My therapist told me that getting over a breakup is worse than getting over a cocaine addiction.

[-]

Areadien@reddit (OP)

It might be, at least somewhat. https://www.rutgers.edu/news/study-finds-romantic-rejection-stimulates-areas-brain-involved-motivation-reward-and-addiction

[-]

I'm a licensed therapist who has worked with people that have gone through breakups and that struggle with addiction, I have gone through various breakups, and I have done cocaine. They are not remotely similar.

I get the original post was a joke but comparing cocaine addiction to a breakup extremely undermines what people struggling with addiction experience. And the link you posted in no way suggests that.

[-]

ArmoredCocaineBear@reddit

I’m a recovered IV cocaine user with plenty of breakups in my past. Nothing compares to putting that needle down, not even any other drug is comparable to the claws of IV cocaine except maybe heroin but if that’s iffy

[-]

Areadien@reddit (OP)

So I want to say to you both that I'm sorry. While my therapist did tell me that she read research that made this comparison, as someone who hasn't ever used cocaine, whether or not the comparison is true, it's not my comparison to make. I also did not critically think about this comparison before making it in terms of asking her where she read that it is.

That said, I want to explain why I made this comparison--that is, what made me immediately believe it without going [Citation needed] like I like to do even though I'm not trying to make this about me being a victim. I don't know about either of you, but when I go through a breakup, it's *really* bad, as I have rejection sensitivity dysphoria. I know that I get addicted to romantic relationships or even the ideas of them, especially when the man rejects me, and that pain tends to be even worse when I'm attracted to him but he's never attracted to me and so we're just friends the whole time.

There is a notable exception, which is the current breakup I'm going through, where I've loved him for almost 18 years even though we've only briefly been together twice. He's not talking to me despite my multiple emails to him--though only one of them was me inviting him back into my life and none of them were me begging him to interact with me in any way. I'm not handling it well *at all*, and I just feel this void inside of me. I feel it because he fulfilled emotional needs that I haven't identified yet, so I don't know how to fulfill them myself, and there's a strong desire for me to somehow convince him to fulfill them again even though, logically speaking, I know he can't. I really miss him, and I don't know what to do. All I know is that I'm in terrible pain, and I don't know how to get it to stop.

So at the time my therapist said that, given how badly my RSD has been this time around, I thought it was a reasonable comparison. When I see her next, I'll be sure to give her your feedback in the hopes that she doesn't make that comparison again.

While I'm not going to delete this because I believe in holding myself accountable, I invite the mods to lock this post to new likes and comments. I don't know how to tag them, though.

[-]

Motion_Means4501@reddit

Omg, I can't read all this. This is r/jokes. We laugh at cocaine and don't take it serious.

[-]

Areadien@reddit (OP)

OK, then don't read it. No need to comment.

[-]

SSFreud@reddit

I mean there was nothing wrong with the original post, it was posted on /r/jokes so I just assumed it was joke. What DOES concern me is you saying this is a true story and that your therapist really said that, because that is extremely concerning. As a therapist I am going to try to give your therapist the benefit of the doubt and assume they have no exposure to hard substances of any kind and that they were trying to be validating but yikes, they really need to not say things like that because it is likely to be extremely harmful.

Are you diagnosed with borderline personality disorder? I specialize in treating BPD and while I can't diagnose based on a Reddit post, you seem to fit the criteria pretty significantly. If you're not already familiar look into Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) it was designed by Marsha Linehan (who had BPD) specifically for BPD but has since been found efficacious for PTSD, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use, you name it. Sorry you're going through this, let me know if you have any questions.

[-]

SpongeBlairRadPants@reddit

How’d you find your new therapist?

He was posting about being a drug act on Reddit, gate keeping stupid jokes. He seemed like a really together guy.

[-]