Some sort of Sex/Love-addiction?

[Smoke]

Hi everyone!

Just throwing it out there: Is it common for people with CPTSD to have a mild form of sex/love-addiction?
I am saying a "mild" form since real addiction means that you need more and more to get your "fix" and I don't really experience that. Though I know I have fallen in love easily many times and used to do so during my childhood so that I could indulge myself in fantasies of being loved and express my own feelings of needing and sharing love.

The fact that my mother used to have a lot of short term relationships probably didn't help.
I was very jealous of her boyfriends since they seemed to steal the little amount of love and time that I needed so badly.
Today I hardly ever get jealous, you'd have to go really far in order to make me feel that way.

Somehow the most intimate feelings are the strongest when I feel lonely but they tend to withdraw when I'm in a relationship.
I feel like I can truly let go when I am with someone new both physically and emotionally but when things start to get serious I tend to withdraw.
Though I can somewhat understand why since most guys I've dated have been emotionally crippled just like me.

I recently came out of a relationship with a person who turned out to be a liar and emotional manipulator, so now I feel really vulnerable. I don't really have anyone to talk to about how I feel and find myself experiencing feelings that wants to drive me into the next persons arms so that I won't feel so desperately lonely.


Please help!
Am I the only one experiencing this?

What do I do?

I try my best to comfort myself but I feel like it's not enough.
I have tried to reach out for therapy but where I live you need to be really, really sick to get treatment and I find myself getting passed on to CBT-therapists who then tell me that my problems are too big to benefit from CBT.

I hate the fact that my most precious feelings seems to be driven forward by anxiety and pain, how to I change?

[Three Roses]

When I was young and single, I was much the same. Driven from one to the next, looking for something and really not even knowing what I was looking for. "The One" who would fix me, like the fairy tales we grew up with.

The only thing I found was more self loathing, more frantic-ness, slowly destroying myself. Even though I craved affection, when anyone started to look serious about our relationship I was gone.

Marriage didn't fix me, either, by the way.

I found that the idea that God loved me and didn't want me to suffer really helped. I hesitate to say that, tho, because I know a lot of people were actually abused in that setting, and there is generally a distaste these days for traditional religion. But you asked, so I've answered. 

These days I attend 12 step meetings for co-dependency and although my FOO didn't really indulge in alcohol at all, there's a lot that still fits for me. The other attendees listen to me non-judgmental and accept me just as I am, recognizing that we are each where we are on our own path to healing.

Being here might help - there is such validation and understanding among us. It may not be instant, but you know it's coming if you just hold on! I wish I'd had this community before, but I'm grateful I found y'all when I did.

I think it's an attachment disorder that makes us seek and then reject intimacy. Not sure though. Could be a form of addiction, as I certainly recognize that I have an addictive personality.

Hugs to you! If you just try to become more and more aware, you'll be on the right path. Gently, slowly, you'll feel freer to just be yourself. <3

[Smoke]

Hi!
I am trying to go with the "higher power" thing, though the depression in me consider life to be pointless and hope that there is no afterlife so that I don't have to live again when I die.
To believe in something higher is to believe in a meaning that I don't fully understand because I'm merely human but even though I used to be quite spiritual I find myself detaching from that part of me.

It's kind of sad really but even though most people around me are atheists my mother has always been spiritual and brought a lot of magical thinking and escaping responsibility to the table.
I think she felt that most things in life are driven by forces beyond our control but if you have magic and buy the right stuff then the stars might align in our favour (until the satisfaction of placebo wears off).

I just went through Pia Mellodys youtube clips about codependence and boundaries and realized I do have a problem with boundaries still.
When I feel bad enough it's like I can't contain my attraction towards someone else and thereby I disappoint myself.
Somewhere in me there is a sensitive me that doesn't trust the one I am now, therefore I am not able to feel all of my true feelings.
They will be kept hidden until I learn how to make sensible decisions for myself that doesn't involve throwing myself out there in to the next feeling that shows up.
I think I would call that sort of behaviour self abuse, to just let go and not care where you "wake up" as long as you can forget who you are for a moment. It reminds me of the way a drug addict wanders through life from one fix to the next.