I've always had "an addictive personality". Even as a young child, I recognized my tendency to gravitate towards things that let me turn my brain off. Part of me knew, even then, that my "addictive personality" was rooted in my need to comfort difficult emotions.
I believe that my mum, father, and grandmother did a pretty good job in raising me. I couldn't have done it better myself if I were in their shoes. But they were often inattentive to my emotions and responded poorly when I displayed intense emotions. I don't blame them for it anymore; I understand they didn't have anybody who could teach them emotional literacy. But as a kid I learned pretty quickly that I couldn't rely on them for emotional support. So I turned to television. Anytime I was angry, confused, scared, or ashamed and didn't know what to do with my emotions, I would turn on episodes of "Futurama" or "The Simpsons" and numb out. I didn't know how to process my emotions, so I learned to just switch my brain off. From the moment I came back from school until bedtime, I watched television. Nonstop. Just like my father always has.
Although "bingeing" television is normalized in our culture, it is a serious addiction for me. When I opened up about my addiction in the past, the people in whom I confided didn't take me seriously. They said things like "everyone does it" or "it's not the worst thing you could be doing". They don't know it, but their comments helped delay my recovery.
To this day, I continue to struggle with television addiction. I've tried to quit many times. At one point, I went a year without watching almost any television. But time and time again, I find my way back to it. I have a hard time unwinding and finding ways to relax, so after a long day of work, it feels good to just press play and forget about my problems. It feels good to be sucked into someone else's story and leave my life for as long as I want.
I grieve for all the beautiful experiences I could have had in high school if only I weren't watching television. And now, years later, I feel like I'm continuing to wasting my life away in front of the screen. I think about all the amazing things I could be doing if it weren't for my addiction: connecting to myself and my friends, spending time outside, living my life to the fullest, making beautiful things and expressing myself creatively, helping to reduce human suffering on earth, continuing on my path to enlightenment and self-actualization...
I want to start taking my addiction seriously. Today, I am stopping my television-watching cold turkey. This morning I convinced my father to cancel our family Netflix subscription. I will be writing up a plan of action for how I can move forward in a good way. I'll make sure to include it in an upcoming blog post.
Managing my addiction will be really difficult because it has to do with how I process my emotions on the most fundamental level. My addiction has to do with a phenomenon Brené Brown calls "emotional numbing". In her book Daring Greatly, she writes:
"Shame enters for those of us who experience anxiety because not only are we feeling fearful, out of control, and incapable of managing our increasingly demanding lives, but eventually our anxiety is compounded and made unbearable by our belief that if we were just smarter, stronger, or better, we'd be able to handle everything. Numbing here becomes a way to take the edge off of both instability and inadequacy... Feeling disconnected can be a normal part of life and relationships, but when coupled with the shame of believing that we're disconnected because we're not worthy of connection, it creates a pain that we want to numb."
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly
Brené is onto something: Continuing to shift my beliefs about myself and practicing my emotional regulation skills are a piece of my recovery. But this is not the only piece. To fully treat my television addiction, I know I have to explore and heal the deepest root causes of my addiction: my childhood trauma.
There is a lot more to say and unpack, but I'm going to stop here. My childhood trauma is difficult to make sense of, so I want more time to research how to heal my trauma and heal my television addiction once and for all.
Wish me luck, and until next time,
-Fern
References
No comments:
Post a Comment