love addiction

I am addicted to the feeling of being in love.

Everybody has problems, yet mine always seem the most insurmountable because I have to live them. I don't have problems living in the moment, creating my own happiness, or with anxiety or insecurity- all of my biggest interpersonal struggles come from unrealistic expectations of love and love interests.

Like many people, my physically and sexually abusive childhood negatively affects my psychology, and even now as an adult I am not able to function in normal ways. One of the textbook definitions of narcissistic personality disorder is a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love, and all of these traits are part of my daily experience. Although some narcissistic traits are common and can be part of maturing, when these traits are compounded by a failure of the interpersonal environment and continue into adulthood they can cause serious issues which may manifest into addiction and addictive behavior.

Just to quickly touch on other aspects of addiction in my life, I'd like to say that it's obvious that I have substance abuse problems, which are very common to members of the gay community. I have not been sober for more than a few days my entire adult life. In all honesty it's rare that I go more than half a day being sober. I was in my late teens when I started using, and I often feel like I'm a teenager frozen in time. Perhaps the drug abuse enables the love addiction in a way because my brain will not mature and handle feelings in a responsible manner. To my brain, handling emotions in an immature fashion makes me feel safe.

Now that I have gotten a little bit older, I realize there are major differences between me and a mentally healthy individual. I personally think I might have attachment disorders because my sense of boundaries with other people, both physical as well as emotional, are often non-existent. I always think I'm "classy" but the truth is that if I think a guy happens to be just cute enough, let alone hot, I will start to have sex with him within the first few minutes of contact! As long as I feel like the person is into me I cross boundaries that are not appropriate to be crossing, which gets me into trouble and probably is the real reason why all my romances are short lived and dysfunctional.

It takes me all of a few minutes to fall in love with someone, and I get infatuated with guys way too fast. I have done every drug except for heroin, and to be quite honest the exhilaration and euphoria I get from a guy feels a million times better to me than any chemical could. In my life, as long as I have a love interest I stay optimistic whether or not that person reciprocates feelings. Every time I develop feelings for another man, my reasoning and logic goes completely out the door. I see things in people that do not exist because I want them to, and I build guys up to an impossible paragon of perfection just because I get wrapped up in my emotions and can't handle reality. Obviously, nothing works out, and rationally I know that I can't expect that much from guys.

I realize now that most of what I think and feel about love are views that I inherited from my mother, and they are both delusional and unhealthy. When I am in a relationship, I become obsessed with keeping that person in my life no matter how toxic the relationship is to me, because at the end of the day I know that love isn't real and I'm trying to force it into my life. I become a totally different person- essentially everything except myself in the hopes that I am playing the game flawlessly. I get codependent fast, and completely lose my identity in another person. All of my relationship patterns are predictable, and always turn out the same way. This cyclical manifestation of codependency is an example of how serious my disease really happens to be.

Obviously all this sounds totally retarded, and could apply to every human, but Dr. Drew says that addiction really does encompass any cyclical behavior that is negatively impacting ones life, and to be quite honest this is my biggest challenge.

I've lived long enough to understand that love does not exist, and it's not possible to find happiness in another person. If I am ever able to accept these feelings I think I could overcome my amorous narcissism.