External Dependancy and Addiction
External dependency describes the state of being dependent on an external object or a person to feel good or escape from a bad mood.
Some people got used to facing their problems directly while others learned how to run from them or, even better, use pain killers to forget about them. External dependency is the act of using an external pain killer to forget about a problem rather than deciding to face it.
Examples of external dependency
The person who uses drugs to escape a bad mood, the one who drinks excessively when he faces a problem, and those who can’t live while they are single are all considered people who suffer from external dependency.
Some people smoke to kill stress and not because they really like to smoke. Others may become addicted to a bad habit not because they like it that much but because it allows them to escape from their bad moods, while a third group might go shopping whenever they feel bad to help themselves feel better.
The big problem that external dependency results in is that it prevents the person from ever facing his real problems, and thus they always remain unsolved. As a result of such behavior, the problems keep accumulating and getting bigger until one day the person completely collapses under their effect.
So many bad habits are actually caused by external dependency. A person can make a habit to help himself cope with a life problem that he can’t really deal with. A person, for example, can use drugs to run away from work problems or any emotional pressure.
A typical person won’t really know that he is addicted to a certain habit because of external dependency. After all, it would be shameful for most people to admit that they are using a certain habit to escape from something or cope.
This is why a typical person will think that he is addicted to the habit itself instead of realizing that he is just using it to change his mood. Porn addiction is an example of a habit where a person thinks that he is addicted to the habit while, in fact, he is just using it to change his mood.
The release of dopamine, a pleasure chemical, in large amounts in the brain as a person watches porn can help many people escape from the bad moods they feel, at least temporarily.
External dependency and love addiction
Some people are externally dependent on love itself so that they can’t live while being single; those people are called love addicts. Since falling in love results in the release of many chemicals that regulate the mood and help the person feel better (at least in the early stages), some people become love addicts to escape from their problems.
Love addiction can be the main reason people fail to recover fast after a breakup. When the person becomes overly dependent on a relationship partner to escape from a bad mood, breaking up with that partner becomes an impossible task.
One of the real dangerous consequences of love addiction is that it makes the person vulnerable to any attempts to exploit his weakness. Love addicts are the fastest people to fall in love even when they don’t like the other person such much. Many people fall in love under the effect of love addiction to escape from their problems only to realize later that they never loved that person they got married to and that they were escaping from their bad moods.
External dependency can certainly ruin your life in the long term, even if it can help you feel good in the short term. If you do any of the previous actions, then it’s time to be brave and face your problems.
