When The Pain Becomes Addicting

One thing about the love addict is that pain is all too familiar and comfortable. Do you ever ask yourself why do you continue to attract the same type of emotionally unavailable men? Maybe its because this is what you know as “normal”. I had mentioned before, that when you grow up in an environment where dysfunction is normalized, this tends to become your “normal”. Nevertheless, you may find yourself ending one relationship, just to enter into another relationship with a different person, but the same type of emotionally unavailable man. I came to this realization that our definition of a “normal healthy relationship “ is so skewed. What exactly is a normal healthy relationship. My father has never been in my life and my step father was physically and emotionally abusive. I learned that my “normal “ was tolerance. Learning to tolerate behaviors that were not normal, because if he was not hitting me then it was “ healthy in my eyes”. I learned to become comfortable in pain. I used to think that if I was not experiencing any type of emotional pain, then something must be wrong…… because any kind of stability is too uncomfortable for me. How many of you can relate to the excitement of the chaos. It hurts so much, but in a dysfunctional way, it makes you feel….When it is taken away, you began to feel this void again. In some ways, you may even subconsciously self- sabotage as a way to remain in this painful cycle with the need to “ feel loved or be loved by someone”.