It occurred to me the morning I started writing this piece—too early, hours before my alarm would go off—that I was going to have to write about my addiction.
I hated that idea. I hated that I had this condition and had no idea how to change it. I’d always known I was an addict, but I thought my vices over the years—smoking, drinking, substances, spending—were my addictions. The fact that I could stop those things without discomfort led me to understand they weren’t the real problem. They were party favors, enablers of bad decision-making, warm-up exercises for the main event. Those things were easy to stop. This other thing felt impossible to change.
At times, it felt manageable, but only for short periods.
I have a love and sex addiction.
Even writing that makes me want to run and hide. I’m embarrassed, maybe ashamed.
But my love and sex addiction doesn’t look like the TV version of SLAA, where I fuck random strangers in airport restrooms. It doesn’t look like that at all—it’s pretty much the opposite. And it’s far more complicated.
Through writing, I’ve begun to understand the source, the reasons, and the motivations for my condition. I’ve started to recognize the patterns and energy shifts within myself when my addiction gets activated—when I slip into addictive behavior. This is a significant improvement. Before, I’d get caught up in the excitement and ride the wave straight to my heart’s destruction. Addiction is compulsive and difficult to control.
I was fortunate enough to receive a normal amount of affection from my mother from birth until I was about three. I think that allowed for normal brain mass development—I don’t suffer from the severe deficiencies seen in those infamous Romanian orphans who endured horrendous neglect. But the sudden withdrawal of affection at age four, combined with the trauma of sexual assault around the same time, caused significant brain abnormalities.
I’ve been left with an insatiable need for another person’s affection and attention, something that has yet to be fulfilled—and may never be. It was so profoundly rooted at such a young age. I’m left with behavior that is difficult to identify in the moment and sometimes impossible to control.
I don’t know what it’s been like for my past partners. Was I too needy? Was I shut down? I’m also terrified of rejection, so I don’t ask for affection. I’m like a Depression-era beggar child, standing on a busy street corner holding out a tin cup—silent, eyes wide and hungry, hoping someone will drop in a coin or some breadcrumbs.
And that’s what I’ve gotten over the years from my long-term monogamous relationships: crumbs.
You get what you ask for.
I’ve been told I’m not affectionate. I don’t know if that’s true or if it was emotional gaslighting. In the past, I’ve been told most of my needs were dysfunction or codependence. Maybe they were. Affection and trust are learned from one’s family of origin, and I didn’t learn either. What I’m trying now is not to withhold affection when I feel it, and to recognize when it’s safe to trust.
I didn’t learn how to be emotionally available or intimate. What I learned was how to trauma-bond. Give me a partner with a fucked-up childhood, and we could turn it into a competitive sport. I don’t do that anymore. The trick is not to get sucked into one-upmanship, even when it comes from a place of trying to be seen and understood. Emotional intimacy is about transparency—telling the truth about hard things, even when you know that truth is painful. Now I’d rather lose a friend than lie about how I feel, that’s a risk I would have never taken. (It’s terrifying.) It’s about showing up for the painful things and supporting the joyful ones. I’ve learned to soften and talk about the hard truths with love. I’ve learned to celebrate the wins, big and small. I’ve learned how to listen with love and remember what’s important.
I’ve learned how to do this with my close friends. My best friends.
In the past, I felt safest in naked tumblings under the covers. Both parties committed to staying in place, eager to please and be pleased, sticking around for aftercare. The chances of being abandoned felt low—but not impossible. I thought that was true intimacy and surrender.
I tend to choose partners with attachment disorders. My drug of choice: complex or disorganized attachment. I loved avoidant partners. It was so sexy to me. It reinforced the idea that I wasn’t worth much. I’d stick around for three to five years, waiting for the avoidant to love me. I’d end it when I finally realized they were in the relationship for different reasons than I was. It’s a vicious cycle I chose for myself. My attachment style was anxious and preoccupied, obsessively worrying about my partner's neglect. I didn’t trust myself, my needs, or my reality.
In 2012, after a breakup where I behaved terribly—triggered, angry, completely frustrated, heartbroken—I had my brain scanned by the Amen Clinics. Therapy wasn’t helping, my medication wasn’t helping and I was scared of my behavior. My scans showed significant brain abnormalities due to physical and emotional trauma.
I didn’t understand any of it. The clinician conducting my follow-up didn’t relay the information in a way I could comprehend. What I heard in the appointment was that my brain scans were normal, but that I could have some abnormalities. The recommended treatment was psychotherapy, exercise, supplements, and a commitment to the clinic. It felt like a scam—or worse, a platitude, like someone telling you to take a walk to feel better. I told the Amen Clinic to fuck off.
But reading the report now, years later, feels different. As recently as last year. I was still exhibiting some of the same behaviors, the ones that sent me to get brain scans in the first place. Looking at how my last relationship ended, not nearly enough had changed.
I was in denial before. I thought my behavior and brain functions were normal. Now I see the truth.
In the report, it was recommended that I take anticonvulsant medication for my mood disorders. That I take anti-obsessive antidepressants. The symptoms listed in my report? They describe precisely who I am when I’m triggered. Mood instability, irritability, memory problems, abnormal perceptions, and periods of irritability with little provocation. This is why my interpersonal communications tank in my relationships.
Other findings showed “problems shifting attention that may be clinically manifested by a combination of symptoms such as cognitive inflexibility, obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviors, excessive worrying, argumentativeness, oppositional behavior or getting stuck on certain thoughts or actions.”
Obsessive-compulsive and addictive behaviors for the win.
None of this was discussed in the appointment. Maybe I should be on those meds now.
The right therapist and a fantastic career coach have helped a great deal, but the most significant change came from writing. My therapist says I’m doing EMDR on my own, that writing has the same effect. I started writing in November, so this is all very new.
When my addiction gets activated, I behave differently—desperate for connection and attention. It’s like a radar coming online, scanning for an attractive person to pursue. I can’t focus on conversations because I’m too busy searching the room, looking for eye contact, engagement, a compliment, an exchange of energy.
And people treat me differently when I’m like this. I wonder if it stinks of desperation?
In Frankie and Johnny, Johnny, recently released from prison, hires a sex worker but only asks her to lie beside him, clothed. He needs to be the little spoon. I’ve thought about hiring someone to hold me. In the movie, it’s one of the sweetest scenes in cinematic history. In real life, it sounds desperate and sad.
Unless I draw a direct parallel.
Maybe I did just get out of prison. A jail cell of my own making. A relationship with another beauty, another perfectly avoidant attachment style.
I now speculate about the people I attracted when I was in my twenties. The height of my addiction—what did they see? Someone who would do anything for love? Because that’s who I was. That’s what I did. I had already paid for love and affection when it came down to it. Convinced I wasn’t lovable or worthy, I bought people—or let them buy me.
Why are you so beautiful and perfect, my avoidant lovers? I guess having parents avoid and neglect me wasn’t enough. I needed the quiet discomfort of those who take, but are incapable of showing up to give.
I am so fatigued by these wounded matches. The trauma-bonding. The physical discomfort of being in relationship and being utterly lonely. I have felt the loneliness to my core. My muscles and skin tingle and ache from the lack of touch.
This is awful. I feel like I’ve stripped completely down, clothing on the floor, skin in a puddle on the floor around me, flayed and exposed to my bones. I’m on display for you to inspect, critique and analyze.
For the longest time, whether my affection was returned or not, my attraction and desire felt like unending possibility. My love interests existed as beacons floating on a vast, turbulent sea—an ocean of feelings and emotions. These beacons were ambiguously shaped, buoyant, and tremendously resilient. For some reason, they existed only on the port side of my vessel.
The intensity of each beacon depended on the person—their physical appeal, achievements, and how incredible they seemed at any given time. The beacons emit sound, light, and heat. It didn’t matter if the object of my affection was interested in me or not. I’d pursue that person until I got an outright rejection, unable to take a hint.
If the person was interested in me, the beacon clung to my ship, screaming like a klaxon, raging like wildfire, and so blindingly bright that I couldn’t focus on life. Obsession kicked in. I neglected myself and my responsibilities and triggered my other vices.
Other times, the beacons drifted in the distance, barely noticeable but always present—quiet, persistent, holding the possibility that my affection might one day be returned.
Some of those people mistreated me, hurt me, broke my heart, definitely neglected me—yet they remained out there, flickering. The beacons only sank to the ocean floor if they were a disappointment in bed. Then, the light shut down. Interest lost.
But recently, I discovered another beacon.
It was different from the others. I first noticed it when I started writing this essay. It was off in the distance, on the starboard side—I had never seen it before. Like the others, its shape was ambiguous. But its light shone differently—like love and tenderness. Its sound was soft, like Adagios and Bach’s cello suites. It was warm, full of life, joy, and kindness.
Portside was addictive love. Starboard was the love I had discovered for myself.
As soon as I saw that beacon, I pulled it close and embraced it.
And just like that, portside went incredibly quiet.
For the first time in my life, aloneness doesn’t feel like loneliness. The silence is soothing and full of grace.
I embrace the person I am becoming.
I can see the shape of my life, and it is gorgeous.
It’s taken brutal, painful work—processing, sitting with the difficult truths—to understand that I am worth it. That I am, in fact, quite a catch.
For the first time in my life, I enjoy being alone.
At the beginning of the year, I committed to 365 days of total sobriety. No booze. No substances. No romantic entanglements.
This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
It’s only mid-March, and I’ve almost slipped several times. But so far, I haven’t had to restart the sobriety calendar. The universe has intervened on every occasion. It takes two to make a thing go right.
It feels like a television show in which the protagonist has made a deal with the devil, something so important that heaven must be involved. The protagonist is weak, unfocused, and an alcoholic. She keeps going to the bar, but something continues to prevent her from having a drink.
The 24-hour bar on the corner of Esplanade and Decatur is closed. The next bar mysteriously has no booze, and the next one has bad beer.
I’m being cock-blocked by the universe. Instead of getting laid, I keep getting lessons.
Thank you, Universe, for crashing the beer truck on the way to the party and giving me the wherewithal not to jump up and volunteer excitedly to do the beer run.
I’m on track now for forgiveness. For forgiving myself. For forgiving my past partners. For finally understanding that they didn’t abandon me—I just didn’t know then what I know now. In most cases, I chose those partners, I pursued them. I walked into the lion’s den and pretended I wasn’t food. You can’t blame the lion for taking a bite.
Because emotions and recovery are not linear, I can only hope I’m on a continuum of independence, progress, and self-love.
I now recognize when I’m straying from my self-care and self-healing journey. Moreover, returning to my path takes less and less time.
This is what writing has done for me.
Writing. And holding truth.
It rewires the brain.
This is everything. Speak, memory
Just awesome! Thank you for sharing your story!