3AM

Does this song remind you of any relationship you've ever had?

It makes me think of the relationships of my youth. When I was alive and awake and exploring new feelings; too busy dreaming to  sleep at night; enjoying long, luxurious love-making nights of passion. Until the night was over and the harsh light of reality dawned.

Two men I almost married, who awoke feelings in me that I couldn't control; who took me to heaven on earth, and who I loved. But who weren't right for me at the end of it all. This song makes me think of them.

The Consequence of Being One's Self

I have a happy baby. How in the world did that happen? She smiles every morning when she wakes up. She is not fussy, except when she needs to tell us something like "I'm hungry." The daycare providers say she is a calm baby, unlike some in the room. My greatest wish for her is to be happy. It's comforting to know that we must be doing something right; that I must be controlling my depression adequately and not taking my frustration and fear and insecurities out on her. Maybe, just maybe, I am different from my dad! Only time will tell.

I've been thinking... the difference between me and others is that I know I am dysfunctional. I know I have issues, I know what they are, and I am SELF-AWARE. I realize I am supremely imperfect and am willing to admit it. I am working to self-correct, but I know I need help to do it. Yes, I have experienced sex and love addiction and destructive codependency, but I am actively trying to get better. The people who judge and criticize me most likely aren't very self-aware and probably aren't cognizant of the dysfunction swirling around them. It's a difficult and dangerous task, rising above the dysfunction that's got a chokehold on you. It's a life-threatening decision to take. Some of us can't bear the consequences, I suppose.

The consequence of allowing myself to be ME and breaking out of the primary dysfunctional system has been abandonment. It's a tough price to pay. Let me tell you, I miss my sister and I mourn the lost opportunity to watch my nephew grow. It has left a hole in my heart. But, the hole in my spirit was more potent and would have been the death of me. I hate being forced to make choices like this, but perhaps I ought to be grateful, for I am alive and am making a wholesome life for myself and my family for the very first time.

The "Good Girl" Is Restless

Very depressed the last couple of days. The "bad girl" in me is itching to break out, but I must be the good mother now. I've never had to deal with this kind of restriction before.

I'm sure it's better for my mental health, but I still crave...

Good Girl

by Kim Addonizio

Look at you, sitting there being good.
After two years you're still dying for a cigarette.
And not drinking on weekdays, who thought that one up?
Don't you want to run to the corner right now
for a fifth of vodka and have it with cranberry juice
and a nice lemon slice, wouldn't the backyard
that you're so sick of staring out into
look better then, the tidy yard your landlord tends
day and night — the fence with its fresh coat of paint,
the ash-free barbeque, the patio swept clean of small twigs—
don't you want to mess it all up, to roll around
like a dog in his flowerbeds? Aren't you a dog anyway,
always groveling for love and begging to be petted?
You ought to get into the garbage and lick the insides
of the can, the greasy wrappers, the picked-over bones,
you ought to drive your snout into the coffee grounds.
Ah, coffee! Why not gulp some down with four cigarettes
and then blast naked into the streets, and leap on the first
beautiful man you find? The words ruin me, haven't they
been jailed in your throat for forty years, isn't it time
you set them loose in slutty dresses and torn fishnets
to totter around in five-inch heels and slutty mascara?
Sure it's time. You've rolled over long enough.
Forty, forty-one. At the end of all this
there's one lousy biscuit, and it tastes like dirt.
So get going. Listen: they're howling for you now:
up and down the block your neighbors' dogs
burst not frenzied barking and won't shut up.

"Good Girl" by Kim Addonizio, from Tell Me. © American Poet Continuum. Reprinted with permission (from The Writer's Almanac)

My old nemesis visited this morning

The old familiar panic visited me this morning as I was sorting my baby's laundry. The voice that says I can't live without my father, that I am doomed to be miserable the rest of my life because he has rejected me. The terror of being abandoned. Right there in the laundry room...I wanted to head directly under the covers for the rest of the day.

And then all this work I've been doing the last few years kicked in...I recognized this feeling, this panic, this guilt, and the fear and urge to blame myself, the desire to punish myself...and it led me back to the experience that brought me to Breakthrough...and then I remembered how I believed I would die without this person, and how I didn't die, and how things turned out just fine in the end. It was like someone threw cold water in my face. Things aren't going to turn out just fine with my father, but I don't need him, either. I don't need any man. I want my husband's support. I want the company of male friends. I would like to have my father in my life and in my daughter's, in the best of all worlds. But I don't NEED. I can survive, quite well, without.

I am no victim. 

The point of what his wife did--following my blog until the opportune moment, then exposing it to my father, was an attempt to victimize. Manipulate and victimize. For revenge. Yes, I was caught off guard. Yes, it stings. But if she thought she was doing permanent, major damage to me, that was a faulty assumption. I think she believed I needed him in my life and she had the power to take away something essential. I think it says more about the kind of person she is and her disregard for her spouse's well being than about anything else. She must not have considered that my father was the one making overtures, that he wanted to meet his granddaughter, that he wanted us in his life. So, by introducing poison to him(not to me, as my writings are my own and I am proud of them), she destroyed his hope. What does that say about her? Something not at all flattering.

This life I have been given has made me stronger than I ever thought possible.

Fear of parenting

I think children from dysfunctional families probably experience more fear at the thought of parenting than do people who were not raised in this type of environment- mostly because of the terror of repeating their parents' mistakes and the lack of a role model to have learned appropriate parenting skills from. That was certainly the case for me, and why I let the sex problem build to such an unmanageable state. Pregnancy was always a possibility if I had sex (despite birth control) and I wouldn't allow that to happen. I couldn't promise to protect my child if I ended up being like dad. I knew enough to know I didn't have the self-wisdom and determination to be different, then. Looking back, I had so much growing to do- not necessarily growing up, but expanding. So many unconscious forces to become aware of, self-loathing to be tamed, forgiveness to be felt, rage to be expressed...thank God for my convoluted and unconventional road. At 40, I finally felt like I had done enough work to not ruin any potential child's life.

Waiting was the best thing I ever did.
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Narcissistic Injury

My therapist gave me a simple way to think about all this pressure from my father to "love" his wife: 

NARCISSISTIC INJURY

Apparently, by not taking his "possession" into my heart, I have injured him greatly. And he won't let go of this "injury"...he will stalk me until his dying day to "repair" it. That might be a bit dramatic, as he turned the tables around and proclaimed that he never abused me at all, that I'm making it up, and he won't have anything to do with me or my daughter. So, I don't think he'll be communicating anytime soon, if ever. However, this blog stalking surprised me, and I am sure that will continue. Fine, dad, C., anyone else,  YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH! (as one Navy JAG once said....)

Anyway, I had tried to repair our relationship a few months ago, believing that my daughter should have a maternal grandfather. The first phone call was fine. He sounded older, much more like his father than I'd ever heard before, still depressed, still having the same problems, still wanting to know all about my life, but I could manage that. It was good to hear his voice after so long. What I couldn't handle was the second phone call, when, at the end, he asked when I was going to talk to his wife again.

I was enraged--did he learn nothing in this decade of silence??? Did he never hear a single word I said, ever??? He never had heard me before, when I explained why this "acceptance" issue was so difficult for me (understandably, I think, because my parents had just gotten divorced!!!) and continued to shove this "need" down my throat for years. You know the story now.



I was simply shocked. I had told him I wanted to work on our relationship first, and then I would see if I could have a relationship with his wife. I told him I needed to take it slowly. He seemed like he understood, but he actually didn't HEAR me in the first place. And it felt as though he was patiently asking all the questions about me and feigning interest in my responses, to butter me up, for the REAL issue...when would I talk to his wife. His "relationship" building with me was all about getting me to accept her. To repair his narcissistic injury.

So, in a normal (read "non-dysfunctional" family), this issue wouldn't have been a big deal. But in mine, it was all about control. My father wanted to control an intimate part of me:  my relationships. MY relationships. Dictate who I can love and who I cannot. And punish when I don't have relations with who HE wants. I am a free human; I was born to love, but not to be dictated to about who or how to love. Loving and relationships, compassion and sensitivity are WHO I AM. I needed the space to grow into myself, and my father could never get that. I needed AUTONOMY to decide how to structure my life and who should be in it. It is MY choice who to include in my life and how, not my father's. All this time, I believed my father had the RIGHT to control these things. Now, I am experiencing FREEDOM of CHOICE for the first time.

I chose to not want to engage with this woman yet. Who knows, given time, I might have been able to develop some sort of relationship. But he refused to allow me the opportunity and time to formulate a relationship for myself, and so desperately needs me to repair this "injury" that I pushed him right back out of my life again. And then he decided to make it sound like he was the one who chose to disown me. Wow.

Narcissists suck.

I LOVE this blog post on defining narcissistic injury.  Quite brutal and vivid.

Narcissistic injuries have nothing to do with sadness.  They are always and only about rage.

The narcissist says, "I exist."  A narcissistic injury is you showing him that he does not exist in your life.  Kicking him in the teeth and telling him he is a jerk is not a narcisstic injury-- because he must therefore exist.
Let's say I'm a narcissist, and you send me a 10 page letter explaining why I suck, I'm a jerk, I'm an idiot; you attack my credibility, my intelligence; and you even provide evidence for all of this, college transcripts, records from the Peters Institute, you criticize my penis size, using affidavits from past and future girlfriends-- all of this hurts me, but it is not a narcissistic injury.
A narcissistic injury would be this: I expect you to write such a letter, and you don't bother. 

The reason it's important is because the reaction of the narcissist to either "insult" is different.  In the first example, he will be sad and hurt, but he will yell back, insult you, or cry and beg forgiveness or mercy--he will respond-- maintain the relationship.   He'll say and do outrageous things that he knows will cause you to respond again, to prolong your connections, even if they cause him misery.  He doesn't care that it makes you and him miserable-- he cares only that there is a you and him.

But in the latter case where you ignore him, humiliate him-- an actual narcissisitic injury-- he will want to kill you.

Me, Too

I know that I need help.  Every day I wake up feeling like I don't belong here.  I carry these hurt feelings every day, and do all that I can to keep them at bay.  I hang out with friends.  I go to church.  I make plans for the future.  But the silence always gets me.  Whether it's the silence before I go to bed, or even the silence of being in a room of people yet not interacting with any of them, my feelings always crop up.  That I am not normal.  That I am not worthy, not good enough.  So I work hard.  I help others.  But it never is enough to keep the painful thoughts away for long.

From The Wounded Healer's blog. Thank you for sharing, wounded healer. You are NOT alone; I understand.

Trying to translate love into action

All of this reminiscing about the past is starting to affect me; I feel as if I have a thousand ton weight on my head. I wish I could erase my mind. When you consciously try to forget something, it suddenly looms larger, doesn’t it? I find myself up at night (when my baby is sleeping moreover!), staring at the ceiling. And, no, I do not have an interesting ceiling. Sometimes I watch my daughter shuffle around in her sleep, flinging her arms, slamming her legs down; she’s a restless sleeper. I wonder what she’ll be saying about me in twenty years. Will I look as bad in her eyes as my dad does in mine? Am I correcting his mistakes with my daughter? I have been pushing myself to the edge of my physical and mental capabilities, trying to be everything I ever wanted in a parent…that is, not like him. Smiley, happy, stable, constantly making eye contact, reassuring her to prevent fear. Always holding her, even when my back and knees are worn out for the day and I stumble down the stairs. I never let her go. I deny myself food and drink so that I won’t have to leave her for a minute; so I won’t disturb her sleep after she nurses; so she doesn’t cry. I wear myself out keeping her from crying; I can’t bear it, it breaks my heart. I make funny faces at her when I want to cry; take her out for a walk when I want to hide under the bedcovers. I want her life to be all about her. And inside of me, I want life to be all about me. Sometimes I feel resentment—I want to be the baby, to be taken care of in this way. I wish I were the taker instead of the giver. But I had my turn, years ago, even if I feel ripped off of a childhood.

But I want my daughter to be happy in a way I wasn’t. Despite my inner jealousy and resentment over giving her everything I never had (and how odd that sounds!), I want for her to desire to be here and to be free. And if I do that, I’ll have done my job here on this earth. I keep thinking about my deathbed, when my life is done, and I am relieved because I will have no regrets. For the first five months of her life, at the very least, I have been the parent I wanted to have. I have set down a strong foundation for her to stand upon, thanks be to God.


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NY Times Article

Well, well, look what I bumped into while searching the web this morning....Even though it was written in 2006, it's timeless!

Strung Out on Love and Checked In for Treatment

I can soooo identify with the writer. I honestly didn't expect to see anything in the public media that confronted this issue. I remember being embarrassed while checking in to my program--I wasn't an alcoholic or on drugs. Yet again, I had one of the invisible scars, the psychosomatic reactions that I couldn't whip out and show anyone to prove that something was wrong inside of me. I hunched up in the waiting room, and glanced suspiciously at the other participants, feeling defensive and angry and most of all, unworthy of even being in a treatment program. All I knew was that I felt like SHIT, I was ready to give up because someone didn't want me anymore, and what the FUCK was wrong with me???? I remained in this state for the rest of that day. By the next morning, though, I knew I was in the right place. And I felt very safe--especially in the cafeteria. I chuckled as I read that the author stuffed herself with cookies...the cafeteria was our comfort zone. Always some fragrant aroma of comfort food wafting about. And we all ATE, as in four-course meals, three times a  day. We were encouraged to transition our pain, for the time being, into the comfort of food. And not to mention that this therapy--the psychodrama, family sculpture, never being alone, was HARD work, and we were all famished by the time we walked (in a group of course) to the cafeteria. Of course, exchanging one addiction for another is a no go, but in desperate circumstances, we needed SOMETHING to cling onto when our worlds were dissolving in front of our eyes. And the therapists helped us deal with transferring our addiction and then disengaging from it. And I wouldn't really call comfort eating an addiction (even though I have) in this case. It worked. And it works for hundreds of suffers going through the program each year.

A wonderful definition of an ACoA

Healthy children are not the result of a "perfect childhood," but are the result of a family system that has reasonable and consistent rules, that has a foundation of trust and appropriate responses to the breaking of those rules. Punishment in a healthy family does not involve physical or emotional scars, are not out of proportion of the offense.

Adult Children most often come from homes where rules are subject to the whim of the person in the room at the time. We may have been ordered to do one thing by father, forbidden to do the same thing by mother, told to do it differently by a grandparent and ridiculed for doing it (or not doing it) by an uncle or "friend of the family." As a result an Adult Child grows up "knowing" he or she can never do anything right -- that they are somehow defective.

In a healthy home the parents are loving authority figures who make their likes and dislikes understood, freely express their needs and feelings, are allowed to openly disagree, and to not be perfect -- all without threatening the underlying trust and love that are the consistent resource for the family. A healthy parent can make a mistake and it is not traumatic for the children, but a demonstration of the freedom and honesty of a healthy family. Healthy children learn their parents are human and are not perfect, and the child learns he/she is not expected to be perfect, but to do the best they can do. Children learn they can make mistakes, are expected to make amends for any damage caused and then to learn from the experience.

In a dysfunctional home, the parents are authorities whose word and actions cannot be questions. In the face of blatant wrong information or wrong actions, the Adult Child learns that his/her own wants, needs and safety are less important than supporting the family system. Independence, which is allowed in healthy families within reasonable boundaries, is a threat to the authority of the dysfunctional parents.

A

dult Children learn to become used to comments like "Who do you think you are?" "You'll never amount to anything," and "What makes you think you're so great." Adult Children learn not to exceed their parent's level of competence. They learn that it is dangerous to be a better student, to make more money, to have a saner family or to win recognition. The dysfunctional parent takes such successes as threats -- that they are "less than." The Adult Child may not be aware of the self sabotage they apply to their own lives and wonder at their inability to achieve success.

As a child the Adult Child learns to behave in whatever way allowed them to survive. Behavior can range from defiance of authority (the romantic image of the "rebel") or by suppressing their own needs and attending to the needs of the people who continue to represent their parents in their lives.

Children carry their early perceptions of family rules with them as they grow into their teens and adulthood. While living in a dysfunctional family, the warped foundation may continue to function well enough to permit the illusion of a functional family. Virtually all dysfunctional family systems, however, are in a slow downward spiral, requiring more and more energy to defend the "official" realities of the family in the face of mounting evidence.

When the child of a dysfunctional family begins to enter the "real world" -- schools and the workplace -- they discover their family system is not the reality shared by their classmates and co-workers. Many Adult Children become loners or form tight, unhealthy relationships with other children of Dysfunctional homes. These relationships actually re-enforce their dysfunctional view of the world by "finding another person who really understands." The tightness of the bonds created in these relationships is accented by the Adult Child's lack of an individual sense of of identity -- they do not yet know where they stop and someone else begins. As a result they are unable to define their limits and begin to take on other people's opinions, defects and needs.

If the Adult Child is able to form lasting friendships (some never do), it is usually with other Adult Children who provide familiar characteristics similar to the family's dysfunction. Adult Children can be very slow to recognize the patterns of family problems -- they spent their lives being trained by the family to not see the problem -- even when they are re-created in friendships, marriages and work relationships. While the outward symptom of the dysfunction may be missing (the bottle, the gambling debts, the violence, etc.), the behavior is present early in the relationship. When the behavior blossoms into full dysfunction, the Adult Child is often one of the last to notice and feels very betrayed ("I never knew he drank...", "My God, she's just like my Mother!")

At the point of awareness the Adult Child can easily retreat into depression and feel defective -- "What's wrong with me? Why didn't I see it before..." The lack of skills necessary for nurturing themselves can leave the Adult Child with intense self-hate and low (or non-existent) self-esteem. 

--http://lvaca.com/

Withdrawal from a person

One more word about this love addiction and then I'll let it go. I never expected to experience physical withdrawal from a person. The Caron time felt like detox, and not only was I emotionally miserable, I also began physical withdrawal, which continued for probably a month after returning. I had heard a lot about alcohol withdrawal at my 12-step meetings, and when I look back on it, that's what was happening. I didn't know the body could react to the withdrawal of another human being as though he were a potent drug (my therapist compares the high and then withdrawal from cocaine), but it's true. I suffered through this list, basically.
*************************
Symptoms of alcohol withdrawal:
Anxiety
Depression
Difficulty thinking clearly
Fatigue
Feeling jumpy or nervous
Feeling shaky
Headache
Insomnia (difficulty falling and staying asleep)
Irritability or excitability
Loss of appetite
Nausea
Pale skin
Palpitations (sensation of feeling the heart beat)
Rapid emotional changes
Sweating, especially on the palms of the hands or the face
Vomiting
***************************
Especially the shaky feeling and sweating, which surprised me. I guess it should have felt familiar, as this is similar to what I experienced during and after my father's visits, but I wasn't able to consciously make the connection at the time. Who can, when you're going through a living hell?

I was unconsciously reliving the intensity and drama of the love-abandonment I experienced when I was younger. That was the bottom line. I had to relive it in order to heal the wounds of the past. It was an integral piece of my recovery puzzle.




Enough now. I have completed this portion of my personal history, and I will allow it to grow old and gather dust in my library of experience.





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This was my utopia

I was involved in an ACoA group for about four years, this breakdown occuring at about the tail end of my time in that group. ACoA is a wonderful support for adult children of alcoholics and non-alcoholics, but those who experienced some kind of indefinable dysfunction, like mine. What I treasured about my group was the openness and honesty of its members. They weren't afraid to talk about the hard things-their hatreds, anger, rage, jealousy, depression...this wasn't a put-on-a-happy-face-and-pretend-everything's-fine group. No, we were honest and REAL. And cried a lot. It was the one place I felt truly listened to. The silence while I talked was healing (I think that might be the most profound aspect of 12-step programs). No advice-offering, no backtalking, just 12 listening pairs of ears. Sometime members teared up as each us spoke our truths. No criticism, no judgements. Pure acceptance. This group accentuated my faith, as this felt like what God's love should be.

Not every group connected like we did. But that's why trying out different groups is crucial; you need to find the group where you fit. These groups have different "personalities."  After four years, the makeup of the group changed- older members dropped out, new members came in and the atmosphere lost its healing power for me. It was time for me to go. I have kept in touch with a couple of my fellow members; they are the people closest to my heart now.

I will write more about ACoA, but I wanted to give a short introduction, in case anyone was wondering what ACoA was all about.

Breakdown

It was while trying to cope with the loss of my first experience that I had a complete breakdown. This person triggered all of the potent, latent feelings I didn't even know existed. I was terribly confused and hurt and didn't understand what the hell was happening. I think the emotional entanglement that I had gotten myself into triggered memories of my father; he was a highly emotional person and believe it or not, I did love that about him. The depth of feelings my father could express, although highly inappropriate in a father-daughter situation, was very much like the depth I contained in my soul. And here I found someone with a similar depth of emotion. Combine that with the first sexual encounter I had in, I don't know how many years, and it was as though lightening struck me; I couldn't see straight for months. And then, of course, because it was meant to be temporary, it was gone.  And I spent the rest of this miserable time attempting to get it back.

What's past is gone, and I had to learn that lesson, but it took me to the end of myself, to the point where , as I wrote earlier, I went to the Breakthrough Program at Caron. I also attended a series of intense live-in workshops, that focused on psychodrama and breathwork, for about a 6-month period. I came back from these, what can I call them--I really have no words for it--older and wiser, it felt.  I had managed to connect the potency of the relationship with the hole my father's absence left, which was a huge discovery. I was able to feel anger and RAGE even for what had happened to me. But I was still battling the intense need for an even more potent sexual hit.

In all this, my husband watched over me, got pushed to his limit finally, and made me grow up.

He understood the sex addiction, and helped me through that, but what he wouldn't tolerate was the "love" part, and who could blame him. Had I been in his shoes, I would not have put up with as much shit as he did.

Beginning of the sex/love addiction phase

Since I made the decision to "divorce" my father, so to speak, I expanded my life in unimaginable ways. But I wouldn't have been able to do this without my husband. Our relationship was and is a deeply emotional, mental, intellectual, and spiritual one. He became the father-figure I needed to move on with my life. He stood back and allowed me to develop without interference; he indulged the child in me, then permitted the rebellious teenager in me to take over for a while; he then observed as I moved on toward maturity.  He was calm and patient with this process for years; I've never seen or heard of anything like it. He has been supportive to the extreme. He did not pressure me for anything all these twenty years, except my respect and love, which he deserved in full abundance!

Under his comforting protection, I developed interests and hobbies and self-pride and learned what boundaries were. We learned together how to maneuver through difficult situations in our marriage; we went to counseling together when it was desperately needed-as I was transitioning to womanhood, really, in my "re-"development, and we had to change the nature of our relationship, from that of romantic love, best friend, and father-figure to sexual partners.

My husband allowed me to undergo the processes I needed for recovery from the covert incest, including the sex and love addiction that inevitably followed my sexual awakening.

I think that the intensity-charged atmosphere that I grew up in, the emotional intimacy of my relationship with my father, and  the fact of being my father's "chosen one" set up the preconditions for my particular brand of sex and love addiction. (idea credited to Dr. Love's Emotional Incest Syndrome)

I also struggled, and still do, with codependency and a tendency toward seeking out drama, just to feel the buzz of adrenalin, the hit of cocaine. But the love and sex addiction controlled my body and my mind obsessively for a period of about three years. I still struggle with it in some form today and I have devised boundaries for myself to keep the worst of the temptation at bay. I attended an SLAA  (sex and love addicts anon) meeting at one point about a year ago, where I immediately was drawn to a particular male and only "woke up" when he mentioned something about an ex-girlfriend from one of his SLAA groups...oh shit, I'm fucking doing it again! I left the group immediately after that and decided that I am unable to attend in-person SLAA meetings. Too much temptation. Online meetings work out well for me, as well as having been upfront and admitting my tendency to members of the group, who suggested only talking with female members.

 My sexual self had been dead for years, and I was content to let it be that way. I didn't need it; I didn't crave it. I was so frightened of having to grow up too fast in this process that I shied away from it. I hit a point, though, when overnight, almost, it seemed to be necessary for my survival and I hit a wall. Dh and I hadn't been here before and neither of us knew what to do. I needed sex to wake up after all these years, desperately. So did dh, but waking a long-hibernating animal is harder than it seems. We took a very controversial route, one that many people, I am afraid, cannot understand. We will always be judged harshly. But we listened to our instincts and took grave risks, and the end of the story is we repaired that aspect of our relationship and have a healthy, beautiful daughter today. So sometimes there really is light at the end of the tunnel.

I think what sparked this intense period was my realization that my biological clock was ticking ever faster, I only had a few years left if I wanted to reproduce. All of the sudden it MATTERED. I freaked out as the reality shot its way into my consciousness. A few years back, this thought had occurred to me, and I attempted to get the ball rolling, but it sort of fizzled out and I let it be. But now, what if on my deathbed I regretted never having my own child? Nightmares about this devoured me.

We got interested in a type of fetish behavior called "hotwifing" at this point. (definition from Urban Dictionary.com: A married woman who has sexual relations with other men, with the husband's approval. Usually while the husband watches or joins.) It seemed to suit our individual sensibilities; although in our case, I went out on assignations alone, for the most part.  I think we both knew the risks, although the realities didn't hit us until afterward, when we considered what could have happened.

The high I got from this was incredibly potent. I signed up at a sex website, put out an "ad" and dove right in. The attention was addictive and enormous--over one hundred responses in a few days. I played around with these and found myself drawn to the most emotional of prospects, which  I then pursued. The next was an aggressive, cold, completely opposite type. The third was somewhere in the middle, and with the fourth, I put not only my career but also my life on the line for the high. My needs got stronger, and I desired more risk, more insanity, each time to get the same high.

At the same time, these were human beings, and I developed relationships with all of them, different kind of relationships, which I learned from as well, as part of my own growth process. But the THINGS I did, the RISKS I took with my health and safety were the worst part of this addiction.