Addictive Personality

I think I've mentioned before that I'm quite a glutton for pain. Really. I'm very good at suffering. Which is why I don't have an addictive personality at all. I'm quite good at stopping myself from doing things, smoking, drinking, eating, whatever.

The last time I "quit" smoking before I got pregnant, we were just leaving after a 4 day stint in Sin City. I decided that I didn't want to smoke anymore. So I quit.

Not to say that I never had a cigarette after that, but I didn't smoke at all for a year or so, and after that only when I was out drinking. I realized that after stopping for a while, the taste made me want to yarf, so it wasn't too hard to have a puff and pass on the rest.

Same thing with drinking. I've heard a lot of pregnant women say how much they missed alcohol, but I didn't. And I wasn't one of the ones who had a drink once in a while. From the day I found out I was pregnant, I had one small sip of champagne at New Years, and nothing else until a couple months after I gave birth.

I think of exercising too, hiking, even while I was pregnant, to the point of being almost exhausted, but I'd rather push through than stop to rest. It just prolongs the agony.

Doing homework. I'll sit down and write a 20 page paper without taking a break so that I can just get it over with, instead of taking a lame breather, and thinking about the paper the whole time so it's not much a break in the long run.

Ummm, childbirth with no epidural. Need I say more?

So maybe I am addicted to pain? God, that sounds awful, but that seems to be the common thread here. I'm am good at suffering. At getting through the less-fun parts of life as fast as possible so I can get on to bigger and better things. At not asking for help so I can be some sort of martyr in my own mind. At denying myself pleasure for bragging rights?

I am one sick mother.... But at least I can take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone.

I know a lot of people who sabotage themselves and their lives, maybe for the same reason? People who revel in drama to feel like they have a life. Or who get into shitty situations to they don't deal with other things that are happening to them? Hmmmm.