I got an email from Ty yesterday, and she said she is going to start attending SLAA meetings, and suggested it might be a good idea for me too. I didn't know what SLAA was at first, and was wondering why she would think I need to attend it too since I already attend AA meetings. So I looked it up, and it turns out it is "Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous." 'What? I'm not a ssex addict?!' was my initial thought, But she suggested I read down the page at the different types, that she had seen herself, and me in there. And so I did that - and indeed, I did find myself.
Here are 2 excerpts that caught my eye (from http://loveaddicts.org/kindsofloveaddicts.html) :
"Ambivalent Love Addicts: ALAs suffer from avoidant personality disorder. They don’t have a hard time letting go, they have a hard time moving forward. They desperately crave love, but at the same time they are terrified of intimacy. This combination is agonizing. ALAs also come in different forms, listed below"
"Saboteurs are ALAs who destroy relationships when they start to get serious or at whatever point their fear of intimacy comes up. This can be anytime—before the first date, after the first date, after sex, after the subject of commitment comes up—whenever."
YYYyyyyyeeahhhhh.... If ever there were 2 perfect descriptions of me, there they are. Of course, I at first thought that by 'intimacy' they meant sex, so I did not fit the profile. But sex has nothing to do really with true intimacy. It is entirely possible to have sex with no intimacy, and intimacy with no sex. Here is a definition of intimacy from the web :
"a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group"
Nothing about sex in there. To me, the thing I fear is not the sex 'intimace,' it is the intimacy involved in letting someone inside - giving them the power to hurt me by letting them inside my protective wall. It is not something I do consciously, but something that happens, without doubt. So I think it would be a good idea for me to attend some of these meetings and see if they are helpful. I just need to make sure, for both of our sake, that Ty and I don't end up at the same one! Lol. It's all about healing today, and we can only heal that which we acknowledge. And today, I admit that I am a love addict - step one I think it is...
