Pleasure and Pain in Recovery
By Mary Cook, M.A., R.A.S.
It is in our nature to seek pleasurable and rewarding states. When we live in an environment that chronically fails to meet our primary psychological needs or does not support healthy growth and fulfillment, we look for other means to experience a sense of pleasure and reward. When our honest, vulnerable expressions encounter repeated rejection, our real self with our genuine needs, wants, thoughts and feelings goes underground. We refocus attention on what works best for us in an unhealthy environment. Primary needs are given up for secondary gains.
This means our world begins to feel smaller. Since secondary goals can never compensate for primary needs, we increasingly experience constriction, oppression and frustration. Defenses attempt to dull awareness of the pain from our losses.
When our need for a safe, secure, nurturing experience is not met sufficiently, we are vulnerable to idealize isolation and recklessness, or to seek a drugged state that numbs emotional pain and allows us to feel pleasure. Or we might over-feed ourselves to stimulate the sense of reward and then deaden feelings through overloading the system. We may seek relationships where need and rejection or passive or aggressive codependency are re-enacted. We might become phobic and controlling in an attempt to create safety and comfort.
If our unique strengths and talents are not observed or valued, if our innate personality is not appreciated or understood, if our feelings and thoughts have no impact, if we’re not seen for who we are but only what someone wishes us to be, then these issues repeat in our lives over and over again. We may as a consequence, suffer low self-esteem or pursue goals for another rather than for what is best for us. We may become overly opinionated, bullying, manipulative or preachy as an attempt to compensate for the reverse earlier in our life. We might do things to deaden ourselves further from who we really are and what we truly want, to offset the pain. Perhaps we impose our needs and yearnings on others or pretend to be different than we really are to win acceptance.
