05/10/2024
Many people believe they have an addictive personality. But on a deeper level, what they’re struggling with is: an inability to self soothe.
When we can’t soothe ourselves (which just means feel and calm down from an emotional experience)— we seek external things that will do this for us. This can be substances, shopping, gambling, chronic scrolling, s*x, or anything else that relieves and distracts us.
We learn how to self soothe beginning at birth. For babies and young children, developmentally, there is no such thing as self soothing. We need co-regulation— or an adult who sees us struggling and offers calm support a majority of the time. Through this experience we develop the ability to self soothe. We understand “ok, when I am upset I can breathe, feel intense emotions, and know they will eventually pass.” This gives us the ability to cope and navigate the future stressors of life.
If we don’t have attuned parent figures who noticed our stress and help us calm from it— we start to become overtaken by our emotional experience. Our attachment systems are designed for others to help us, and instead we learn: “I must do this alone. No one can help me. I’m too overwhelmed.” Children with this experience will start to cope in many ways: chronic day dreaming, using food to calm/numb, or “acting out” behaviors (an attempt to seek connection.)
Later, they will become adults with addictive personalities. They will seek external things to relief internal feelings. Even if those behaviors bring them misery, pain, or a loss of control.
The beautiful part of all of this is that we can learn how to self soothe at any age. We can slowly, widen our nervous system window of tolerance and respond to our emotions rather than react to them.
We are not on default settings, and can always heal
