Struggling with a little-known addiction (long post)

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I'm just going to come out with my addiction, which I am now trying to break. If you don't believe this is a real addiction, please don't bother posting. Anyone with helpful suggestions are needed.

As anyone who has dealt with addiction knows, a person can be addicted to anything, not just drugs and alcohol. If the given source of addiction (whether it's food, drugs, sex, whatever) helps a person escape from reality, then it forms a dependence. And this dependence leads to chemicals in the brain releasing when the source of the addiction is used (think Pavlov's dog; food was accompanied by the sound of a ringing bell, and even if no food was present, because the dog associated that sound with food, it triggered the dog's brain to stimulate drooling), so someone with an addiction to, say, food gets not only a full stomach from eating, but a brain reaction that makes food a real source of addiction.

I have had an addiction to violence and escapism for most of my teenage and adult life. I didn't realize that could even be an addiction until my therapist and myself started looking at my life.

What would happen is I would read a very violent comic book, then play my Ipod, re-enacting in my mind every violent scene in that manga against anyone I could imagine and everyone who had ever offended me. I would do this for hours and hours every day. Instead of working on real friendships, building my skills for a future job and better grades in college, doing anything that would further my life and promote growth, I got lost in my imaginary world and stopped growing in every facet in my life.

So recently my therapist told me to give up my violent manga and comic books. She did this because if someone has an addiction to anger/violence that is getting in the way of their life, looking at the bloody images in these comics won't help the person stop feeling angry.

Hesitantly, I packed up my violent comics and have not looked at them since. It has been 1 week and 1 day. I am going insane. It's not the comic books that are the problem in and of themselves, it's the fact that I use them as an escape from life. And while many people can read one and then forget it once they put it down and get on with life, I cannot. Like some people can have one drink and then stop, and other have a sip of alcohol and can't stop.

It hurts to do this! I am literally having withdrawal symptoms! Being moody and irritable, being in agony not being able to go back to a big part of my addiction, physically and mentally! I keep thinking of every excuse to throw up my hands and say "Okay! I tried, it's not going to work, so I might as well just do what I love! (being reading the violent comic books)". I haven't given in but I am having a horrible time continuing my resistance.

What makes this especially hard is that I have an older friend who also once struggled with addiction and came out on top and has never had a relapse, which is great, btw. I asked them, "What did you do when you had horrible cravings for what you were addicted to?" They responded, "I would usually call my sponsor, get out of the house to get my mind off of it, or get a drink (which, of course, is the last thing a recovering addict wants to do, is go back to their addiction)".

This is where the problem lies. I don't have a sponsor for my addiction to violence. I have never even heard of a support group for violence addicts existing, much less sponsors. I have a therapist, but as any addict knows, the difference between a person who know what you are going through from experiencing it themselves and a paid therapist who reads from a textbook is huge. It's the difference between going to a firefighter to learn how to survive a fire and going to a person who saw the movie "Backdraft" and thinks they know everything.

I can't leave my house right now, either. I have a physical health condition that is currently undiagnosed but can cripple my whole body at random for hours on end at any random time. Suffice to say, if I drove, I would be a possible danger to myself and other people on the road, and if I tried to walk somewhere, I could all of the sudden collapse and be stranded, unable to move. I don't even have any friends to call. It's sad, but most of the people on my cell directory are doctors, and none are friends. I can't even call someone to help me out of the house!

I don't know how to deal with this. I'm lonely; everyone I talk to right now is either a parent (which is nice, but they work long hours, so it's not for long), or a paid professional who only spends time with me because it is a part of their job. It is so depressing! No one wants to spend time with me because they like me, and they want to be with me. My parents let me go with them on their errands, which is good, but there is a huge difference between wanting to have fun with a specific person to be around them and letting that same person just "tag along" on the things you were going to do anyway.

I know I'm doing the right thing by breaking this addiction, but things are literally getting worse every day I keep going. Like many addicts who decided to quit, I have had to give up most of the things in my life to get away from my destructive, counter-productive behaviors. It's like there is a giant hole in my life all of the sudden, and I have nothing to fill it with. I can't even go to most internet sites i used to frequent because they feed my addiction to violence since they have the violent comics on them.

The worst part is this; when I was a little little girl, less than 10 years old, I still had these same problems with anger and violence. I expressed it in a horrible way by hurting my pets, sometimes killing them in the process. Please don't call me a monster, I know it was wrong to do that now. Anyway, the last time I had the all-of-the-sudden urge to hurt an animal for sexual arousal was 9th grade. It came on like a bolt of lightning; just that fast. And until yesterday, I had not even had the thought or urge or anything that would even remind me of wanting to hurt animals again.

Sadly enough, though, yesterday, the sick excitement/enjoyment/arousal I used to get from hurting animals came back. I didn't actually hurt my pet. I didn't do anything to provoke these feelings. I heard my dog in pain, and instead of being concerned, the first thing I did was laugh! Then I got this adrenaline charge in my chest. It all came on in a couple of seconds and left just as fast. It turned out my dog wasn't really hurt at all, which is good, but as I was processing this by writing in my journal later on that night, I realized something awful.
Not only had these feelings returned, but I could see my thought processes had literally changed. I loved my dog since the day we got her 2 1/2 years ago. Dogs do obnoxious things, just like kids, but in both cases, you might get mad at them but you still love them. In the last week or so, I started to really detest my dog. This dog that I loved and I called my best friend, suddenly everything she did infuriated me. I didn't even want to be around her during the day. I began saying things like "Cali (my dog) is more a a burden than she is worth, the small joy she brings is not worth the pain she is". I really started hating her. I thought it was her becoming more disobedient, and that was why I had started to really dislike her.
But honestly, I think it was me who changed, not the dog. For the first time in my life, I felt like a disgusting human being, to the core. I noticed myself looking at her and not even seeing her as a living creature; I saw her breathing and moving, but I didn't see a living animal, I saw a thing. It was like I was just waiting for a "screw-up" from her so I could hit her. I feel so disgusting!

The ironic part about all that is that I am actively trying to GET AWAY from everything that makes me angry, and then these horrible urges and feelings rear their ugly heads again, after years of dormancy?!

I'm in pain and I'm struggling. I don't know what to do. If anyone can relate to this addiction, has advice, or just wants to send some encouragement to someone who is trying so hard to leave it in the dust, please share. Thanks

I for one have no doubt it's a real problem. The human body works in strange ways, especially regarding addictions. I can relate to that.

Ddon't really know what else to say,

You seem pretty desperate and you obviously need something to do to fill the time/hole. I can't relate to the addiction, but when I was younger I had violent thoughts concerning people I knew. I used to daydream a lot, ever since I was a very small child - it was an important way for me to relax and go to sleep, and when I was very young, my daydreams were very sadistic. I distinctly remember when I was in my first school (6-7 years old) daydreaming about hurting all my teachers in different ways - I actually liked my teachers and the more I liked them the worse I would hurt them in my dreams. Then I would make them all better again in the second half of the dream and they would be really grateful. As I got older, I stopped being the inflictor of ills in my dreams and instead would imagine random events (bombs, gunmen, earthquakes etc.) which would hurt the people I admired most (usually kids/teachers at school) and I would help them and they would like me. Sometimes it would be the other way round (I would get hurt, but the people I loved would save me) and as I got into my late teens this mode was predominant - i.e. more masochistic than sadistic and increasingly I found the saving bit boring and just imagined the disasters and how badly I/others were hurt. By this time however I was hurting in real life and had become very depressed. I found treatment with antipsychotics got rid of them (made things boring and it became harder to get to sleep), but they came back afterwards and continued (in a milder format) throughout my 20s. The second time I was depressed and treated with antipsychotics they disappeared for good, and although I sometimes try to summon one up, it never has the same reality or feeling of relaxation as they used to - nowadays I tend to get to sleep very quickly, unlike when I was a teenager, but if I can't I don't have anything to think about to make me relax anymore and there is a bit of a gap. These dreams were never erotic however, and I never got off on imagining pain. And I guess that overall the point of the dreams was not enjoying inflicting pain but more that everything would be OK in the end even though terrible suffering had occurred (during my last depression these happy endings stopped happening - the dreams would have no end because everything couldn't be OK anymore, and maybe this is why they haven't come back).

If I think back to my childhood it worries me that if I hadn't become increasingly masochistic, that I might have stayed sadistic. I never actually hurt an animal or people but I was curious about things like that (maybe all children are, i don't know) and I can remember not having good empathy skills when I was young and not appreciating that others would mind me hurting them. I see photos of me as an innocent looking cute little girl of 6 and it is difficult to believe what type of things were going through my mind at that age.

Maybe you need some type of medication to help you with the addiction - I don't like recommending medication as my experiences of it have been rather negative, but antipsychotics could help with the fantasy element. However, they could make the addiction worse (I became addicted to food when taking them and haven't completely shaken off the binge eating since stopping). You also need something to do, but if you can't get out the house then it makes things difficult (I would normally recommend exercise). Reading (non violent things)?, learning an instrument? becoming obsessive about the housework? Some type of volunteer work you can do at home? I don't know. Maybe your therapist can help with something you can do. I hope you find something that helps.

At least you aren't in denial. You have a deep understanding of whats going on, so you are already miles ahead of most people. I don't mean most addicts, I mean most people. Most people are addicts. Anyone who is always right, and gets mad when someone challenges them, they are addicts too. Their first reaction is denial, which is typical of an addict.

So 10 points to you for not only admitting the problem, but having a clear understanding of it.

First off, thanks for your thoughtful reply. While I imagine violent things for totally different reasons, I still know what it's like to live more in a daydream world than the real world.

I know how bad anti-psychotics can be. Abilify caused some horrible movement disorder in me that still hasn't been diagnosed (that's my medical problem; at it's worse, it looks like Cerebral Palsy, and it can happen at any given moment, no matter how good I felt an hour earlier). AP's like Risperdal made me gain MASSIVE weight, and I have horrible reactions to meds in general. I've taken probably 85-90% of psychiatric meds available in the US, and none of them stopped the daydreaming.

As for the suggestions to fill my time; that's a huge issue! I thought I was getting better with the above-mentioned movement disorder, so I decided to dust my room and pick up the clothes from my floor for the first time in months, and it floored me, literally! Exercise as light as dusting and picking up clothes can take me off my feet for over a week! Imagine wanting to stand up, being able to feel your legs getting the signal, and not doing what you tell them to do. It's like there's a disconnect in my muscles from my brain when I have an attack.

I watched funny videos on YouTube today to burn time and get my mind off my anger; it helped, but that isn't feasible as an all-day "activity". You suggested reading; I love to read! But non-violent reading is so boring to me! My therapist says it's because I've been exposed to violent things my whole life (true), and therefore I can't "feel" anything that isn't extreme, or has a "softer" emotional impact. I'll try to find something funny to read, but again, it's hard 1) not being able to go to a bookstore, and 2) having AS, thus having a very limited range of "special interests".

I asked my therapist "What would you suggest I do to fill my time if not reading the manga/comic books I love? What would be positive and inspirational?" She responded, "You'll have to figure that out for yourself". Not even one suggestion! Like all therapists, she dodged the question, again and again. I feel like my brain is changing from this wrinkled thing that is always learning to just a smooth oval; IE, mush.



Thank you. Seriously, thank you.

What I feel like right now is that the various cries (more like screams) for help I am shouting to the world and my therapist are being completely ignored.

I spoke with her today over the phone (since I can't drive, I can't go 40 miles round trip to see her face-to-face right now). I told her flat out;
"I am having sexually sadistic urges; I can literally see my thoughts changing from, say, loving my dog, to seeing her not even as living, but rather a "thing" I want to hurt. I heard her (my dog) whining, and it reminded me of fear/begging/helplessness/pleading/desperation, and instead of feeling compassion, I laughed at her. It gave me an adrenaline rush, all in an instant. I was disgusted with myself, but I am only able to identify a problem with my reaction and attitude towards my dog on an intellectual, Super Ego level; I don't "feel" bad, I just know it was wrong of me to do in my head, not my heart."
I told her "I NEED HELP WITH THIS". You know what my therapist said?
"This isn't your main issue." Because sexual sadist never did anything wrong and never hurt anyone, right? (MAJOR SARCASM NOT ACTUALLY SAID). She said "Your main issue is the mood disorder (IE my depression)".

She went on to say that even though she didn't specialize in sexual sadism, she wasn't "incompetent" (EXUSE ME, MISSY! DO NOT TRY TO MAKE THIS ABOUT YOU AND HOW I SUPPOSEDLY JUST INSULTED YOU!! !! !(That's what I hate, is when people think the world revolves around them and take everything personally)). She also decided to insult my intelligence by saying that I would be hard-pressed to find someone who specialized in Aspergers, Mood Disorders, AND sexual sadism. REALLY, DR., I WAS TOO STUPID TO HAVE KNOWN THAT!! ! (major sarcasm there, again, not actually said to her).

Of course I know nobody specializes in all three of those things! I also, though, remember her saying that she didn't know much about sexual sadism in one of our first sessions. Therefore, even if I need two different therapists (which I would hate to admit), I still want someone who specializes in such a terrible problem. I won't even scratch the surface of my problem here, but it is real and needs to be handled with experience, not just basic knowledge.

I just find it terribly sad how people never learn. Every time a terrible tragedy happens at the hand of another person, people say "We missed the waring signs", "How did all these warning signs get overlooked?!", "People never see the red flags", and "There was no obvious cry for help". I am literally telling this woman flat out, "THIS IS MY PROBLEM, I NEED HELP". I've told a lot of therapists that over the years. And they, with my current therapist, all like to say they don't know how to deal with it and just let it fall between the proverbial cracks of our sessions until I forget about it. They all literally and purposefully, willfully, and knowingly IGNORE potential red flags, warning signs, and cries for help.

When a problem like sexual sadism, with a heavy helping of rage, go ignored and don't get worked on, eventually they get pushed down in the person suffering from them. and then the bad stuff starts. It manifests, and comes out anyway. And when it comes out, the far-out end result can result in people like Jeffery Dalmer.

This isn't a threat. I would never EVER want to do something to someone. But I don't want to knowingly have this issue, want to get help for it, have arrogant, oblivious "professionals" pass it off as nothing, and have it manifest into something terrible. No one comes into life wanting to do terrible things that people sometimes end up doing.

I'm sorry about all the all-caps sentences and the very real anger in this post. I'm withdrawing from an anger/violence/hate addiction BY MY OWN FREE WILL AND WITHOUT COERCION (or much help from others). And the withdrawal from it hurts.

i am a mental health professional, and i don't usually post here; i read the forums to better understand my clients.

you need to find a new therapist. she sounds unprepared to help you with your sexual sadism, and you really need to find someone who specializes in this area. the potential consequences are too great to not address this. you can overcome this addiction, but not without help and a proper treatment protocol. i agree that your mood disorder is a problem, but when there is potential harm to another living being, that problem should take presidence. in the meantime, when you find yourself thinking violent thoughts, say or think "stop" (or think of a stop sign), and replace the violent thought with something better, like the beach, or something else you enjoy.

as for other manga to read, i'm partial to sailor moon and ranma 1/2. a new superman comic also came out this week that's supposed to be pretty good.

good luck, and please keep us posted.