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Writer's pictureJuliette Desvignes

Sex and love addiction is hard




Hello beautiful soul, you know that feeling of unease and insecurity when you don't get recognition from someone? When your partner, family or friends don't give you the attention you need. It's this insidious cognitive distortion accompanied by very painful emotions that makes you believe that you are NOTHING without outside love and approval. That you only exist through the eyes of others. It's called emotional dependence and emotional dependence is an addiction. It's the fact of being addicted, not to a substance, but to the validation and recognition of others. There are of course degrees of intensity of emotional dependence depending on the emotional healing work already done, but when you're in the middle of a crisis, it's extremely painful and disabling because 1) you have no autonomy over your emotional life, your pleasure, your joy, even just your sense of security, of being OK, depend entirely on the behaviour of others and 2) because your attention is always focused on what you get or don't get from those around you, you don't concentrate on what you can achieve in the world, so you don't fulfil yourself professionally either, or if you do achieve a certain amount of success it's by playing roles that have nothing to do with who you really are, what really drives you.

And that's a shame because your essence, your life, your gifts are important, you can't just squander them as if they had no intrinsic value.

Emotional dependence is often rooted in childhood trauma.And when I say traumas, it's rarely the fact of having survived a tsunami, a war or being sold into slavery in Somalia, although that happens too of course.Most of the time, neglect, absence, abandonment, rejection and more or less visible abuse do the trick.

And like any addiction, lack is a bottomless pit, there's no more satisfaction gauge, the barometer is broken, lasting contentment is impossible when you place your personal power, i.e. the source of your mental health, outside yourself.But the good news, and you know where I'm going with this, is that you can get rid of this emotional dependency by working on your traumas, revisiting them with a great deal of kindness, changing the story afterwards, providing help and validation to the parts of you that got stuck in those key moments when you didn't get what you needed to develop a secure, stable mode of attachment and good self-esteem.The good news is that all this can be worked on effectively with hypnosis and EMDR, and you can regain your mental and emotional autonomy.

I know this may seem like a daunting task, but I assure you it's worth it. Freeing yourself from emotional dependency means putting you at the helm of your own captain ship, giving you the chance to feel good about yourself, as a fully-fledged human being who is worthy and precious, regardless of how others look at you.

It's about giving you the chance to fulfil yourself, to blossom, and to experience authentic, enriching relationships that truly nourish you and honour who you are.I'm Juliette Desvignes, hypnotherapist and EMDR practitioner, specialising in simple psychotrauma in adults and difficult childhoods. I have the tools to help you achieve much greater freedom, so don't hesitate to make an appointment on letincelledejuliette.com.


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