Are you Attracted to Chaos and Drama? Transcript
Today's talk is about people who are addicted to drama or addicted to the chaos. Do you know someone who seems to love the energy of just always being in a fight or always creating some sort of drama? It doesn't have to be a big D and be a small D if you know what I mean. So those people, excuse me, my intro, those people for some reason, and it could be different reasons of pain, anger, hurt, just love to be in a fight. And in my own life, it took the
form of, I had a partner who would literally wake up in the morning, open her eyes, and start a fight with everybody in the house within 30 seconds of opening her eyes. On a beautiful weekend, 7 am there would be chaos within 90 seconds of waking up. And that would be going to each room all the way around the house and then coming back and yelling at me for having all three of those fights start. And I always said, what's going on? Why do you wake up and need to create this
Literally this fight that doesn't exist on a beautiful quiet morning. And it was explained to me at one point that sometimes people are in so much pain, even when they open their eyes, they need to go cut somebody. They need to express that pain and tell people they're in pain. So they go and start little fights. So I'm curious to hear from Preeti, because she's been around people in her life that are kind of addicted to always having that energy or that need to have drama. So what do you think of that Preeti? Why does it exist? Why are people stuck there? What is that about?
Yeah, I think this is a really great topic. Thanks for bringing it up, Curt, and thanks for sharing that. We're all susceptible to it, and I think that to varying degrees, we can all do this. I know that I've done this before. I've picked the fight. I've been upset about something, and I have found the easiest thing, instead of talking about what's actually happening, I have picked the fight about something completely different. You don't always know that you're doing that. And so I think that that's one thing, is that it's so deeply ingrained.
But my therapist has a really interesting analogy and she says that often times, and whether we've been through trauma, capital T Trauma or little T trauma, just things that happened that cause us pain, we find there to be some comfort in the uncomfortable. are, our nervous systems are attuned to
thriving, living, existing in chaos. And this was actually a really important coping skill that developed because we probably grew up in chaos. We probably grew up in a home that was unstable in some way. Maybe you had a volatile parent. Maybe you had parents that fought. Maybe you had parents who yelled. Maybe you just come from a loud family. So it's not necessarily a bad thing, but you're sort of used to that. Loud means love. We had that conversation earlier. Some of us are really used to things being loud and and boisterous and that does not trigger us in ways and the others of us Find that to be really really hard to be around So our nervous systems seek out the most comfortable and for
For some of us who grew up in chaotic environments, chaos actually equals comfort. And the analogy that my therapist makes is that that chaos, that unhealthy relationship, that unhealthy way of being is actually a beautifully paved four lane highway, freshly painted lines, and you know exactly the exits, you've been down this road before. The car drives itself, and it's really easy to get on.
Now, for a lot of us, healthy relationships, healthy interactions, doing the work as you always say, that's the unpaved road. That's not comfortable. That's new territory. And we don't like to be in discomfort. And so even though that's the healthier choice, even though we can see that the result there is probably a better one for us, it's harder to do because you can't see around the bend. are knots. peaks and valleys. It's a hard road to travel and our nervous systems don't enjoy that. You think, and you had mentioned it before, a sense of belonging and not belonging. Do people wake up and feel I don't belong somewhere, so I'm going to cut and kick and fight my way to somewhere to belong or how does belonging and not belonging, work in that scenario? I think a lot about, the concept of belonging and feeling lovable.
And, you know, this isn't actually necessarily even tied to one's upbringing. Early childhood trauma is defined as anything that happens that alters the brain development of a child before the age of eight. And the most vulnerable time is, I think, around the ages of two to four. And so if...
If things happen at that time, one of my early childhood traumas is actually a beautiful thing. It's a really great thing. My family immigrated when I was three from India to New York City. And the way I've discussed that with therapists in the past is that this was not a bad thing. This was actually a really net positive thing. But at the time, it upended everything I knew, created a sense of chaos, created a sense of unbelonging. And I do think that
While I've talked extensively about how my sense of being unloveable or unbelonging, I do think is related to my alcoholism and other addictions, that there is a part of this, the early childhood trauma of immigration. Wow. Okay. So there's a sense not only in the metaphor of immigration belonging from India to New York, but also people within families based on trauma of their past not belonging or not being worthy anymore, right? I feel unloveable. So why do I wake up? I have that pain. I'm not worthy.
I'm unloveable, let me go create anything. It doesn't have to be with the kids. It could be just the temperature or the, you know, the eggs are in the fridge on the wrong side. It's just amazing that you could just create this vibration of angst. Maybe that's the right word, angst that you just live in because it feels right. Like that chaos is normal. And that's probably what part of the answer is right there. Well, we can have a lot of love and compassion for people who feel this way. We can... not necessarily excuse their behavior, but we can try to seek to understand it. And, you know, somebody who wakes up ready to pick a fight is somebody who might be experiencing a lot of shame, who might feel apart from. And when we feel apart from, when we don't feel like when we belong, when we don't feel that we are part of a whole,
we act out and that could also not even necessarily be the circumstances of that person's life that day. That could be something that they felt way back in childhood that is being triggered by something that's happening now. Since I've gotten sober, I am very, very cognizant of these tendencies in other people. I give a lot of people a wide berth for this. I don't necessarily get involved, but I have a lot more compassion and understanding.
And when it comes to my own behavior, these are some of the things that I do The first and foremost is that I pause. The thought, there's a saying that goes, your first thought is probably not the right one or the best one. the reason for that is because that first instinct, we call it an instinct, what it really is, is the primitive part of our brain, right? It's fight or flight or flood or freeze that is triggered.
And we don't have any executive functioning. We're not using our frontal lobe. We're not using the higher part of our brain with the more complex thoughts. And so the best and most important thing to do first is to just pause. And then I have a really good friend who's a mentor of mine and she always says, investigate the thought. Is it a fact or is it a feeling? If it's a fact, then okay, then maybe we need to do some things about it. Maybe we need to
to take the time to think about it and then maybe write down some of our thoughts and then think about it some more. The big part of this here is not to act impulsively, but when you're in fight, flight or freeze or flood, you're going to only be able to impulsively. And that's why pause is so incredibly important here because it just stops. It takes you off that runaway train. You don't want to be on that train. That train sucks. You don't deserve to be on that train.
And you actually do have a lot of control over that yourself. That's a great tip. So if you find this conversation interesting, you know someone or you're in a situation where there just seems to be someone who is addicted to the drama or the angst, leave a comment below, tell us your feelings on what we said and check out maya4life.com for helping not only parents deal with these types of things, but also teens so we don't pass along generational patterns or...
or traumas that's maya4life.com and you can talk to myself or Preeti and we'll be happy to talk to you. Great. Thanks so much, Curt. Nice. There's some gold in those hills.
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