Fear. I live my life in fear. It is far and away my biggest addiction and from it sprouts most of my other addictions.
It's entirely possible all this started when I was placed for adoption at six days old. I wasn't adopted until I was four and a half months old. To this day, I have no idea where I was. I have no idea if I was left to wallow in my own feces or if someone was there to hold me when I cried out for comforting. And, thanks to the archaic laws surrounding adoption in this country, ...I may never know.
So, I've probably always lived in fear that when a person leaves me, even for a short time, they may never come back. My birthmother said goodbye one day and I never saw her again for another 30 years. My foster parents, whoever the hell they were, said goodbye and never saw me again. My friends said goodbye to me at ages 3 and again at age 14 and I have yet to see them after all this time. Even, most recently, my wife and family.
So, I believe I developed this fear that if I'm close to someone, if I loved and cared for someone and they leave, I may never see them again. It finally occurred to me the other day in a huge "A-ha" moment. All those times I wasn't supportive of my wife's trips out of town on business was because I was fearful she'd never come back. It's not that I wasn't happy for her on some level, but I felt a deep-seeded fear that she'd find someone or something else and that I'd lose her. It was probably my biggest fear when she'd go away and I'd worry myself silly over it. It's only now that I'm realizing how much of a stranglehold fear had, and still has, on my life.
You see, the biggest fear for fear-based addicts is being found out. I feared that I'd be found out as an inferior spouse, as an inadequate father and as an incomplete person. I feared being left alone without someone there to come home to at the end of the day. I feared her being attracted to someone else...someone more exciting, attractive and better off than I was. I feared so much that I let it rule my life for practically the last 40 years. It's amazing what that kind of realization can do to your day once it really hits you.
When fear is turned inward it becomes anger. Anger, left to fester, becomes depression and I've been depressed for a very long time. John Bradshaw, author of "Healing the Shame That Binds You," states that "anger is a preserving emotional energy. Anger is the self-preserving feeling. Our anger is an energy by which we protect ourselves. Our anger is our strength."
For me, my anger, which arose from my fear, was my shield. It protected me from the possible pain I'd feel if someone left or found me out. It contained any weak feelings with a wall of titanium steel that no one could penetrate. And, I would be damned if I was going to let anyone get through that wall to hurt me again. The pain was unspeakably bad and nothing that I ever wanted to feel again. So, what I thought was my strength was really my downfall. It was my Achilles heel. Further, it's what would contribute to the demise of my marriage. Life is nothing if not ironic.
My name is John, ...and I'm an addict.