Emotional Addiction

-Ask the Expert-

Question: 

Can someone suffer of affective and sexual addiction? I decided to begin a psychotherapy for this reason. Maybe it is linked to something in my past, but sure is that I get excessively bound to the women I fall in love with. All my interests disappear, my life becomes unimportant, I constantly look for confirms that she is love with me too, I even try to control her, all my thoughts are for her, until she abandons me, and I am left alone and desperate.

I would like to understand what pushes me to make the person I am in love with responsible for my happiness to the point that I cease to exist.

I realized that the more I grow older and the worse the situation becomes. Every time I suffer more.

In this moment I am desperate, I am fighting with myself, because I am involved in a relationship with a person that is emotionally unstable, and this relationship is killing me. Every time she pushes me away for a reason or another, I start feeling anxious, depressed, frustrated, and paranoid.

My sex drive with her is almost obsessive, I believe that this is because I have low self-esteem and I am always looking for a confirmation that she wants me too.

Also, I am beginning to think that for me, to love her is so much a necessary for my mental stability, that we are not talk about love anymore, it is more like a drug, or worse.

Today I called a psychotherapist and I will begin meeting with him soon. I really hope that this therapy will bring “myself” out, I want to look for happiness within myself, but I really do not know where to start!

Answer:

Dear Paolo,

I think you took the right decision. In fact, only a therapy can untie the knot of feelings in which you are stuck. There are personalities that need other's recognition of their value in order to feel confident and good. As you rightly hypothesized, these are problems that begin in the far past, usually during infancy. 

I understand the torments that you must be facing right now, especially if your girlfriend is, as you said, emotionally unstable, and she does not give you that required security that you need to feel calm and relaxed.

But you understood that it cannot go on like this for your whole life.

I will repeat myself and say it again: you made the right choice in beginning the therapy, and do not worry if you will feel “addicted” to the therapist, that is normal and transitory for personalities such as yours, and it is something that is functional to the achievement of real independence.

Best wishes.

Answer:

Gianna Porri, Psychotherapist

Question:

Paolo, 31 years old

Publication Date: 01/26/2006

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