Nov. 16 2019
“Sometimes we’re addicted to our suffering. Sometimes we’re addicted to the chaos because it’s all we know. If you grew up with chaos, then growing out of it can be hard. Who are you without it? It’s a confronting question to ask, but sit with it anyway. Is your loyalty to a past story? Or is your loyalty to creating a new way of living that both honors your past experiences and allows you peace, freedom, and expansion.” -unknown-
I am addicted to my suffering. Sadness often feels like a warm blanket. It’s become so familiar. I know some of that sadness is just part of my brain chemistry, but much of it has been learnt. I grew up in chaos, finding my escape in imagination and childishness and ignorance. So as an adult I tend to thrive in creativity and childish joys and yet consistently return to the feelings that are known. Sadness and chaos have been my safe haven because happiness means venturing into the unfamiliar. If I’m happy for too long, there is always a part of me that is uncomfortable resting there and calls upon the subconscious distress that has become second nature to me.
I am familiar with a broken heart. So when I start to feel myself moving on from a romantic trauma, I fall back into whatever lasting impressions of that bad relationship that I accuse myself of to conjure up those pains again. “I will never be enough.” “I am too damaged.” “I’m fat.” “I’m ugly.” The list goes on and on because that is what relationships with unhealthy people have led me to believe about myself. Their unhealthiness has permeated my ability to see myself healthily and when I start to sense myself believing the actual truth of who I am, I run away because it is unchartered territory.
I am accustomed to chaos, so if I have moments of peace, even substance induced moments, I still feel my subconscious drawing out my anxiety and worry to overrun the foreign sensation of contentment.
I run to the dark because basking in the light exposes too much of what I don’t understand.
But I want to understand it. I want to be happy. Somewhere inside me I know that is true. Yes, I keep returning to the sadness but I don’t want that to be my life legacy. ‘She was addicted to suffering’ is not what I want my tombstone to read. I want it to breathe life and love and happiness. I have to make that happen. I have to stop the behavior I know will produce all the same tragic results.
Stop racing after emotionally unavailable men.
Stop rushing into feelings.
Stop ignoring red flags.
Stop pushing my own well-being to the back burner.
Stop trying to rush the healing process.
Stop doing things only to evoke a response out of someone.
Start talking positively to myself.
Start saying start instead of stop.
Start taking care of myself emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
Start nurturing friendships rather than trying to start romantic relationships.
Start allowing happiness.
Start disallowing sadness to be my life’s dependent variable.
Start truly moving on and letting go.
Start embracing a happy, peaceful, free future.