Drama and Being Twisted

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Dra­ma and Being Twist­ed — we look at let­ting go of the need to cre­ate charge by being dramatic

Lately, I’ve been having some interesting discussions around addiction. But not the kind you usually think of.

Our addic­tion to “dra­ma and pain” leads us to tight­en up. Our bod­ies twist, and we become rigid and stuck.

Addiction to Drama

A while back I was talk­ing with a friend about how often she slid into huge dra­mas. I said, “You’re addict­ed to dra­ma, like an alco­holic is to drink­ing.” Giv­en her fam­i­ly’s alco­holism his­to­ry, that hit home.

Addiction to Pain

Many peo­ple only feel “nor­mal” if they are in pain (emo­tion­al pain ini­tial­ly, phys­i­cal pain as a “reward.”) My friend only feels nor­mal when she sees her­self as a victim.

We are drawn… pulled… in direc­tions we say we do not want to walk, and yet, there we are. We blame exter­nals — oth­er peo­ple, sit­u­a­tions, etc. But take a look.

You ever notice how the peo­ple and things you wind your­self up over seem to have lit­tle or no effect on oth­ers?

Or con­verse­ly, the things oth­ers wind them­selves up over seem sil­ly to you.

If you are wise, you imme­di­ate­ly real­ize that exter­nals are not causal. In oth­er words, all “sit­u­a­tions” have mul­ti­ple interpretations. 

Thus, each situation has one result per “inter-actor.”

As we expe­ri­ence sit­u­a­tions, we are pulled to run toward, or run away. This is hard-wired into our selves. We have a propen­si­ty toward one or the other.

Sec­on­dar­i­ly, our actions and beliefs cre­ate chem­i­cals (the things you feel in your body are trig­gered by chem­i­cals hit­ting plea­sure / pain sen­sors.) Because of the trig­gered feel­ing, we are pulled toward what turns us on.

We see this chemical response in action during dramatic events. Most people move away or freeze, and some run toward the incident.

But the most inter­est­ing reac­tion is that of the pro­fes­sion­als — sol­diers, fire­fight­ers, cops, etc. If you watch, this hap­pens: they react by flinch­ing and per­haps mov­ing one step away. And then you see the magic.

They stop, they breathe, and they turn toward, and move into danger.

Mind, overcoming chemistry.

Back to dra­ma.

Dra­ma is always a way to cre­ate “spe­cial­ness.” Chem­i­cal­ly, I become addict­ed to my self-impor­tance. I puff out my chest, and demand that oth­ers “look at me.”

Here’s the odd part: it doesn’t matter what others do!

Dra­ma mak­ing is not about chang­ing oth­ers or the sit­u­a­tion. It’s about cre­at­ing inter­nal charge. The more addict­ed you are, the more you do it. Just like an addict.

This is why, look­ing at it from the out­side, dra­ma peo­ple seem to be work­ing so hard to make their case. They are typ­i­cal­ly deal­ing with issues oth­ers take in their stride, and devel­op­ing pat­terns that go on for decades.

Dra­ma peo­ple will tell you they are work­ing on doing things dif­fer­ent­ly, but most­ly fol­low that with excus­es for why, this time, they need anoth­er dose. Just like druggies.

And it is the same for any repeat­ed behav­iour that you rec­og­nize is harm­ful. Just like NA is the same as AA, except for the thing that is the addiction.

A word about pain addictions

My friend is start­ing to make the con­nec­tion: she’s aware of the rush she feels when some­thing goes wrong. Most­ly, her rela­tion­ships. For her, there is some­thing big and dra­mat­ic about being dumped, or for stay­ing in a dys­func­tion­al rela­tion­ship for months beyond its “best before” date.

You might be won­der­ing why some­one would set up their life this way. It’s because of the charge. The rush. the feel­ing of…

Pain, beautiful pain

My mom had a burn­ing pas­sion to be the sick­est per­son in the room. She learned this by being sick with rheumat­ic fever, and get­ting tons of atten­tion. Until she died, she spoke of her ill­ness­es in superla­tives, and always with a slight smile.

Exam­ple: Decades ago Dar­bel­la dis­cov­ered that one of her neck ver­te­brae was mis-formed. She need­ed neck fusion. My mom com­mis­er­at­ed. “I know exact­ly how you feel. I broke my ankle once, and it was terrible!”

MY friend and I described her pain, her “feel­ing hard-done-by,” and her stay­ing in bad rela­tion­ships, as “Sort of like a pain orgasm.”

My point here, which I’ll expand on next time, is that our con­di­tion­ing takes what we have expe­ri­enced, and hard wires it in. It’s why habits are hard to break. And it’s not just wiring. It’s the plea­sure chem­i­cals that get trig­gered… it feels good to be bad.

We encourage self-exploration and self-expression, plus a change of behaviour.

In Body­work, we look for sounds to come out. For anger and sad­ness to come out. To be safe­ly enact­ed.

The result?

“It feels so good to just let go! To feel, to express, to ask for what my body needs, and to know this is a much more healthy alter­na­tive to play­ing dra­ma games.”

I think each of us needs to explore what we are setting up to get our needs met, and to figure out ways to deal with what we need, without creating drama, using manipulation. 

We could just cut to the chase and ask for what we actu­al­ly want.

Look again at the top pho­to, of the adult and kid. Both are sit­ting com­fort­ably. The kid’s spine is straight. The woman is twist­ed and non-lev­el. I see that a lot. It’s about blocked pas­sion. Most peo­ple are “twist­ed.”

Next time, I’ll talk a bit more about plea­sure and pain.

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