How to deal with emotional addiction? Expert offers insights

“Learning how to teach your body to feel safe in peace a journey— especially if your nervous system is in chronic dysregulation. Dedicate a few minutes to silence each day. Go outside and take deep breaths remind yourself it’s ok to not be in crisis,” wrote Nicole.

Some of us are not brought up in a childhood home that we hoped for. A lot of our homes have been weaved in threads of emotional instability, anxiety and worries. The homes were replete with a consistent environment of sadness or terror. We were taught to stop ourselves being happy, we were also taught that this is the emotional state that is consistent. Hence, our mind and body got familiar with the environment that we were brought up in. We learnt to deal with stress and anxiety on a daily basis and made such emotions our home. We related to home with the feeling that anxiety gave us.

This in turn caused us to be emotionally addicted. We, subconsciously, got addicted to the emotional state of worry and sadness that we were brought up with and related to the most. Hence, when we are left in an environment where we have nothing to worry about, it causes us to panic because we feel out of place. What do we do then? How do we stop this emotional addiction? Psychologist Nicole LePera addressed the issue of emotional addiction in her latest post on Instagram and shared her insights – the behavioral pattern, the biochemical reactions and how to stop feeling at home with anxiety.

Nicole said that some of us get so used to anxiety and trauma as the baseline of our emotional upbringing, that when we are left alone or in an environment that is not anxious, we start missing the hormones that makes us feel at home. Hence, we try to agitate our own relationships or take actions in create anxiety and sadness in our lives – just to get back to the emotional state where we feel at home the most.

She further added that teaching the body to be at peace is a journey. It is important to keep silence for a part of the day, remind ourselves that it is okay to not be in crisis and to remove ourselves from environments that cause emotional outrage. “Practice gratitude. If you were raised in chaos, stability will be unfamiliar, scary. Be patient and compassionate with yourself,” she wrapped her post.