BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND Tagged Layouts »

Monday, June 6, 2011

I'm carrie and I am a love addict

I am Love-Sick and I am a love addict.

I have been struggling with love addiction for ten years but have only been aware that it was a problem since January 2010.

So..lets start at the beginning..Where did this all happen and why?

Ever since I could remember, I had a "crush" on a boy or was completely pre-occupied with someone of the other sex. Never did I think this was an issue, problem, let alone an ADDICTION.

Throughout my journey in and out of sex and love addiction fellowships, chatrooms, and face to face meetings, I have seen that it stems from childhood trauma. This could be any kind of abuse. A lot of sex and love addicts have been sexually abused, and this is a common derivitave the addiction, however, I have never been sexually abused by anyone in my family and no one in my family has ever been sexually abused. There is no incest in my family, never has been.

My addiction personally stems from physically abuse I endured in my childhood (done by my mother and father), emotional abuse, and lack of nurturing. The lack of nurturing has effected me the most.

My mother and father did not have the best of relationships. They argued a lot, he hit my mother, and they divorced when I was about nine years old. I saw my dads on weekends, but he was never really there for me and my sister. It was my mother, sister, and me for the longest time. My mom and I did not get along for the most part. Her and I were always yelling at each other, she was always getting on my case, and we always seemed to fight. I do not want to play the "victim" here. That is the last thing I want to do. But, it was pretty tough.

I know I could be a brat, especially growing up. I had anger problems, got violent, and fought with my sister. But even on good days, my mom seemed indifferent to me. She related well with my sister, as they had similar personalities.

I did not experience enough amounts of positive attention, love, and affection from my parents. I was not in one of those families where emotions and problems aren't shared, but I was in a family that shared everything and talked about EVERYTHING in a negative, screaming way. So yeah, we were discussing things, but not the way we should have been.

This lack of attention and love caused me to look for it in different places.

It started off as having crushes on boys. Which I thought was completely normal. I was fifteen I had my first "real" boyfriend. We will nickname him C. My first kiss with C was at 15, and we got sexual a year after that and dated for almost 2 years.

After this break up is when everything started to happen. Here I was almost 17 years old, and single for the first time in awhile! I was in this long relationship and I guess I subconsciously wanted to start getting attention. Especially after I spent the WHOLE summer in my room, crying, and wishing I was dead after this breakup. (which my mom said wasn't normal but this was my first breakup..so I did not see anything irregular at that point..until I look back on it now).

This breakup was crucial iN mapping where my addiction started. It was homecoming at our school, and this guy who I had asked to go with me (who denied me at first) then accepted and agreed to go with me. I was never the most popular girl at school or sat with the popular kids at lunch and here the guy I asked, was a football player. Even though it was Junior Varsity, it was still a big deal.

Looking back on it now, I probably looked pathetic. I am now aware of my "Addictive behaviors," but wasn't before, and I was probably making a fool out of myself. Writing him notes and talking to him all the time, he probably thought I was so clingy. But, at the time I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I was just a girl with a crush on a football player and happy I had a date to homecoming.

I would find myself dialing his number a lot then hanging up..and calling again and again. Everyday that led up to homecoming seemed to drag, and all I could do was obsess about the upcoming date I had. I wanted to look perfect and wanted him to like me more than anything.

When the date finally rolled around, I found myself greeting him at the door and him being indifferent to the whole thing. I brushed it off as we drove to the restaurant to meet some other couples. None of his friends were my friends, as they were "high-society" because they were on the football team, most of his friends were on the varsity team, including the quarterback. The entire night seemed to rush by, and we barely talked to each other.

When we finally got to the place to dance he actually told me to "go hang out with my friends," as he went to hang out with his. I danced and didn't seem to mind, as the night ended and we went to his friends house. They were having some party with the popular clique's of the school and we were invited.

After a night of sitting there listening to popular kids bitch about their lives, my date came outside and asked me if I wanted to take a walk with him. We walked to his friends Blue Jeep Liberty. He opened the door for me (oh what a gentlemen, I stupidly thought), as we closed the door behind us. We started talking, he asked about my recent breakup, this tricked my naive mind into thinking he was "interested." Somehow we got on the subject of sex, he asked if I was a virgin, I said I was not, as I had previously lost my virginity to C, the guy I dated before.

I am pretty sure this guy was a virgin, and told me that. This was seven years ago, so my mind is a little clouded. Before I knew it, his tongue was down my throat. I slowly kissed him back and he tried his best to reciprocate. He was a lame kisser I thought, and he started to take off my clothes. I hesitated and told him that this probably wasn't a good idea, especially after this being our first "date" and I barely knew him. He said something meaningless and not convincing, but I found his tongue down my throat again.

Maybe I wasn't wanting to be mean about it, but I knew I did not want to take my clothes off. This is the first time in my life that i remember a man wanting to do something sexual to me and me wanting to say no, but I did not because I feared him abandoning me (like C did) or stop showing me the attention that I desperately wanted.

We ended up having sex and I went home thinking I was in love with him. A romantic, "smitten-like" feeling was washed all over me for almost two months after that. Lets just say he completely tried never talking to me. I tried to hang out with him again, he did not want that. He ignored my calls to his house, or my stupid notes I delivered to his locker. I was used and this was the first man or boy to do it to me. I was experiencing a lot of firsts wasn't I?

To make matters worse, he told EVERYONE. He told the entire football team, and my history teacher even found out because he was some sort of coach on the football team and he overheard it in the locker room one of my friends said. I was humiliated. My twin sister found out and told my mother, and I was grounded. My life seemed to be over.

After the homecoming incident, M's friend (The quarterback of our high school football team (how dreamy) asked me out two weeks later! A normal girl might have been apprehensive to this. One thing lead to another and i went over to his families lake-house and we had sex (he wouldn't talk to me after that and told everyone too) I thought he really "liked" me, and I felt so in "love" with him. Everyday at school my heart would race when I saw him. One of my friends knew I liked him, and even gave me a picture of him that she had. Things would've been a lot easier to deal with if he would've just told me to get lost. But he didn't.. Do you see a pattern here?

I was too stupid to see he just wanted to have sex with me that night.

Little did I know that THIS was the beginning of a long path of pain and hurt of being a love addict and that this would not be the only man who would embarrass me, lie to me, and would not be the only man who I would delusionally be "in love" with.

When I used to hear or watch anything on addicts, they were all addicted to substances. Whether it be an alcoholic, pill-popper, or someone addicted to crystal meth or cocaine. I was familiar with twelve step programs, friends were in them or I watched about them on television.

I never grouped myself in the category of an addict, EVER. I drank every so often, and yeah I even got drunk. I was obviously not an alcoholic. I never tried heroin (never would), cocaine, or crystal meth. I was obviously not a druggie either.

I did not group myself into this group until 2010...

When my count of how many men I slept with got larger, I started to to suspect SOMETHING was going on. Here I was battling with borderline personality disorder, and one of the symptoms or whatever is promiscuity. So, I thought this was where my sexual acting out was coming from and that it was a problem for sure but not not an addiction. I didn't realize it was both until I walked into the bookstore that night in 2009.

My boyfriend (fiance now) and I went to the bookstore to look at books about each of our mental disorders. As I glanced in the personal growth section, a book randomly caught my eye. I picked it up and started reading the synopsis on the back of the book. The book was titled "Love Sick," by Sue William Silverman. After reading the back of the book, tears welled up in my eyes and I walked to another aisle to regain composure. This book talked about my very existence...

This is when I became aware that I was in fact a sex and love addict. Someone addicted to sex and love, who is powerless over it and has an incredible dependency and obsession level in relationships.

This is my story, my life, and my story of survival.

<3