The Sunday News
Nhlalwenhle Ncube
ADDICTED to pain!
Naturally, common sense tells us that people seek pleasure and avoid pain, but reality has proved this wrong. Many times we have seen people who are in abusive relationship clinging to their partners.
Pain has become part of their lives and no matter how many times they rush to you expressing how much they are heartbroken, they still continue in the relationship. It is not that they are happy or what, no, they are just addicted to pain and suffering.
This kind of addiction is very deadly and some have best described it as trauma bonding!
Sometimes the greater the pain, the more fiercely someone will cling to it. We see this on many fronts, from domestic abuse (when battered spouses repeatedly return to their abuser). Research has it that addiction to pain is one of the toughest problems to solve in human psychology.
I have always taken the issue of being addicted to pain lightly until recently when I came across some court papers of a woman who survived death by a whisker after being set alight by her husband. After the incident, her family forced her to dump the man, but she reunited with the man.
No one understands this woman’s behaviour; generally no one would want to be next to a person who wanted her dead. As if that is not enough, he beats her all the time, but she still wants to be with him.
Pain is really addictive. There are many people out there who cannot let go of their abusers. They do not see anything wrong in all this, but all they can do is find excuses to justify their partner’s terrible behaviour.
Some have been turned into ‘‘goblins’’ where their partners have forced them to cut communication with friends and family.
There is no such love because where there is love there is joy.
Never get used to pain and heartaches, the minute you start normalising the abnormal know that you are offside. Of course, most abusers are quick to apologise and promise to change many times, but it will be lies as their outrageous behaviour gets to be worse. Never waste time, take a stand and end the relationship!
If you stay too long in such a relationship, your body will become addicted to an abusive partner just like what happens to people who are drug addicts.
If somebody is mistreating you, why stick around? And just as no addictive drug is good for your health, no addictive person is either. They feel good in the moment, and when things get bad, you try to re-live that moment, completely in denial. In life, some people get addicted to people who abuse them, just as drugs abuse the addictive personalities of others.
Abusive people are unpredictable, worshipping you one second and threatening you the next, and you are always terrified, but always excited, too. Everything they do is another crazy story, but they slowly become stories you can’t share with friends, because while the stories might be amusing at first, your friends eventually intervene out of genuine concern for your safety.
Your abuser wants all of you, all the time. They are obsessed with you, want to do everything with you, everything for you, and everything to you.
That’s love, right?Well, no. Doing things with your partner is important, but if your partner doesn’t respect the time you need for yourself, your work, your friends, and your family, they don’t love you. Still, when they do everything possible to make you want to spend all your time with them, it’s hard not to feel loved in the moment.
Then they start convincing you they are the only person who loves you, and you believe it, because you’ve never felt a rush like this. So they keep dragging you down until you hit rock bottom.
The lucky ones escape, and stumble upon articles or books that give them the terms to be able to understand that whats happening to them could be classed as “abusive relationship.” People stay in these relationships partly because they are trying to win back the abuser’s affection.
They become biologically attached to their abusers through something called “trauma bonding.” Unfortunately, for many people, when they try to leave these relationships they are so bonded to their abuser that they return. Others don’t try to leave at all and are only freed from the clutches of the abuse when they are discarded.
The truth of the matter is, recovery from an abusive relationship can be very similar to withdrawal from drug addiction due to the biochemical and psychological bonds survivors develop with their toxic partners.
Breaking free of an abusive relationship requires creating distance. This gives the victim an opportunity to free themselves of what amounts to addictive thinking – an intense desire to be near the very person who is causing them pain. The truth is that abusers know how to exploit your guilt and insecurities, and if you keep letting them communicate with you, they will keep breaking you. All you can do is to accept the horrors of withdrawal and know in your heart that once you have cured yourself of this addiction, something better awaits you on the other side.
To all those who are still in abusive relationships, find courage to end it. No matter how many excuses you make, your situation will not change, so leave sooner with your essence intact before it’s too late!
WhatsApp your views to 0712978471.
