Dear Trying:

You are welcome.

“This got me thinking that it might be possible that you can get hooked on this cycle of negative feelings and then finding some form of comfort?”- there is no comfort in anxiety or in pain. Fear and pain are opposites of comfort. But there is comfort in a habit, whatever habit it may  be. If you are in the habit of “revisiting painful memories” (title of your thread), then you find comfort in that habit and you will keep revisiting painful memories.

“It reminds me of what psychoanalysts say about recreating in our relationships the unresolved traumas we might have, in the hope it will not play out the same way”- here is an example: a child has a cold, unloving mother, and she tries hard to make her mother love her, unsuccessfully. Fast forward, the now woman is attracted to cold, unloving men and she tries to make them love her. The reason she is attracted to cold, unloving men is because as a child she’s been very attracted (I am referring to emotional attraction, not sexual attraction) to her mother. She was in the habit of being very attracted to a cold, unloving person. So.. habits tend to maintain themselves. And just like the child hoped her mother will change and love her, she hopes that any one cold and unloving man will change and love her.

“So maybe I am craving for the suffering of unresolved issues and remaining and recreating a vicious circle”- the vicious circle, or vicious cycle maintains itself, you are not intentionally maintaining it, it is not something that you initiate.

We operate like other animals- we are habitual animals. Unlike other animals, we have an elaborate language, the ability to think, write and read using a language but this doesn’t change the fact that fundamentally we operate just like other animals, through chemical habits, basically.

But because we are able to think using an elaborate language, with useful guidance by others (reading, listening), we are able to do what other animals are not able to do: we can become aware of a habit and then initiate the long process of changing that habit.

“Maybe I prefer my hurt and hopeless version”- no, no animal/ no human prefers hurt. The earliest and most primitive instinct of any and every living things is to avoid pain, to move away from pain, not to move toward pain.

Problem is that we are creatures of habits, we operate via habits. So when the habit is vicious (“a vicious circle”), then we will maintain a vicious habit.

Going back to the example I gave in this post- the child is not supposed to have a cold, unloving mother. Nature has not prepared for this possibility. The child is supposed to have a reasonably warm and loving mother and therefore form the habit of reaching out to warm and loving, or warm and kind people. It is a distortion of nature when a child is neglected or otherwise abused. Some or many distortion of nature create injuries.

The good thing is that as humans we have the option to heal by identifying our early life injuries, the vicious habits formed as a result, and then intentionally, gradually, patiently with appropriate guidance- break those habits and heal.

anita

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