What do you think about the term, "addictive personality"? I know it's a term used in the psychiatric world. It's a term I've wrestled with off an on over my adult life, trying to grasp the idea of an individual in a seemingly constant state of indulgence. If one addiction is addressed another will form. Individuals in rehab, who take up smoking, for example. I'm by no means criticizing or judging. It's just always been a curiosity to me, and feels apparent that something deeper rooted needs to be pulled up. Being addicted to addiction?
I myself can be an emotional cutter. I have no idea if that's a real thing, it's just my own observation of my thoughts, as I journey through. It starts with a little pessimistic thought, that quickly turns into worst case scenarios, of anger, death, betrayal, sadness, etc. A sick little story in my head, and my emotions quickly follow, as if it's real... and it feels so good to feed it. In my young adult life I would find myself many times in tears, or angry... over what? Something that never happened, but that's my new state of being, at least for that period of time.
I've since learned to make myself take notice, and it has become a practice, to turn out of it, as quickly as possible. As soon as awareness kicks in of what's happening. I don't always catch it right away, but I've learned to recognize internal sirens going off, an alert that tells me to start turning. Not just simply replace with "happy thoughts" (this would feed that idea of needing a filler, an addiction), but telling myself to get back to neutral ground, this way of thinking is a lie and does not serve you or anyone.
I recently read an article, talking about the idea of blowing off steam, and how that doesn't actually work. Visually you think of the idea of releasing pressure, and how that would alleviate aggression, but in fact it can feed it. I started to think of a pot of water on a stove, with a lid on it. It starts to steam and boil over, and taking the lid off, in the immediate, does in fact relieve pressure. But if you put this into analogy form, for our anger state, (or any other emotional state I guess) it only does one of two things: We blow off steam, and we do something foolish or over the top, maybe said something regrettable; hurt someone in some way. Used someone. Broke something. That "fixed it" but we need to get the lid back on because we did too much, and never addressed the fact that that pot of water is still boiling on a burning stove. So that little cycle just repeats. Pressure builds, blow off steam doing or saying something we probably shouldn't, shame has us putting the lid back on, and we never address the heat.
Or... Man does it feel so damn good to unleash on someone. Put them in their place, when they most definitely deserved it, and we're justified. Or scratch that itch some other way, maybe it's not anger. Some feed off being abused. We don't bother putting that lid back on at all, but instead embrace it and turn that heat up hotter. It pulls at you, pulling you down, until that's the new nature we operate from, and we defend it... some to the death.
What is it about pain that makes us feel alive? What are we missing? What are we ignoring or have been blinded to? What lie have we believed? What is that fire really?
There is a cleansing fire, that does light us up, and set us ablaze with passionate life. It purifies and leaves only gold. I admit I'm still in quest to feel this fire.