Do You Suffer From Anxiety Addiction?

Do you feel that you are bored in your relationship with your partner? When everything is going well, do you go out of your way to self-sabotage it? If you answered “yes” to these two questions, you may have an addiction to anxiety. Although, to confirm it, we must review your family history.

Many people choose partners who hurt them a lot. However, when they find the opposite, they get bored. This dichotomy is not absurd at all. It can be explained in our earliest childhood where our first relationship model, that of our parents, has been full of infidelity, screaming, stress and a lot of drama.

In a completely unconscious way, the moment we choose a partner that model of relationship that we have had and everything we experienced during our childhood explains the reason why we look at some people and not others. Who will we choose as a partner if we suffer from anxiety addiction?

In search of drama

If we suffer from anxiety addiction, this means that the relationship our parents had was quite stormy or, at least, we experienced it that way. What is clear is that there was a lot of drama in it.

The safest thing is that they were two emotionally immature people who did not know how to see that stress and anxiety permeated the entire space in which we were also. Were we afraid of them fighting? Did they use us to put us against the other? Were there passive-aggressive attitudes between them?

Despite all this, we loved our parents. In fact, it may be that even if one of them behaved badly, the other spouse told us, for example, “you have to love dad, deep down he’s good.” This was what we began to understand from a young age what love was; So when we meet someone like that, we love them.

The reinforcement-reward mechanism

When we are born into the type of families that we are describing, a reinforcement-reward mechanism is created where anxiety, anguish and adrenaline are present when our parents fight, yell at each other or a situation of abuse occurs.

However, in contrast is the tranquility and well-being of when all is well. This causes a series of secretions of serotonin and dopamine that cause us to develop addiction to anxiety.

Addiction to heartache and boredom

The problem when we suffer from anxiety addiction is that when we meet someone who loves us and who treats us well, we get bored. So we think that we don’t really love that person and we leave them or we are unfaithful to them.

This is a mistake, we really don’t really want it? Most of the time this is not true. We do love that person, but because we identify love with something else, we consider boredom to be a sign that it is not.

Many people with an anguish addiction associate love with constant adrenaline rush, not calmness and even boredom. That is why, many times, they get angry for no reason, they are unfaithful or they invent anything so that the relationship has that adrenaline to which they have been so exposed since they were children.

Without a doubt, this is a big problem that prevents having healthy relationships in which there is well-being. However, although it seems very difficult to get out of the addiction to the anguish, with the necessary help it can be achieved.

Awareness

Anxiety addiction is just that, an addiction. Therefore, becoming aware, seeing the situation from other perspectives and having the help of a psychologist will help us to realize when we are falling into our own trap.

When we are with a person and we feel that we are bored, if we are aware that this is a trap, we will know not to make the hasty decision to leave the relationship, to flee or to abandon that person for another who does give us that adrenaline, stress and discomfort to which we are hooked.

Addictions are difficult to quit, but not impossible. Many people are immersed in drama relationships that do not make them happy. Relationships where lies, infidelities and manipulation are present daily so as not to leave space for tranquility and calm.

If our childhood was very distressing, it is normal to develop this addiction. However, that very harmful conception that we have of love can be deprogrammed. Of course, always with professional help.