Soulshine

“If you were raised in a family where closeness was not a reality, you are much more prone to form an addictive relationship for two reasons: first, you were taught to distance yourself from people, not connect with them; second, growing up in this type of family left you with a deep, lonely emptiness that you’ve wanted to have filled.” Craig Nakken , The Addictive Personality I grew up in a family that was emotionally and physically distant. In many ways we were like six separate people living in the same house. We were more like strangers than a family. We greeted each other in passing, but we rarely made attempts to do much with each other. Sure, we knew each other’s temperaments, and we definitely knew how to push each other’s buttons, how to evoke drama and invent chaos. We also knew how to hide from each other. We only talked when necessary and we shared—on an emotional level-- no more than we had to, mostly out of fear of abandonment. I was too afraid to reveal t...

Many of us grew-up having our needs denied, especially our emotional needs. We may have had warm houses to live in, food on our tables, proper clothing and toys to play with. But many of us didn’t have the kiss on the cheek, the heart-felt hug or a hand to hold ours when we were sad or hurting emotionally. As a result, we grew-up misunderstanding our emotional needs. Some of us learned to disassociate from these needs. We learned to feel so much shame about having needs or wants that we went into a complete denial about our even having such things at all. In doing so, we became extremely independent. We came to believe that we didn’t really have any emotional needs or physical wants. We became men and women of steel. To compensate for the needs we were ignoring, we subconsciously began to confuse our needs with our wants when it came to taking care of ourselves. Any time we experienced an emotional need, we learned to satisfy it by securing something we wanted. As a child...