Those who are the most loved, are usually the ones who are also the most settled, stable, and lead happy lives. Unfortunately, not everybody is lucky enough to be counted in this group of people.
Many of us, go through suffering at some stage in their lives, and this has a detrimental effect on their minds, bodies, and souls. In this post we will look into one of the effects caused by bad experiences in people's existence, which is addiction.
People get addicted because they are looking to fill the emptiness that they feel inside, or are trying to get away from a bad reality. Children who have been physically/mentally/sexually abused grow into insecure adults with low or no self esteem. They may have no actual memory of the abuse because they hide those terrible memories in a box in their head, which they lock very securely, just to make sure they will never remember those anguishing times, and that they will never have to deal with the pain again..
They just feel completely worthless without knowing why. They just have the words as a voice in their head of what their abusers told them. Things they were told include that they are stupid, liars, will never amount to anything, ugly, or if they weren't so attractive they wouldn't have been abused, and nobody will ever love them; and they have been used not to be allowed to have an opinion.
So, they have now grown up into adults who believe they are either ugly, or that by being attractive they are in danger; the latter ones will also be likely to put on weight to protect themselves. They are so scared of failing that they would never put themselves in a situation where in their own minds they might fail.
As they don't trust themselves, and never had the practice, they can't make decisions so are easily influenced by other people and often become completely dependent on them; as they feel unloved. Although they don't trust it, they are desperately looking for approval and a family to belong to.
Unfortunately this means being further manipulated and controlled, which makes that voice in their head repeat the words of their abusers, to have even more power.
To make themselves feel better, and being easily swayed by stronger personalities, or just wanting to fit in, they try drink or drugs, which helps them feel wonderful. Unfortunately they wake up later and this wonderful feeling has gone, and they now feel even worse. They need more of it to get that first feeling, which starts the downward spiral of addiction.
People with low self esteem display this by being shopaholics, workaholics, alcoholics, drug addicts, sexaholics, compulsives, anorexics, and bulemics. They are all trying to feel better or numb the pain.
If this is you, we will discuss in a later post how you can improve your situation, get rid of addiction, and start leading a "normal" and happy life. If, instead, you know someone who has some form of addiction, we will also discuss how you can help them stop their suffering.
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