Addictions

Addictions come in many forms. I usually think about substances: alcohol, tobacco, other drugs but obviously there are many including gambling, sexual, shopping, hording, and the like. The "disease to please" is also an addiction. Although I've never acknowledged that this one fits me well, I probably should have. Duh. I believe we rationalize our addictions and call them anything else before we finally deal with them head on.

Maybe I'll call this the "care giving" addiction. In one way or another, I've been doing this to excess for decades, definitely since my first born entered the world. Before that I was me, myself and I for the most part. But, this care giving issue extends way beyond raising children, an acknowledged critical, selfless, and necessary role. Beyond children the addiction of care giving is like being "on call" for the world. For me, at 53 it is bigger than it was at 33 largely because the roles and the rules and the situations have changed. At the time in my life when I would like to be scaling back on my professional roles, work is tugging at me with phenomenal force. At the time in my life when I would like to be discovering other talents and interests, there are always things I place ahead of a committed exploration. Blogging may be the one (small) exception. At the time in my life where my children need rely on me less, my actions tend to strengthen their need of me. I own this; I get this.

As for care giving in my fifties, the roles are varied but none of them seems to nourish or give back enough (so sayest my trusted therapist). The operative word is enough; in my world the yin and yang is out of balance, the scorecard skewed, the emotional depletion titer sky high and on and on. As I lamented over my need for more and more medication to battle the insomnia that plagues my every night, worrying that I'm fueling an addiction to soporifics, my trusted advised, "I'd be far more concerned about your addiction to care giving." Kaboom, light bulb moment, revelation. I've never heard it said quite like this.

When epiphanies occur, the universe coughs up illustrative examples, or shall we say opportunities, to shine more light on the matter. Within hours of my acknowledgment of said addiction, there were three situations that popped into my life; chances to say YES (and slog through with disgruntled acquiescence) or to say NO (and live with guilt down to the core). Difficult choices these. I see that in my current state of mind, both choices are "no win" situations. There seems to be no way out. Trapped with the feeling that whatever choice I make, I won't have contentment, ease, or peace of mind. Sucks. What I must work on is eliminating the guilt. Guilt, or more specifically the need/desire to avoid the feeling of guilt, is the powerful fuel that gets me out of bed in the morning (my post on 5/2/08: The Truth of it Is explains). Making my way through the day without feeling guilt allows me to keep my eye on that prize: the horizontal position, back in bed, done with my work for the day. I have to ask, if it weren't for the G word, would anything ever get done in my life or would I just stay in bed? Reasonable question.

People have been talking about this issue forever. The number of self help books on the G word and similar topics is phenomenal. Remember the book from 1975 entitled, When I say No, I Feel Guilty by Manuel Smith, Ph.D.? That avoiding the feelings of guilt can be such a powerful motivator and bitter pill to be reckoned with is worth acknowledging. In my case, avoiding the G word and all that it encompasses is the secondary gain I get from care giving. We never do things with addictive predictability that don't have some degree of kickback even if the reward is self destructive.

Enough said for one day. As for what I will do with the three requests for my time and energy that arrived to challenge my predictable patterns, I don't yet know. I'm still thinking and that 's not necessarily a good sign.