The Addiction To Negativity

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e negative thoughts and putting themselves down for the outcome.</i></li><li><b>Need for approval</b> — <i>The need for everyone’s approval. If someone is troubled, they will immediately blame themselves and go above and beyond to please others.</i></li><li><b>Mind reading</b> — <i>Someone who is always thinking about negativity will project this thinking onto others. They may misconceive the other person’s behaviour towards them and fully believe that the person hates them. This creates a bias to their interpretation of what the reality of the situation is.</i></li><li><b>Pessimism</b> — <i>A negative mental attitude towards life in general. They are always anticipating an undesirable outcome.</i></li></ul><h1 id="19cf">It Affects Your Life And Your Relationships</h1><p id="2d06">People exposed to negativity throughout their childhood can develop an addiction to it, which carries into their adolescence and adulthood. Because of the high exposure to negative thinking, this can contribute to one’s personality.</p><p id="85e9">As you go through life, creating relationships with people will be much more challenging in an addict’s life. Using negativity as a defence mechanism, they will push away any real connections with others in fear of something good happening. This can have a severe strain on relationships.</p><p id="d16a">If a negaholic is in a relationship with someone, their relationship will be pretty rocky. Research has shown that continuous negative interactions and attitudes in a relationship can be detrimental. Negativity is dangerous because it can severely damage both people’s mental health and destroy the relationship they have between them from the inside out.</p><p id="5302">This can cause the “Four Horsemen” to enter into the relationship: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. It hinders the couple’s trust in one another, and eventually, the toxic atmosphere will kill the connection between the two people.</p><p id="a96d">Out of all this, I just wanted to say that if you know someone like this or you believe that you are a negaholic, there’s still hope for you. You are not alone in this world. I have this issue, and I’m on the journey of healing myself now. It isn’t too late, and

Options

there are lots of resources out there that help. People need to be more aware of these issues, and they need to be talked about. Together we can help each other out and bring awareness.</p><p id="ff1b">Let’s talk about it in the comments!</p><p id="e90e">Hey everyone! If you would like to read more of my content and support me click on the link below and consider signing up as a Medium member.</p><p id="c9ff"><a href="https://eastcoastwriter.medium.com/membership">https://eastcoastwriter.medium.com/membership</a></p><p id="a6f8"><i>Sources:</i></p><p id="d4ed">“The Problem With Pessimism: Is Negativity An Addiction? | Sober College”. <i>Become A Drug & Alcohol Certified Addictions Counselor | Sober College</i>, 2021, <a href="https://sobercollege.com/addiction-blog/addiction-to-negativity/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20debilitating,person's%20overall%20quality%20of%20life">https://sobercollege.com/addiction-blog/addiction-to-negativity/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20most%20debilitating,person's%20overall%20quality%20of%20life</a></p><p id="224b">RC, Lane et al. “The Addiction To Negativity” <i>Pubmed</i>, 2021, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1763149/">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1763149/</a></p><p id="7f91">“How Negativity Can Ruin Relationships” <i>Psychology Today</i>, 2021, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/couples-thrive/202002/how-negativity-can-ruin-relationships">https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/couples-thrive/202002/how-negativity-can-ruin-relationships</a></p><div id="3fe8" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/be-open-submission-guidelines-41ea51ef4ef1"> <div> <div> <h2>We Invite You to Become Our Writer — Be Open Submission Guidelines</h2> <div><h3>You don’t have to be a great writer or super perfect human to contribute here. I believe everyone can become an inspirator…</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*eBrTZS3wC0WwzBZjivi7tg.png)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

The Addiction To Negativity

Olmez, Volkan. Female Head From Behind. 2014, https://unsplash.com/@volkanolmez. Accessed 31 Mar 2021.

There’s lots of talk about the addictions to physical drugs, but not many people talk about the emotional drugs out there that have just as much of an impact on people’s lives. Emotional addictions are real, and not many people are aware of them. One in particular that comes to mind is the addiction to negativity.

Negativity is a widespread thinking pattern in our world today, but too much of it can cause severe damages to your overall quality of life. Obsessing over negative thoughts can be disheartening to a person, affecting their daily lives, and have high chances of not having healthy relationships.

Negative Emotions: The Subconscious Drug

Addiction to negativity, also known as “negaholism,” is a psychological addiction that can strongly affect a person’s life. They constantly look for problems, and when a solution is presented to those problems, they ultimately push them aside to find more issues. They will never be satisfied, only looking for more ways to keep the negative rush going.

The manifestation of negative thoughts can occur in several ways, whether it’s internalized or projected. These thoughts can be on a small or large scale.

A Few Common Examples of Negative Thinking

Negative self-labelling — This thought process refers to a negative self-image. Thinking so low that they fear that if anyone knew about their failures and flaws that identify with themselves, they wouldn’t want anything to do with them.

Catastrophizing — This is when someone will always think about the worst-case scenario no matter what the situation is or what the facts are.

Dwelling on pain — Someone who dwells on the pain of a negative situation, revisiting it over and over again. Torturing themselves on the negative thoughts and putting themselves down for the outcome.

Need for approval — The need for everyone’s approval. If someone is troubled, they will immediately blame themselves and go above and beyond to please others.

Mind reading — Someone who is always thinking about negativity will project this thinking onto others. They may misconceive the other person’s behaviour towards them and fully believe that the person hates them. This creates a bias to their interpretation of what the reality of the situation is.

Pessimism — A negative mental attitude towards life in general. They are always anticipating an undesirable outcome.

It Affects Your Life And Your Relationships

People exposed to negativity throughout their childhood can develop an addiction to it, which carries into their adolescence and adulthood. Because of the high exposure to negative thinking, this can contribute to one’s personality.

As you go through life, creating relationships with people will be much more challenging in an addict’s life. Using negativity as a defence mechanism, they will push away any real connections with others in fear of something good happening. This can have a severe strain on relationships.

If a negaholic is in a relationship with someone, their relationship will be pretty rocky. Research has shown that continuous negative interactions and attitudes in a relationship can be detrimental. Negativity is dangerous because it can severely damage both people’s mental health and destroy the relationship they have between them from the inside out.

This can cause the “Four Horsemen” to enter into the relationship: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. It hinders the couple’s trust in one another, and eventually, the toxic atmosphere will kill the connection between the two people.

Out of all this, I just wanted to say that if you know someone like this or you believe that you are a negaholic, there’s still hope for you. You are not alone in this world. I have this issue, and I’m on the journey of healing myself now. It isn’t too late, and there are lots of resources out there that help. People need to be more aware of these issues, and they need to be talked about. Together we can help each other out and bring awareness.

Let’s talk about it in the comments!

Hey everyone! If you would like to read more of my content and support me click on the link below and consider signing up as a Medium member.

Sources:

RC, Lane et al. “The Addiction To Negativity” Pubmed, 2021, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1763149/