Addicted to frienship?

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Question:

I could not believe that i would suffer so much. I could not believe that i would feel such an intense and intolerable pain, and that i would feel it for such a long time. I did not know that the end of a friendship could cause such violent and intense suffering. I am here to ask for a suggestion.

David is, or maybe was, my best friend. He was my friend since many years, almost since forever. He is a complicated person, full of problems, he is introverted and younger than me. He entered in the endless spiral of depression, and then worsened the things with alcohol.

All this for problems related to his family, his relationships, and much more things.

I “saved” him countless times, taking him completely drunk out of some bar, or simply making him talk to get over his suicide threats. It was an error.

I substituted myself to a professional figure that certainly could have helped him way better, and would not get involved emotionally. There was a sort of transfert..If he was happy, I was too. When he fell into the deep of his depression, I felt great anxiety and fear. 

Then he got over that dark period. And he literally kicked me out of his life. We had a ferocious argument, and he absurdly accused me, my availability, and my efforts. He never talked to me again, not even to say sorry for the harsh words he used against me. Even if it might seem incredible, i felt his pain when he was suffering. 

I would have done anything to make him feel better. I intimately and deeply shared his pain, and i wonder, now, if I deserved what then happened to me.

The answer is NO. I do not deserve such a treatment. I just want respect, at least for what I have done and I have been through because of him.

Thank you.

Answer:

Dear Rae, I read your letter word by word, and I write you what i think from your own words. I hope this will help you.

Come out from your suffering? Let's clarify. Which suffering? I want to highlight that a psychological consult, like a psychotherapy, can solve the problems of a “neurotic” suffering, but cannot solve an existential pain, that is part of the negative side of life. It is not right or wrong, it just happens.

I will explain better. If you succeed into healthily resetting your emotional responses, you can come out from the loop of pain you seem to be in; but you will not be able to avoid the existential pain of the human disappointment that you faced.

That will always be part of your life experience, but it will not cause additional pain if you can accept and solve it emotionally.

Did you make a mistake into trying to solve the problem of your friend? Humanly, certainly not. But it is impossible to help who does not want to be helped. The alcoholic that does not say “help me, I am an alcoholic”, is not help-able, not even professionally. 

But this is not the main point, i think.

What really happened is that the big problem of a person that you cared about clashed against your feeling of power, and that made you fall into an addiction yourself.

We can be addicted to substances, but also to persons or situations. That situation became your addiction as much as the bottle was his. You need to recognize your addiction from that situation, not as a self-critic moral act, but as an explanation of your psychological state of mind, and as the first step in your path towards independence. You lost independence: that situation sucks you in, exactly like a drug could do.

Your letter to me is a partial understanding of your condition itself. You are on the right path, understand it, walk through it, and at the end you will find your solution. Only like this you will find a possible help, as opposed to the help that you gave him, that was impossible.

Good luck

Answer:

Roberto Melloni, Psychotherapist

Question:

Rae, 46 years old

Publication Date: 07/18/2008

Check out the original article here

Emotional Addiction

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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

Check out the original article here