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>> SISSY: I'll do anything. I can stay with you. I don't care. I don't care.
I don't need anybody else. I love you. I love you. I love you so much. I love you -
Please! I love you!
I love you - !
I feel sick.
>> ANNA DAVID: So first to the experts - is Sissy, Brandon's sister, a love addict?
>> ETHLIE ANN VARE: Oh, she's classic. I mean, that one little snippet
summed up craving, obsession and withdrawal all at once.
I always say that withdrawal from love is about the same as withdrawal
from ***
you just listen to more Adele songs.
The physical symptoms are about the same and that was portrayed well.
And it went throughout - she jumped into bed with a guy who the rest of
us knew was an a**hole,
right? But she was unable to see it. She literally could not see the wedding
ring on his finger. And I have been there.
I swear I have just - like that ring suddenly morphed into a signet ring
or a school ring
or a suntan or just like - !
It's amazing, the denial can be so deep that you actually - you become blind.
And just no time before you jump into bed immediately
because God forbid you should get to know them because then you won't want to see them again, or
worse, they won't want to see you again. But what I think that the film
somewhat missed is that, in my opinion, is that a lot of people are acting out
sexually
so that they don't have to feel those feelings of their love addiction. I think
that sex addicts are not predatory men and love addicts are victimized women.
I think that there's a great deal of overlap and flip-flopping between the two, but
that's something elseÉ
>> CHRIS DONAGHUE: I tend to also look at length of time. I think early
relationship crush and love, and love addiction all look the same.
And I think you have to wait a length of time when someone moves out of that
dopamine-stimulated phase when a real relationship shows up, if they're able of tolerate and work
through
- great. But love addicts won't allow that conflictual phase to ever happen, they'll keep it
always in that dopamine-stimulating, dramatic, conflictual-based place.
But initial relationship looks very much like love addiction - they're the same thing.
It's an important part of evolution that we think enough about you and obsessive enough
about you, we want to be around you to procreate, to get in a relationship. So I always think it's
imperative to wait a length of time to see if they move out that phase or if they stay
in that entrenched dopamine producing...
>> ALEXANDRA KATEHAKIS: Yeah, and that limerence phase has to come to an end, and I agree, and
Helen Fisher talks about it being evolutionary so that we can bond and attach.
But love addicts push the fantasy constantly
so that they don't ever have to be in the reality of what's going on and
they lose themselves to relationships, they can end up stalking.
Typically the love addict is born out of profound
abandonment by the opposite sex parent -
or same sex parent if the person is gay. So if you had a woman like this who
was abandoned by her father - and likely both of these were abandoned by both
their parents because they're not well people -
she's going to be seeking that love
constantly and choosing people that will inevitably abandon her.
The sex addict however is love avoidant typically.
This guy's love avoidant, he doesn't have one love addicted bone in his body that I can see.
>> ETHLIE: But I think that's the way it was drawn. I think that's the way that was drawn.
I think that it can be more complex than that. I for instance had an
attachment disorder with my mother
and I see a lot of people - and I'm straight - so I see a lot of
flip-flopping. I see a lot of males and females who will go to the
dissociation and the desensitization of *** acting out to avoid those
horrible, you know... the feelings of loss and grief that are
a product of love addiction.
>> CHRIS: And that's on the extreme side - and I agree with that. And I think on the
watered-down side is the culture we've created -
sex and love addicts, or love addicts I guess -
where we live in a very co-dependent, love addicted culture where
if you look at the archetypes in films and the story-lines, it breathes and reeks of love addiction.
>> ALEX: Well country-western music! I mean that's - a whole genre was born out of that.
>> CHRIS: So I think, I guess, on the watered-down end of the spectrum - because
of the culture we're created versus the attachment...
>> ALEX: But when you look at - really, these are attachment issues, in my opinion. And all female
sex and love addicts have mother hunger issues. They were absolutely abandoned by their mothers
in addition to their fathers. So women can be love addicted to other women even if
they're not gay. Because they're seeking that kind of love and connection.
>> ANNA: But are there criteria the way that there are for sex addiction? What about for
love addiction - what are the signs? How can somebody know?
>> CHRIS: I look at - 1. The shrinking down of their
world.
Healthy relationships are expansive.
You're bringing new people in, your world is expanding, you're experiencing new things,
you're doing new things. Where for a love addict everything is shrinking down to protect
your drug, which is this person.
They won't let anything come between them and that. And then also again, behaviorally,
attempting to keep it in that
you know, fantasy-based - as Alex pointed out -
and that stimulated-base, and that dopamine place, and not allowing it to go further outside of that.
>> ETHLIE: do you check his Facebook page before you check your Facebook page?
Have you changed your route home to pass her house? Have you parked outside that house and waited?
Do you see a jolt of adrenalin every time you see a car that might be his or her car driving by? Let me seeÉ
>> ALEX: Checking voicemailÉ >> ETHLIE: Yes - do you check your voicemail
more than once every fifteen minutes?
Do you leave a second or third or fourth message before the first message has
been returned because
maybe it got lost in the ether, or maybe you forgot to leave your number, or maybe you
called the wrong number, or, you know, I can go onÉ
>> CHRIS: And again it's contextual because all that's
also cute early on and I think that's an important part of early relationships and
healthy dating and it feels good -
>> ETHLIE: And again, what's appropriate when you're eighteen is not appropriate
when you're forty-two.
>> CHRIS: Well - early on maybe, but not later down the road.
>> ANNA: For the addicts that are present -
Do you want to talk a little bit about love addiction?
>> MILES: I have some experience in this.
Miles, sex addict.
I went through
some serious patterns of love addiction a few years ago. That was something I had
to do a lot of therapy on.
I think one of the terms that gets thrown around is magical thinking.
And you ascribe magical properties to the person who's the object of your
your affection.
And...
what my particular pattern was...
you know, I had very profound abandonment in my childhood and
I would re-traumatize myself. I would pick
relationships
that - with people who were unavailable and -
and i think one of the things
that was going on unconsciously was, you know, if I can get
this person to love me then I can fix the fact that I didn't get
the love that I was supposed to get from my parents when they abandoned me.
And - and I think that was a lot of what was going on.
And the other thing is,
you know. my homeostasis was
abandonment
and I
was comfortable in that misery - of abandonment and I kept - that was just
what was familiar to me. So I would keep picking that
- unconsciously I would keep picking that situation where I'm going to be unstable
you know, or I'm gonna feel like, you know, the rug's going to get pulled out from
under me at any minute.
AndÉ
and I think a lot of it for me boiled down to self-esteem
that...
It wasn't until I really learned to love myself that I was able to pick
somebody that was capable of loving me.
But... that's kind of my experience with it.
>> BUD: And I'm Bud, sexually compulsive.
For me, a clue that I might be a sex and love addict is
picking out china patterns and curtains
on our first date for the house that we're going to live in for the rest of our
lives.
Another way for me to see it was in its absence.
When I
was satiated,
in other words, I could be flirting
and when I finally got someone to pay attention and indicate
yes they wanted to have sex with me
- the sex addict in me was really shocked when I turned and walked away
because
- I realized later that it was because
I got what I wanted and that was to be wanted and desired.
I didn't have to have sex.
>> CARMEN: Carmen, sex and love addict.
My love addiction was also from
- I was love addicted to my mother - and it was the abandonment that
turned me into -
which I learned much later - which turned me into the low-bottom sex addict.
I could not deal with
the intimacy. Once that happened I just could not -
I could not trust anybody else. And I could not -
I did not want to -
subconsciously I just was not willing to trust anybody else. I was not willing to
ever go back to...
trying to love somebody or trust...
anybody.
And so that...
It was easier for me just to be that low-bottom sex addict and
not ever let anybody else in and -
and become the victim.
Actually
that ended up working for me for a very long time.
>> ANNA: Okay, I think we're going to move on to the final clip -
Recovery from Sex and Love Addiction.