I read somewhere that we get a dopamine burst even in times of worry and pain. I thought, “How can this be? I thought dopamine was just for pleasure?”
I found this Article in psychology today which helps explains it:
“….in the moment, anger feels good; it feels like the thing to do. It overrides all other moral and rational brakes in the brain because it originates from our primordial, original limbic system: the brain center of our most automatic emotions like fear and desire.”
And as far as the dopamine release:
“What happens is that anger can lead to similar “rushes” as thrill-seeking activities where danger triggers dopamine reward receptors in the brain, or like other forms of addiction such as gambling, extreme sports, or even drugs like cocaine and methamphetamines. Anger can become it’s own reward, but like other addictions, the final consequences are dangerous and real…….”
In life’s tragedies, sorrow, unbearable grief, and pain, it’s easy to let to resentment and bitterness live in our hearts and breed discontentment. We let our space be filled with rumination of what has been done TO us–especially if that’s where we feel the most comfortable.
Even if we have good reason to be angry there comes a time when it’s causing more distress to hang on to it than let it go. Living with anger and ruminating on what others have done to us, drives wedges between those we love. Even those of whom the anger is not directed, will feel our discontent because we can never be truly free to be our authentic selves if we hold on tightly to anger.
It’s very difficult to break out of these patterns of thinking. Certain triggers activate our emotions and automatically seem to make us react or lash out in anger and spite. Surprisingly, we may be so used to reacting that it doesn’t even feel like we are lashing out. Some personality types will even be offended if you suggest they are lashing out or even overreacting. Whatever anyone else thinks, WE know when we are miserable and when our moods seem to be dependent on others’ actions. At some point, hopefully, we can have the desire to make a change and create emotional boundaries.
How to disengage from conflict: Learning healthy boundaries about not trying to manipulate situations, mindfulness, meditation, counseling. Also joining positive support groups, not those with toxic angry vibes which perpetuate our victimhood.
Many people believe that God alone has the power to turn weakness into windows through which his glory can shine through.
Whatever method you use to work through your emotions, as long as you feel yourself becoming less reactive, and more authentic; then we can celebrate progress.
After all, when we are feeling content and emotionally stable, we can lean into helping others do the same, thereby contributing to the healing of the world.
As my son’s life spins more out of control, I feel myself spinning too. Falling away from him. Away from having to defend him. Away from justifying anything. It hurts. But it’s a numbing kind of hurt. A tired hurt.
I wonder, Is this how he felt when he was choosing between the choices he had?
A numbing peace?
A tiredness. What stressors that he must have faced, day after day: Running a business, keeping everyone happy. Never being enough. Never quite getting it right. Never feeling quite comfortable in his own skin. Always using humor & distraction to move away from those feelings.
The world tells us we are never enough. It’s hustle, hustle – to win the game. But those with addictive qualities, take that further. They can’t stop at certain points which balance it out. Those with mental illness become hyperfocused on unhealthy behaviors.
Netflix’s new show Words on Bathroom walls shows the demons that mental illness brings and what people have to do to relieve those.
I’ve spent over 3 years now, doing a deep dive into why my son started using. The entire time, it appeared he was getting worse and worse. As Lorelie Rozzano stated in her post recently:
“Weeks, months, and years passed. I grew progressively sicker, and somewhere along the way, I STOPPED CARING…
Justifications, rationalizations, and blame were ingrained in my thinking. My cognitive reasoning skills were poor—every thought I had allowed me to justify my behavior and rationalize my use.
Because my brain was a toxic chemical soup, my behaviors grew increasingly more unhealthy. I justified using, stealing, cheating, procrastinating, yelling, swearing, over/under-eating, shopping, and the many other poor choices I made.
I built a sticky web of deceit and drug dependency and then became trapped by my thinking. It was the worst kind of hell as I was both the victim and the perpetrator of my demise.
I also have become trapped in my thinking. Thinking I can fix this.
I can’t.
And maybe that’s how he feels. Too much to fix…Without the know-how to do it.
Although WE can see the way out pretty clearly, their hijacked zero-coping skill brain can’t.
And we can’t tell them the way out. As my husband eloquently stated regarding this blog and it’s title:
Falling From Grace
It suggests a feeling of surrender, which can only come when one recognizes that the battle is unwinnable. Falling away from having to defend and justify illustrates in my mind the laying down of arms and the raising of a white flag. Which ties in perfectly to the tiredness you describe. Like a soldier with battle fatigue. I know that feeling. It is similar to how I felt when I withdrew from my 2-year custody battle all those years ago. Feeling trapped in your thinking. It takes a wise and powerful mind to be able to conclude that it’s own patterns are flawed. Also the word “trapped” suggests a situation from which you desire escape. Which means you want something better for yourself. In “Falling From Grace” Mason is said to have made choices. This honors his adulthood and freewill instead of casting him as the powerless victim, which makes him sound weak and infantile. I know he would agree. Grace beautifully conveys that you haven’t quit, but you have done all that you can do.
I like how this lady in long term recovery describes the addicted brain:
“The lack of coping skills to handle day to day challenges physical emotional psychological spiritual etc, are the core reasoning behind the need to use n abuse. All of which leads to self-destructive behaviors & uncontrollable actions that without the desire for change, leads to a self destructive lifestyle. The individual [must somehow] makee the choice to stop & force themselves to feel & learn to manage feelings & problem solve.
If not, they continue to self destruct & live day by day in the life of an addict. Only when the [recovering] addict begins to make rational decisions will he or she allow themselves to rebuild & recondition the mind- learning to think things through by positive reinforcement- Marta Deleon
Keywords”The addict can begin…..” Not the addict’s mom… Everyone has to do their own work. Even then- there’s a certain point (such as where I’m at now) to turn it over to Grace.
I have to remember Joyce Meyer’s word in “Closer to God Each Day:
"We often get frustrated because we are trying to live by our own works when our lives were brought into being and designed by God to be lived by Grace. The more we try to figure out what to do to solve our dilemmas, the more confused, upset, and frustrated we will become. .....just stop and say "Oh Lord, give me Grace (your power and ability)." -Joyce Meyer
I can only pray that there’s enough Grace (divine love or pardon) to catch us both as we are falling.
Connection. You KNOW it’s important. From toddlers to teens, we’re told to try to truly connect with our children.
So we do. We try constantly to let them know we are here, and we care. As adults, the dynamic changes into trying to not being so motherly and being just friends, in a way. We thrive in being connected to our adult children. It gives us a feeling of all those little ducklings in a row, not necessarily behind us crossing the street, but out in the world, doing their thing.
When those children become dependant on a substance it twists their brain into believing anything the drug tells them to.
As with everything addiction spreads it’s volcanic ash onto; this dynamic quickly evolves back into nagging mother- disobedient child.
My mom used to always say:
“Never argue with a drunk”
It was all funny until now. 30 some years later, trying to convince my 34-year-old son -35 in 4 days- that his thinking is thwarted. As a nurse, I should know better. Alzheimer’s patients can’t be told they are unsafe to be alone- they think YOU’RE the crazy one. I swear that’s how my son acts. Of course, that is a form of gaslighting in addiction.
"While gaslighting can occur in relationships involving addicts, it does not mean the individual is evil or doesn’t care about others. Addiction has the potential to completely twist a person’s mind until it’s only focused on getting high. This disease is characterized by an inability to control one's use of drugs or alcohol and the uncontrollable desire for these substances. A person who’s suffering from this disease may have trouble with various things in addition to gaslighting. Most people with substance use disorders will go to great lengths to sustain their habits."
That’s all. Once you understand that the hijacked brain will do ANYTHING to get what it needs, you can begin to not take it personally and see the person as extremely ill. Of course, you can’t throw that at them either or it will start a new defense mode/crazy-making conversation.
Good advice from a mom in CA:
Do not try to rationalize with a drug brain, you will never win. You would make more progress by beating your head against the wall.
Do not state the obvious, you need a job, you will never amount to anything, you are throwing your life away, etc. remember job equals money equals drugs. Get them clean first then the job will come.
When the addict tries to pick a fight and tell you every wrong thing you ever did, do not respond and most importantly DO NOT BELIEVE IT. It is what I call the drug game, pick a fight, say bad things, you respond, it escalates, they get angry and leave, they use more drugs. I used to sing songs in my head or just stare at her blankly like she was speaking a foreign language, or say I know what you are trying to do and you can’t hurt me or suck me in, they stop real fast when you do not play. If I thought I was going to be provoked, I would wipe my hand across my mouth and that motion kept me quiet.
If they use the child as manipulation, take the power back by calling CPS or serve them with guardian papers. It stops them cold in their tracks.
If they yell at you on the phone, tell them you love them and when they can stop yelling call back, then hang up.
Do not be guilted into giving them money for food. The hard, cold truth is addicts rarely need food. Just tell yourself if they can get money for drugs, they can get money for food.
Addicts smell fear or weakness and take advantage of it. look them straight in the eye, never look away, never show fear. They know your biggest fear is that you think you are a bad Mom. Tell them when you knew better you did better and now you know better.
Do not make threats you do not intend to keep. Do not say I am going to kick you out if you do not mean it.
Really listen to them. Let them talk without judgement. Tell them they can tell you anything and you will still love them no matter how horrible it is. Let them know you no longer intend to fight. You plan to change the paradigm because what you were doing didn’t work.
End every conversation with, I love you no matter what. You never know when it will be your last conversation.
A common theme among moms here GUILT — that we’ve somehow contributed to this horrible situation. While responses like “didn’t cause it, can’t control it, can’t cure it” are true, a deeper understanding of “false guilt” was helpful to me. Our enemy uses false guilt so effectively on us!
False guilt has nothing to do with what’s true and accurate, nor is it related to true repentance. Rather, it is usually the fear of disapproval in disguise, and this problem especially hounds people who have a hyperactive or malfunctioning conscience. This problem can be especially hard to decipher among Christians, who take matters of conscience seriously and who might be prone to find reasons to feel guilt where there are none.
This tricky emotion puts us on the hamster wheel of life, a never-ending treadmill of uncertainty. There is no pleasing this task master because there is always another chore to fulfill, another person to try very hard to please—even when pleasing her is sinful. People driven by false guilt often feel that they have to go through life perfectly so that they can avoid criticism and disappointing others. A quick look at the life of Christ proves otherwise: He was perfect and yet Jew and Gentle alike still plotted His murder.
False Evidence Appearing Real If false guilt were a chariot, then fear of disapproval from others is the whip upon the back of the horses pulling it. A very helpful acronym for this kind of fear is: False Evidence Appearing Real. Fear often has us imagining the worst possible outcome to a problem when in reality the outcome is rarely as bad as fear tells us it’s going to be. Fear is often a liar.
False guilt consumes our thinking while awake and asleep, and creates in our lives both spiritual and psychological cataracts, stopping us from seeing our relationships with God, others and ourselves clearly. Through false guilt, we lie to and bare false witness against ourselves. It’s still a sin. We judge ourselves inaccurately and always too harshly. We become like the Pharisees whom Jesus chastised and corrected with the strongest language throughout his ministry (Matt. 23). Like the Pharisees, who represented false and abusive religion, false guilt is also abusive. It puts heavy burdens upon our backs, burdens we were never intended to shoulder. False guilt is self-abuse.People who suffer from false guilt nearly always have difficulty being truthful with how they think, feel and act. They have great difficulty giving others Vitamin N–telling people “no.” Charles Spurgeon, British Reformed Baptist preacher and author, recognized how important this fact is in a person’s spiritual growth when he told his students, “Learn how to say ‘no.’ It will do you more good than learning Latin.”
Tragic Optimisim Compare the misery from false guilt to the beneficial nature of healthy guilt, or what Christian counselors sometimes call godly sorrow. Victor Frankl, founder of Logotherapy, one of the most muscular and real-world attempts to make sense of life’s suffering (Frankl was a Holocaust survivor), praised guilt as one of three components that make the case for what he called “Tragic Optimism.” He said that the tragic triad of life are pain, guilt and death. Yet if handled properly, they can spur a person toward abiding meaning and purpose in life. Through guilt, he wrote, people have the potential to change for the better. Healthy guilt is a gatekeeper and boundary-maker. It helps us discover where we shouldn’t go in life, what we shouldn’t do. And it helps us make amends when we do cause others pain and related hardships. Guilt helps us find our way back toward what’s right and repair the torn portions of our lives.
Someone who was once very close to me was also a sociopath, one of those rare souls who are incapable of feeling guilt and remorse. What was astounding about this woman was her inability to express empathy toward others—especially those who she abused. Today she is miserable, alone and sometimes homeless. By looking at guilt’s opposite, we see how valuable healthy guilt is to maintaining the virtue of empathy and common decency. Without guilt, we would be counted among the most despised and wretched people. Thankfully, we feel guilt toward others because we understand that our actions somehow depleted another’s God-given value and dignity. We should treat each other well, and guilt reminds us when we don’t, helping us to avoid sin, the result of which is death in various forms.
For relief and healing, we need to put our guilty feelings under the microscope of our sober minds and see if they are real or counterfeit. One of the best ways to do this is to quiet our minds, close our eyes, breathe deeply, then ask ourselves, “Am I really guilty of what I’m telling myself, or is this another case of false evidence appearing real?” As one who has been hindered by false guilt, this exercise has been invaluable to me…….”- Paul Coughlin
As my son’s life spins more out of control, I feel myself spinning too. Falling away from him. Away from having to defend him. Away from justifying anything. It hurts. But it’s a numbing kind of hurt. A tired hurt.
I wonder, Is this how he felt when he was choosing between the choices he had? A numbing peace? What stressors he faced, day after day. Running a business, keeping everyone happy. Never being enough. Never quite getting it right. Never feeling quite comfortable in his own skin. Always using humor & distraction to move away from those feelings.
Netflix’s new show Words on Bathroom walls shows the demons that mental illness brings and what people have to do to relieve those.
I’ve spent 18 months doing a deep dive into why my son started using. The entire time he was getting worse and worse. As Lorelie Rozzano started in her post today:
“Weeks, months, and years passed. I grew progressively sicker, and somewhere along the way, I STOPPED CARING…
Justifications, rationalizations, and blame were ingrained in my thinking. My cognitive reasoning skills were poor—every thought I had allowed me to justify my behavior and rationalize my use.
Because my brain was a toxic chemical soup, my behaviors grew increasingly more unhealthy. I justified using, stealing, cheating, procrastinating, yelling, swearing, over/under-eating, shopping, and the many other poor choices I made.
I built a sticky web of deceit and drug dependency and then became trapped by my thinking. It was the worst kind of hell as I was both the victim and the perpetrator of my demise.
I also have become trapped in my thinking. Thinking I can fix this.
I can’t.
And maybe that’s how he feels. Too much to fix…Without the know-how to do it.
Although WE can see the way out pretty clearly, their hijacked zero-coping skill brain can’t.
And we can’t tell them the way out. This lady describes the addicted brain response pretty well:
“The lack of coping skills to handle day to day challenges physical emotional psychological spiritual etc are the core reasoning behind the need to use n abuse all of which leads to self-destructive behaviors uncontrollable actions that without the desire for change leads to a self destructive lifestyle the individual will make the choice to stop n force themselves to feel n learn to manage feelings n problem solve if not they continue to self destruct n live day by day in the life of an addict only when the addict can begin to make rational decisions will he or she allow themselves to rebuild recondition the mind learning to think things through positive reinforcement- Marta Deleon
Keywords”The addict can begin…..” Not the addict’s mom… Everyone has to to their own work. Even then- there’s a certain point – like where I’m at now- to turn it over…..
I have to remember Joyce Meyer’s word in “Closer to God Each Day:
"We often get frustrated because we are trying to live by our own works when our lives were brought into being and designed by God to be lived by Grace. The more we try to figure out what to do to solve our dilemmas, the more confused, upset, and frustrated we will become. .....just stop and say "Oh Lord, give me Grace (your power and ability)." -Joyce Meyer
I can only pray that there’s enough Grace (divine love or pardon) to catch us both.
