things (gaslighting)

5. You’re crazy (gaslighting)

6. I tell you everything (lying, manipulation)

7. You weren’t right about x so how can you be right about this? (gaslighting, creating doubt)

8. Admission of something else, to cover up their deceit (a bid to appear honest, but still lying)

9. Active refusal to engage (stonewalling, punishing)

10. You’ve had bad experiences in the past so you’re projecting onto me (blame shifting)

11. Actual distortion of truth and the importance of honesty (i.e. I’m not lying about anything, I don’t count that as lying)

12. Everyone lies it’s not a big deal, or everyone does it, it’s not a big deal (minimizing)

13. I was just so lonely! It was your fault! (blame shifting, plea for sympathy)

14. They get angry and cause a scene (distraction)

15. You always need to be right don’t you? It’s like your ego can’t handle if you aren’t (blame shifting)

This isn’t all of it! There are countless manipulation tactics the narcissist can employ to make you feel like it’s YOU who’s paranoid, or ill, or to have reason to doubt yourself and your intuition. You can feel like you’re the bad guy for accusing someone so good. When this happens in the long term, victims often feel cut off from themselves, from their power, from their inner voices. This can manifest in depression, anxiety, panic attacks and actually feeling like you are going crazy. Something feels very off, and you feel more and more distant to yourself, to your family and friends. You wonder why your world just doesn’t feel the same way it used to. Where’s your joy? Why do you feel drained all the time?

This is a similar energy that some things like cults will do, or bad gurus.

The reason why these tactics are employed are because if you are out of body, if you are shut down, if you are separated from yourself, then you end up attacking yourself and doing the work for them. An example of this would be, the inner dialogue would be convincing yourself that you’re imagining things, or being paranoid, or convincing yourself that the narcissist is amazing and you don’t deserve them. Your mind goes overboard trying to rectify the cognitive dissonance you are feeling about the situation and the person, and also trying to quiet all the warning signals in the body. You then become more compliant, because you’re cut off from your power. You become more easily manipulated. You’ve surrendered.

Other ways we can feel when we are caught up in narcissistic abuse cycles are: insecure, we may even feel unable to sleep, we may have various ailments pop up out of nowhere, we may get colds all the time even though previously our immune systems were strong, we may find ourselves fixating on the narcissist to the detriment of our own lives. We may start feel really bad about ourselves, or fixating on our flaws, or working tirelessly to improve our communication skills or some aspect of ourselves because we feel like we are to blame (even though the narcissist does nothing). If in a romantic relationship, we may feel very jealous even though we’re not normally jealous. We may also feel very off balance, or unstable, when usually we aren’t this way. The narcissist will use this against you too, even though it’s their instability and chaos that’s making you feel these things.

WATCH OUT FOR THIS. Even though some of us might not be ready in various stages to see how we’re being manipulated because we can really care for, and love the other person, we need to listen to our bodies when we notice something like this happening.

It is what is called, “Crazymaking”. You’re not crazy, but they’ll make you feel like you are. They’ll keep devaluing you, insinuating things to diminish you until you feel so small. This helps them feel bigger, better, and maintain their illusion. They need YOU to believe in their good in order to feel that they are. They need YOU to feel crazy so that they don’t feel their shame about cheating, or their addictions and lies. Essentially, they need YOU to take over responsibility and blame. Narcissists rely heavily on outside feedback, and if they have their one person, their victim, who reflects back what they want to hear and believe about themselves, then everything is ok in their world. Their egos remain afloat, their secrets remain hidden, their truth becomes obscured, and their shame and inferiority are tucked away.