Frightened that I'm doomed to addiction

[harasgenster]

Hi everybody
I feel like I've posted about a million times in the last week. Sorry, it's been a rough patch!

As always when I'm having a bad time, every worry and problem I've ever had is crowding out my thoughts at the moment.

One of the worries I've had is to do with addiction. I wrote something in the OCD forum here: http://nomorepanic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=87084 that I now realise doesn't have anything to do with OCD. It's a long post so don't worry about reading it but it was about having obsessions with people that made me worry I would become a stalker or become a danger to others (especially as I felt I began to act on my obsessions, always justifying what I did to myself with lies, pretending the two things weren't connected).

I've done some thinking (and some Googling) and have come to the conclusion it may be a problem with addiction that I have. There's a thing called borderline-pathological celebrity worship I read about that says: "I think about so and so even though I don't want to" which is what I had and thought it was OCD, but reading a little more into it I saw it described as obsessional-addictive disorder. There aren't many references to this, I don't think it's an official name, but it seems about right.

It occured to me that my obsessions with people - which I always found frightening and upsetting and it really had a big effect on my life - felt the same as the eating disorders I used to have.

I once had an eating disorder that was somewhere between bulimia and compulsive eating disorder where I would binge until it hurt as many times a day as I could. I did this for five years, literally eating then going to sleep then eating again, it's all I did, except for the occasional month I would completely starve myself, lose all the weight, and go back to it. It even led me to do things that completely go against my core beliefs and morals - I used to steal money for food for example, even though I have very strict rules on this and have never been the kind of person that can justify doing wrong for ANY reason.

Basically, the fear at the moment is that I seem to become addicted to things and then I ruin my life. Like, really ruin it for a while. And I have no control over it, the feelings are so strong that I can't push them back and I end up doing THE ONE THING I DON'T WANT TO DO over and over and over again. It's extremely upsetting. I'm grateful that I have never been addicted to alcohol or drugs and I don't think this will happen as I'm not particularly keen on them. But I am scared it will happen again. It's happened whenever my life is turned upside down for any reason - like someone splitting up with me or, in the case of school, getting a couple of bad marks! (Oh my God! Five years of hell because I got a C! What's wrong with me! Haha!) At the moment everything's fine but I'm scared that I won't be able to control myself if anything happens. Like I said, I felt last time that it went too far and I began acting on my obsessions, actually doing things that I was terrified I might end up doing.

How do I know that a) This won't happen again, b) I won't be worse this time, c) I won't become a danger to others?

Or rather, if it does happen again, how do I work out how to stop?!

Does anyone else have experience with addictive behaviour? Were you able to break free?

Thanks

[Going home]

For most people with these thoughts they don't act on them, they remain just crazy thoughts but are you saying you have acted on them in the past? and if so, do you have any therapy for this at all? I would stick my neck out here and say that acting on bad thoughts is probably a step over the line, so you really need to talk to somebody about this.

Anna x

[harasgenster]

I told my psychotherapist at the time but he didn't see the problem. I think I acted it on it but I'm not sure. It's a bit confusing. He didn't seem to realise I was frightened about it.

It was confusing because I know stalkers are supposed to be delusional. They think they love the person and the person loves them back. I didn't think any of this kind of stuff. I just felt an overwhelming sensation of desperation a lot of the time. I just wanted to get out of my life and far away. What happened was I was obsessed with someone in another country that I didn't really know and I didn't really see anything in him that I was attracted to. It was like unwanted thoughts - not scary ones - it was like having a crush except I didn't feel anything for the person because I didn't know them. Hard to explain. I guess the thing is I fantasised he would save me. He was just a blank face I could attribute a personality to which allowed me to daydream that the person would come and make everything better. I didn't like it because I think of myself as being the opposite of all that. I wanted to help myself and be independent and when I'm in my right mind I don't get silly over boys, I'm pretty cool-headed about it. That's why it was uncomfortable at first.

Then I was looking for bursaries to go to uni and the only ones available to me (I'd already had a scholarship so couldn't have another) were in two different countries. I chose the one he was in and told myself it was a better place to study and then I chose a uni in his town despite the fact I knew there were better ones in other towns. Then I got scared because I didn't know why I'd done that. It was like I was hoping the day dream might come true. It was less about meeting him. I didn't really want to meet him. It was about the daydream of someone saving me, making the nightmare be over, that I seemed to be trying to make true. So it wasn't exactly like stalking, in that it actually had nothing to do with him, I was never confused about that. I always knew it was like extreme escapism. But I almost did something dangerous out of desperation. That's what I'm scared of. I'm scared I could BECOME dangerous if I get bad again.

I didn't get the placement and I wasn't disappointed, by the way. I just HUGELY relieved. I think if I had got the placement I would have turned it down. Like I said, I tried to tell my psychotherapist how scared I was and he didn't seem to be bothered.

[harasgenster]

I'm really worried now. Was I definitely crazy? I've been trying to tell myself I wasn't. I really don't want to go mad. I'm terrified I'll go mad.

Ok, if something like this happens again should I commit myself? Are you allowed to do that? How do you do it? I'm not about to go and commit myself now because there's nothing wrong except anxiety. I just mean, I could tell there was something wrong at that time and I tried to get my psychotherapist to help and he didn't seem bothered. If it happens again, though, should I bypass the therapist and go straight to a hospital? Do I go to a normal hospital? I don't know about any of these things. I know people who were taken into psychiatric wards but I think they were taken to a special place, not the normal hospital.

[Nigel]

Hi harasgenster,

Stop worrying!
If you were going crazy you wouldn’t realise it and wouldn’t be worrying like this about it.

I think I said elsewhere on your ED thread that assigning labels to these things isn’t always the most helpful. Labels try to fit a person into a neat little box, but people aren’t box shaped. People probably have elements of several different mental health issues, so what they’re struggling with is something unique to them.

I think I mentioned my friend too. I learnt a lot about EDs from her. Apparently the sort of person who develops one often has tendencies to be rather obsessive about other things, and rather a perfectionist. Those traits were true of her, and I can see elements of them in myself too, which was perhaps why I could partly ‘get’ what she was going through.

She had one special online friend whom she regularly wrote too. She fantasised about being ‘rescued’ by her, and become quite obsessive about it at times. Sometimes she joined other sites she was a member of, just to feel close to her and read what she was saying. Then she felt she was ‘stalking’ her, and like you felt terrible about it. Her friend was quite OK with it though.

Something to bear in mind is that when ‘afraid’ of something, a person doesn’t get drawn to it – they move away from it and avoid it. Neither my friend or you would overstep the mark due to that fact.

I think the key element was that so much was wrong or missing in her life. So when one tiny shred of hope appeared – like those fantasies or her ED – it offered a way out of her emotional pain. I suppose it’s easy to build it up into something huge, and pin all one’s hopes and dreams on it.

I suppose the thing to do is to look at what is underlying all these various issues – they’re probably all pieces of a much larger puzzle. Then you might be able to find more and better ways of fulfilling those things. That way it won’t be necessary to have all your eggs in one basket.

Take care
Nigel

[Going home]

Well to be honest, I didn't realise in your first post how young you are, but now that you've explained abit more and mentioned you are around student age this explains alot, because alot of young people have obsessions about various things including other people. You didn't mention the psychiatrist either, but now that you have and the fact that he has told you not to worry also tells me that when you said you 'acted on' some of it, that it wasn't a serious problem. So no, you are not going crazy.

Anna x

[harasgenster]

Hi everybody.

Nigel, yet again, that was great advice. I hope this doesn't sound bad because I know how much my obsessions upset me but I'm relieved to hear that I'm not the only person to have done this kind of thing and that your friend had the same worries about it as me. Of course, that's not to say I'm not sad to hear she was so upset.

I'd like to apologise to both of you for getting so hysterical. I'm not usually like that but it does happen at the end of a bad week! And Going Home, I'm afraid I'm not student age anymore - 24 and a journalist - so I can't use it as an excuse

Thanks both for your help. You and everybody who has spoken to me here have been wonderful in helping me calm the (flip?) down!

[Going home]

You're very welcome, and we all freak out sometimes so never feel bad about posting your feelings....we don't always get the answer right though I agree with you about Nigel too...he's such a comfort despite his own traumas...he's ace.

Take care and happy christmas
Anna xx

[Nigel]

Hi harasgenster,

No need to apologise – we all have times when we tend to ‘go off on one’ a bit. And if the truth be known, probably a lot of the things we feels are unique to us are shared by many other people too, although they never admit it.

Take care
Nigel


ps.. Thanks Anna