Feed the Person, Starve the Problem

One Halloween when I was a kid, I came home from trick-or-treating with a plastic pumpkin full of chocolate. My mouth had been watering ever since the second doorbell, but my costume prohibited taking an early snack. As soon as I got home, the mask came off, and I had my first piece of chocolate. The taste of that chocolate was so exquisite that I can still recall it. If I wasn’t a kid and didn’t know anything about it, I would have said I was having an orgasm over that piece of chocolate. It was so good that I had another and another and another, until, before I knew it, or my parents knew it, the entire pumpkin was gone, and I was so sick I barfed all the chocolate right back into the pumpkin where it came from.

The funny thing is: no single piece of chocolate I had that night tasted as good as that first one. Each subsequent piece held the promise of the same pleasure I experienced in the first, but, to an increasing degree, failed to deliver. As I worked my way through the pumpkin, the pleasure was replaced by a feeling of revulsion; but I kept eating, anyway. Apparently, it wasn’t enough revulsion to overcome the promise of pleasure.

I knew that my parents would make me stop and put the chocolate away for later, but I told myself I worked hard trick-or-treating and deserved to enjoy my chocolate without interference. They were always telling me what to do and never listened when I told them I didn’t like Brussels sprouts or that I would go rake the leaves when my TV show was done. Because they didn’t listen to me, I wouldn’t listen to them.

I started feeling sick to my stomach before I finished the chocolate. Once I barfed it all up, my stomach felt better, but my mother heard, and she was all over me about how greedy I had been. She sent me to bed immediately after making me clean it up. As I lay there feeling sorry for myself, I thought about what might make me feel better. You guessed it; I thought of more chocolate.

How a Problem is Fed

I think you’ll agree that I had a problem with chocolate that night. How was that problem fed? You might think that initial, exquisite piece of chocolate got me going. Ask any addict and she will tell you about how wonderful their first high was. A gambler will recount how once he hit it big. Someone hooked on shopping will tell you about the time they found a certain pair of shoes. I experienced something on a minor scale that night that addicts experience on a major scale every day. I was chasing the initial high. No high will ever approach the joy of the initial high, however, because the neurochemical pleasure receptors fill up. In advanced stages of addiction, the addict isn’t using to even feel good anymore, she’s shooting up just to feel normal.

We see the same pattern with people who get consumed by anxiety and compulsively seek reassurance. Each reassurance holds the promise of peace but fails to deliver. Depressed people crave the comfort of their bedsheets; but, when actually in bed, get no enjoyment from them.

With all due respect to the addicts who cherish their first high, anxious people who seek reassurance, and depressed people who crave bedsheets, I disagree that problems are fed by these experiences. I believe they’re fed by fantasy. Imagination, anticipation, and desire are the soup, salad, and main course that sustain a Problem. They are washed down with rationalizations, justifications, and self-righteousness. Then self-pity comes in to provide dessert.

I think you can see how fantasy fed my problem that night as I craved that first piece of chocolate while I was still trick-or-treating. Then the first piece gave me more material to work with, enough to sustain my imagination until the pumpkin was finished. I had plenty of rationalizations and justifications in how hard I worked, how I should be rewarded for my costume, and in my resentment of parental control. Rationalizations and justifications are fantasies, too; fantasies of righteousness. And self-pity? No child can barf into a plastic pumpkin, get yelled at by his mother, have to clean it up, and go to bed early without being subject to loads of self-pity. Self-pity then returns the person to the fantasies of comfort and righteousness.

Problems are fed by the fantasy of relief, more than the experience of relief. People are able to recover to the extent they are able to release those fantasies and embrace a reality which may be unappetizing at first, but sustains life better than a fantasy ever could.

So, where does this leave the loved one of the problem-possessed person who’s being hurt every day by their partner’s devotion to her Problem? What can you do to break the grip that the Problem has on your partner?

Feed the Person and Starve the Problem

I never could keep my Grandmother’s advice straight. Is it, starve a cold and feed a fever, or feed a cold and starve a fever?

It’s just as well that I can’t remember it; modern medicine discredits the practice of withholding nourishment from any sick person, regardless of whether they have a cold or a fever. Therefore, I propose that we modify the old saying to something that actually makes sense.

Feed the person and starve the Problem.

Stop feeding the problem

If my mother had been feeding my problem that Halloween, she would have been out there, trick-or-treating for me. She wouldn’t have sent me to bed, she would have baked me a chocolate cake. She would have cleaned up my barf for me.

So, if you know what he’s like when he drinks too much, why do you buy beer for him? She gets paranoid when you keep secrets from her and starts to imagine all kinds of wild things, so why do you withhold information? His doctor has told him that, at this point, it’s detrimental to his recovery from back surgery for him to lay in bed all day, so why do you bring him things, so he doesn’t have to get up? She’s been feeling sorry for herself ever since she lost her legs in that accident. She doesn’t believe she can do anything; so why do you push her wheelchair?

You do it because the Problem talked you into it even though it’s counter to the best interests of both you and your loved one. You’ve got your own fantasy of peace, comfort, and righteousness going on. You’ve bought into the belief that the Problem can solve your problems.

Tough Love

Starving the Problem is commonly referred to as Tough Love: showing love to the person by being hard on the Problem that’s destroying him. But people have trouble giving Tough Love; either they do it wrong, or they don’t do it at all. They don’t do it at all when they give in to the Problem. They do it wrong when they’re tough on the person as well as the problem and starve them both.

You see the result of misapplied Tough Love when you walk on city streets and look at who’s living there. The streets abound with homeless, abandoned people, the recipients of what is called Tough Love. The dream is that, if they hit bottom hard enough, they’ll be motivated to renounce the Problem.

I’ve seen it, I’ve tried it, and I can tell you, it doesn’t work. If the person ever does become motivated, he then lacks the hope and the resources to follow through with recovery. If you’re thinking of kicking your loved one out of the house, so that he’s homeless, because it’s not safe to live with him, that’s one thing. If you’re doing it because you think it’ll motivate him, that’s different. It won’t. The person needs certain essentials if he’s ever going to fight the Problem.

Feed the Person

Not feeding the Problem doesn’t mean that you stop doing all nice things for your partner. Feed the person. Identify those actions that make her stronger that promote your bond. Continue to do those or resume them if you’ve stopped.

People need certain essentials if they are going to thrive. They need good food, clean water, a healthy environment, and a roof over their heads. They need to be safe and have access to healthcare. Because people are social creatures, they need to be surrounded by people who aren’t afraid to connect with them. Because people are self-aware, they need to have a sense of dignity and purpose to their lives. Take away any of these, and you cripple their ability to change.

So, confront the fantasies that feed the Problem and starve it; but feed the real needs of your loved one.

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Keith R Wilson is a mental health counselor in private practice and the author of The Road to Reconciliation: A Comprehensive Guide to Peace When Relationships Go Bad, from which this article is adapted.

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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.

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