You Don’t Complete Me: A Love Addict’s Recovery
Originally “Scorpio Midheaven,” this series has been re-categorized as “Sex & Dating.”
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Every winter I have flashbacks to a feeling, the intense heaviness of my heart pinning my entire body to the floor. I physically could not stand up from the spot I’d crumpled into tears half an hour earlier. I could not stop myself from crying. I couldn’t even tell you what I was crying about anymore.
Yes, I was in the midst of a breakup, but I’d been crying for so long that thoughts of my ex had long been washed away. I was numb to everything and yet so intensely raw. Within an hour I’d called my mother for help, still sobbing, and five hours after that her doctor had prescribed me a bottle of antidepressants, the first necessary tool to pull me out of what I would eventually recognize as withdrawal from my drug of choice: Love.
Ten years and a handful of broken hearts later, whenever I mention to someone that I’m a recovering love addict it always feels like I’m half joking, as if an 80’s rock sing-along should follow my confession. But it’s still the deepest truth I’ve ever known.
What does love addiction look like? You might ask. Sadly, it looks a lot like a Disney movie or a Hollywood romantic comedy. The symptoms of love addiction vary, but often it disguises itself in the very behaviors we’ve been conditioned to see as true love. The rush of endorphins, the feeling of finally being complete...all of those harmless puppy love qualities are intensified to an unhealthy degree in the system of a love addict.
Like all addictive substances, it’s not so much the fault of the drug as it is the thought patterns an addict has surrounding it. For me, I’ve learned that my addiction is best recognized when I start to feel a loss of self, enmeshment with something outside of me so deep that the removal of the person leaves me feeling unable to stand.
The thing about Love addiction is it must be dealt with in moderation.
Unlike alcohol or drugs, love will never be a drug I swear off completely. When accepted from a state of wholeness, I believe that love can create spiritual advancement, support, and healing. So through the years, I've learned to walk a fine line, fully embracing the loving connections around me while still keeping my head above the waters of overwhelming infatuation. It all comes down to a radical state of self-love and awareness, to be able to recognize what my solo stability feels like so that when I start to feel enveloped by a wave of romance, I can keep my footing.
I now know that all loving relationships are simply a mirror of what’s missing within me. That’s where the whole “you complete me” mentality comes from, we see in others what we wish we could see in ourselves. The addiction side of this concept leads us as human beings to want to possess our partners in some way. To mate for life or demand some guarantee that they will never leave because without them we feel incomplete. And I get it, nobody wants to feel incomplete.
Thankfully, there's another option: Integration.
By observing the qualities we love in others, the Universe is giving us a beautiful little glance at our potential. It's through integrating these qualities, abilities, and thought patterns we adore that we eventually find a deeper sense of completion within ourselves. Don't settle for admiring from afar what you can have within you.
There's a crazy sense of empowerment that comes from becoming more like those you love. As you find you've become the sum of their parts (and more because you were already you), you can't help but love yourself just as much as you love them.
This is my recovery, constantly integrating the qualities I admire in others and always feeling fully satiated by my own sense of completion.
Everything else is just dessert.
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