The closest I came to starting what initially seemed like my first healthy relationship since my mom and the mother of my children split up was about six months ago. I met a woman who seemed like a perfect fit. We were about the same age, lived less than an hour from each other, and our work was fine for the first few weeks.
She wanted to take me back to her parents to introduce me, and I’m usually open about things like this. Being a father, I like to know who else my daughter spends time with. There was nothing unusual in this—nor was there anything unusual in the unconscious way in which I began to back away from it.
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I didn’t realize it while it was happening, but that was when the future of this relationship became at risk.
There is an addictive pattern first described by Susan Anderson in her 2017 book, “Tame Your Outsider,” called drug addiction. This behavior describes our subconscious efforts to sabotage ourselves by either avoiding potential good things in our lives or destroying them once we have them.
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This behavior is especially evident in relationships. Whether you constantly chase unavailable people or give up when faced with commitment, you’re likely dealing with abandonment issues that draw you into toxic relationships and love patterns.
What are abandonment issues? It stems from fear of abandonment, which, according to registered psychologist Simon Hearn, Ph.D., is “a psychological disorder in which the individual suffering from this illness cannot control the fear they feel when faced with the idea of having to be abandoned.” Dealing with life and its difficulties alone.”
In relationships, this translates to doing almost anything to avoid true commitment – if you’re not truly with someone, they can’t truly leave you.
“Permissibility” is a very complex set of behaviors because there are inherent contradictions and paradoxes that must be paid attention to.
5 Things You Don’t Realize You’re Doing Because You’re Addicted to Toxic Relationships
- You chose unavailable partners.
There are several ways in which this manifests itself. It can be as innocent as always falling in love with women or men who don’t prefer your gender (which I tend to do a lot), or as subtle as falling in love with married people. If you find yourself constantly striving for the impossible, it’s possible that, on some level, you’re striving for it because it’s impossible.
- You are triggered by your insecurities.
The fear of being left makes our mammalian brain light up like a Christmas tree and confuses us into perceiving these unstable partners as special or irreplaceable. This is usually not the case, but the biological reaction that occurs within us that triggers our separation anxiety triggers us in some way.
These backward people also, unfortunately, tend to raise all kinds of contradictions in us. We begin to see calm as boredom, chaos as excitement, and unexplained tension as love.
- You are being shut out by anyone truly interested in you.
This is what Anderson calls in her book “The Fear of immersion,” and it is exactly what it sounds like. When we feel like someone is interested in us and wants to be with us, we run for the hills. We become aware of being trapped or trapped when it doesn’t suit us because there is no longer enough fear to let go of the dynamic. It’s serenity and addicts see it as straight-up boredom.
- You never seem to find the right person.
This is the clear result of the constant oscillation between the worlds of fear of abandonment and fear of being surrounded. You spend equal amounts of time chasing people who are not available to you and running away from anyone available to you. It’s crazy and tiring, and it’s probably been programmed into us since childhood.
When we spend most of our young lives competing for unconditional love from a parent who never gives it, we become habituated and addicted to this quest.
- Chasing is the only thing that makes you happy.
On a scientific level, being with someone who is challenging releases catecholamines (adrenaline and norepinephrine) and produces an overwhelming feeling of infatuation in us. This is an almost cocaine-like euphoria, and in the case of drug addicts, it is precisely this “high” that leads to what resembles natural intimacy.
If any or all of these characteristics apply to you, don’t despair. there is hope. I recommend getting Anderson’s book “Taming the Outer Child” or if you want to take this tiger by the tail, go for the book “Abandonment Recovery Workbook” also by Anderson, who has amassed thirty years of clinical practice helping those struggling with abandonment addiction Things (so she knows what she’s talking about).
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