Letting my weight down...

[sage]

A few weeks ago I finished a book called "Addicted to Unhappiness" by Pieper. I kept meaning to post notes but kept putting it off!

Basic (overly simplified, may be BS) premise is this: As an adult, you'll do what it takes to re-create interactions that remind you of your childhood -- not only the good ones but the bad ones too.

Not trying to be anti-DB here by delving into childhoods

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* An adult who experiences anger of disapproval from annother can evaluate the reasonableness of the other's behavior. But when children are punished or faced with disapproval for not living up to expectations that are too high, even though they may feel angry, underneath they always believe that whatever their parents do is right. As a result they conclude that whatever unhappiness they feel is what their parents intend and that they themselves will be happiest if they become just like their parents and treat themselves and others exactly as their parents treated them.

* If you are a person who turns on yourself or others when things go wrong, the first step in changing this painful behavior is to understand that unknowingly you are trying to comfort yourself by feeling the way you thought your parents wanted you to feel... when you respond to losses by turning on yourself or others, at some level you feel loved and valued.

* Experiences of genuine happiness may arouse unrecognized needs for unhappiness. You may subtly undermine positive efforts you are making toward goals...when you achieve a goal you have long sought you may experience unaccountable periods of depression, self-criticism and anxiety that you don't realize are reactions to your success.

*If your parents misunderstood your needs or for some reason were unable to attend to them, out of love for your parents and in an attempt to care for yourself exactly as they cared for you, you unknowingly developed the desire to make yourself happy by causing yourself the familiar discomfort you regularly experienced with your parents.

* Accept the fact that there is a way in which feeling badly also makes you feel comfortable or comforted. there are a wide range of painful emotions that can feel familiar and therefore soothing (depression, anxiety, fear, lack of purpose, helplessness, anger, suspicion, loneliness, self-criticism)

* Identify when you are most likely to seek out painful emotions. Once you know under what circumstances you are likely to slip into a painful mood, you may find that anticipating it will enable you to head it off.

*...she realized that after a day that had gone well she would dwell on aspects of her life that weren't perfect and would feel dissatisfied and irritable. At the same time she also noticed that when her day went badly she usually felt on an even keel.

* when people make a good friend or fall in love with a delightful person, their addiction to unhappiness can often spoil the pleasure to be had in the relationship by causing them to overlook the other's strengths and overemphasize the other's weaknesses.

* Once you have determined that the relationship is worth preserving, you need to close the door on the thought that if the going gets tough you can always walk away. Knowing that you are in the relationship for the long haul will make the conflict that is so gratifying to the addiction to unhappiness seem even less appealing and will push you to work toward solutions that are much more constructive than the false comfort you feel when you think about leaving.

* The "comfort" you feel when you think about walking out is really unhappiness in disguise. Ending the relationship would cause the real unhappiness of knowingyou have lost an important relationship that added quality to your life. In contrast to the false pleasure that comes from thinking about leaving a good relationship every time conflict arises, you will experience genuine pleasure from knowing that your commitment to your relationship is rock solid even at times when things aren't going particularly well.

* learn to thwart the demands of your own addiction to unhappiness. Learn how to avoid stirring up conflict, recognize that some areas are just differences of opinion and stop blaming unrelated emotional pain on the relationship.

* People unknowlingly seek to recreate painful emotions because early in childhood they confused these emotions with happiness

* Holding a relationship responsible for always making you happy will destroy it.

Sage