Deprivation Behaviour

I am talking with my friend and he uses the term ?deprivation behaviour? to describe some of his habits. I have to ask him what he means. He tells me. He says that it is any behaviour in which you deny yourself something nurturing, wholesome.?

This man is a really good friend of mine. We?ve know each other for years. We?ve put the world to rights on many occasions. I trust him because he has seen me through many ups and as many downs. He knows me. Right now he is in recovery from his own shit, and I find that I am learning much from him about relationships, with oneself and with others. He is teaching me about boundaries, a subject that I am pretty clueless about. Rather than be assertive I have been known to avoid people or simply cut them out of my life. Sometimes I smother the feelings bubbling up inside of me, and deny myself the right to speak my truth. Healthy boundaries is not something I am well versed in.

We talk lots, as we always have done, about romantic relationships too. About sexual and social anorexia and how entrenched one can be in these habits. I am the one who stands out here. I am the one who isolates socially, and the one who has avoided relationships for many years. I censor this part of myself because I am convinced that no one would ever be attracted to me and that rejection is simply inevitable. Again, my innate distrust of others is highlighted. I simply cannot believe that people are on my side; I am convinced that others are out to get me and therefore will reject me. I withdraw to avoid harm, real but mostly imagined.

And this brings us to the subject of ?deprivation behaviour.? I cannot say that my social and sexual ?anorexia? is anything other than a denial of two of the most basic human drives there are. If one looks at the hierarchy of human needs (as outlined by Maslow), after physiological wellbeing and security (e.g. shelter), the third most important need of the human being is to belong. This can mean belonging to a community, to a friendship, to a romantic relationship. I negate this part of myself often. The first two I sometimes allow myself, although over the last three years or so I have immersed myself in communities, friendships and socializing far less. I have been left with a deep sense of not belonging, and once in a while this straw has broken the camel?s back. Once in a while, the hopelessness has tipped over into suicidal ideation. Once in a while, the fact that I feel I don?t belong anywhere has made it more feasible to kill myself. Despair and isolation are not the healthiest of partners.?

It is not merely the sexual and the romantic that I deny myself. Yesterday, I finally attacked the mound of paperwork and pamphlets under my desk, fanned out like a pack of cards on a casino table. There were unopened envelopes, the unnecessary bulk of pamphlets, letters strewn everywhere and wage slips and information packs, and the moleskin books that I write and draw mindmaps in. Bit by bit, I sorted through them. I had two large bin bags full of nonessentials by the time I had finished. How is this deprivation behaviour you may ask? Well, I have been depriving myself of a happy, nurturing home because of the constant reminder of tasks avoided and muck ignored. My room has been a tip, and a dirty tip at that. Not only has there been piles of clothes not put away, but there have been piles of dirty laundry on the floor. Not only have I not placed my new fitted sheet on the bed, but I have been sleeping for ten weeks on an uncovered mattress, like I used to when I lived in a homeless hostel. This morning I look about me and I can see the floor for the first time in weeks, and I can smell the Bergamot and Orange room fragrance that I bought months ago; the reek of takeaways and rotting curry has finally been banished from the room. When you live in a house-share, and your castle is your room, organisation and tidiness are imperative. Without them you simply feel the world weighing down upon you, and you can?t leave the room and go hang out somewhere else, so there is a constant reminder of sloth and illness.

I am thinking this morning that I am putting on weight and I think to myself that I will go on another low-food diet. I want to get back down to a size eight. At the moment I?m pushing a twelve and I feel like a rounded slab of lard. A deprivation diet. A whole hearted refusal to nourish myself.?

I was also wondering if I could justify another day of not showering. Another form of self neglect. I can go days without washing, perhaps a splash of water on the face every third day but no shower and no hair washing for almost a week. I scratch places that shouldn?t be scratched, and the itchiness keeps me from my sleep. I deprive myself of this very basic form of self-nurturing: hygiene. I do this regularly.

So, I deny myself sex, relationships, time with friends, that sense of community that I used to feel in AA, food, sleep, financial stability and a comfortable nurturing home environment. These are the first things which come to mind, but no doubt if I looked further I would find other things.

There is some sign of turning things around. Launching an attack on my room yesterday was a long-awaited triumph. It took (di)stress from my shoulders and I now have a comforting environment in which I can relax. I allowed myself a Sunday pub lunch with a friend, which was a result. I stepped out from my isolation by asking him the night before if he fancied a roast the following day, and the next day I didn?t cancel (as I am wont to do). I enjoyed time with a friend. The food and the company nourished me. I ate. I had intended to leave the potatoes and the carrots so that I could keep to my low-carb diet, but in the end I allowed myself the full lunch. Unsurprisingly I ate less for the rest of the day, yet I felt full and contented physically and thus mentally.?

Finally, there is perhaps the greatest turn around of them all: I am sleeping. Or rather, I am allowing myself to sleep, and it?s not so scary as I thought it would be. I have found that I am able to fall to sleep quite easily if I go to bed at ten or eleven. I have thus woken at earlier times than when my sleep ?hygiene? is erratic, when I deny myself rest. Depriving myself of sleep is nothing short of self-harm, yet it has been a longterm habit of mine. I even refused myself it when I was working which led to scattered attention, increased stress, a more intense, unstable emotionality and migraines. Recently, I have allowed myself to sleep. I have also allowed myself the medication which I have been avoiding, and this is crucial both to rest and recovery. Just as I have denied myself of sleep so too have I not taken my meds as prescribed. I have regularly not taken them.?

On discharge from hospital last month, I was prescribed a week?s worth of medication. It?s a suicide prevention tactic. The upside is that I have been given the tablets in blister packs, and thus I have been able to keep an eye on the pills I have and have not taken. Over the past six weeks or so, from entering the psych unit until today, I have not missed a dose. In particular I have taken my antidepressant tablet every day. I wonder if this more regular practice plays a role in my heightened mood.?

There are many ways in which I deprive myself (I haven?t even mentioned self-harming yet, perhaps the most clear example of denying one?s wellbeing), but the torture of no sleep and the consequence of not taking my medication actually prevent me from recovering my mental health. Denying myself the security of mental health is the worst, most insiduous form of deprivation. For what else does a good life finally rest upon other than a peaceful and healthy mind.?

??

Source: http://borderlinelasthouseontheblock.blogspot.com/2011/06/deprivation-behaviour.html

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