About 8 years ago my sister asked me if I thought I was addicted to anything. She was trying to help me get into a facility focused on mental health and addiction. I gave it some thought and told her, “If anything I’m addicted to chaos”. I knew that sounded weird, but my life had been chaotic since I was little. And since chaos was so often around I must be addicted to it. Somewhat surprisingly to me both she and the facility accepted my theory. I started treatment the next week.
I was 36 at that time and had already been through 3 marriages, at least 20 jobs, and 15 moves. I knew I had so many problems and tried very hard to correct them but I couldn’t. At least not consistently. Thus chaos was all around me.
Since chaos was all around me I must be addicted to it, right? I thought so then and continued to do so for years. But I didn’t want chaos. Didn’t enjoy it, didn’t crave it, didn’t need it. It gave me no high or satisfaction. So I started to look deeper and saw that chaos really wasn’t my addiction. It was a consequence. A consequence of wanting to feel better. From wanting to feel better? Really? Yes and yes. Unusual for sure, but true.
I was desperate to feel better and had been for a long time. Things around me had been shitty since I was little and kept getting more shitty. My mom had an anxiety disorder and my dad a mood disorder. Neither was diagnosed at the time and had no treatment. That caused real problems for us. On top of their issues I was a mess inside. A mess that kept getting worse and worse causing even more problems. I was suffering from undiagnosed mental illness too. I longed for us to have good health instead of illness, steadiness instead of instability, and unity instead of being alone and out of place. Most of all I desperately wanted to feel better.
All that wanting to feel better would bring chaos. I would do things that were unwise- overspending money, immoral- messing up being a father, and just plain stupid- getting married 3 times before I was 30. This was all fueled by my desperation to feel better. As weird as it sounds, wanting to feel better brought chaos. Truly it did. Ask anyone involved in my past and they’d tell you.
I’m sharing my experience hoping to enlighten and encourage. To enlighten you to see how a person with chaos always around them does not mean they’re addicted to it. And I’m encouraging anyone surrounded by chaos to seek true help. I’m also encouraging anyone who sees another in chaos to try to help in some way. It was my seeking and finding help that allowed things to have gotten much less chaotic. Together we can make things better.
To Enlighten and Encourage 