Emotional dependency

[Ezio]

I live in a village with approximately 1000-2000 population, 4 km far from the city which has 108,000 population.
I live in a country that is in a transition point/state currently. Not a rich country, so most of young guys live with their parents, even grandparents, until their late twenties, when they get married, or when they finally can make their own money to afford a place of their own. Therefore, i also don't have any possibility to move to the city or have a place of my own currently.

So, it is easy to get stuck in the village social circle, especially with the primary school friends.
And in my case, there are some of them, who are not useful to my life anymore, on the contrary there are some who just know to make my life miserable - sure...they act like friends, but what after my back?! (Jelaousy, evil hidden intentions)
But then, it happens that those guys are my closest friends, no matter how bad they are. I have tried to remove them from my life and cut contact, but when just a little time passes by , i find myself hanging out with them , again!

I found out that this is called EMOTIONAL DEPENDENCY. I depend so much emotionally on them.
It is like one day i decide that i am going to let go of them, then a week or two pass, and then i feel the urges to talk to somebody or hang out with somebody, and i just give up, and answer to their invites to hang out or i call them to hang out. I can't resist the temptation to hang out with them, even when i'm not on the urges.

There are times when i get some new friends, because I am great at talking to strangers and turning them into acquaintances, then some of them become friends, but it doesn't go long before i become of no value for them. So, after that i go back to these "closest friends"....and the cycle repeats itself.

So my question is how do i overcome my emotional dependency?- how can i learn to live happily alone?- how do i overcome the needy need of socializing that is buried in our DNA?

 

[ray_zorse]

What tends to happen is that we use things to mask our feelings.

For instance we have addictions to food, caffiene, alcohol, narcotics, other people or particular activities (Internet, shopping, porn, ...) and what happens is if we're feeling blue then we go and do this thing and we feel better (temporarily). Or we crest the wave of switching between various of these activities so we never actually feel blue but the effect is still the same.

The thing is we are human beings -- we are designed to just "be". Possibly there is no higher purpose to life except just being here and enjoying it. But if we're in the cycle described above then we aren't human "beings", we are human "doings"... if you've observed those intensely fidgety people who whenever there's a lull in conversation, have to light another cigarette... or whatever... also sometimes if you touch on emotional topics, they (or should I say we) distract by "doing" something because the feelings (in your case it sounds like feelings of loneliness) are hard to coexist or "be" with, and need to be masked.

The solution to these kinds of issues is to first remove the crutch (for instance by making a resolution that you will not touch cigarettes for 7 days, or making a resolution that you will not contact this person with whom the relationship is causing issues, or whatever). And then you face up to the feelings and address them, although likely you'll just try to mask with another substance or activity (you don't call your primary school friends because you feel the relationship is poisonous -> you feel lonely -> you drink yourself to sleep). This can cause enough unpleasantness that you'll go back to the original behaviour pattern.

There are people in my self-help group who have battled through all these addictions one by one... and eventually found it all comes down to the same cause, your feelings when alone. So I'd suggest to ditch the friends properly this time (go with your gut -- you know if the relationship is poisonous, really you do). And then observe your feelings and see where you stand, if you're feeling lonely or whatever, then seek help, but don't regress since this will start it all over again.

-Ray

 

[Ezio]

That is great advice! Thanks Ray!