People “need” food, pornography, movies, busy-busy activities, service to others, extra sleep, video games, etc.
We usually try to control any excess. It works for a while, but the need never gets tired, while you do.
If you’re doing something that isn’t good for you, repeatedly or over time, stop that focus and look behind the behavior: what do you really need?
For example, I need compensation and calming. Starting very early, I’ve been around too much that has scared me, or that has invaded and degraded my sense of self. I want consolation, repose, safety.
My placebo has been food, especially carbs (with flour, maybe butter, not just sugar), and the freedom to eat whatever I want, because, in childhood, that was the only possible assist. Clients of mine have used secret sex; or evading any sincere commitment (meeting any expectations); or following every rule to the letter of the law in order to have “margin,” a safe distance from judgment by others; or serving others non-stop in an effort to be loved. We come up with whatever is available to us in childhood –– which ain’t much. Kids are stuck wherever we are, and we can’t change the system one whit.
We believe the chosen behavior will keep us safe. That belief is the placebo function. Okay, you made it. Now you’re being harmed by that behavior. You forego sleep to have extra credit at work (“margin”). You get fat from eating carbs of consolation. You alienate and disappoint a sequence of spouses because you can’t commit to any marriage. You have to maintain a secret sex life to claim autonomy. You aren’t allowed to know what you need if it contradicts someone else’s needs. Whatever. It’s harming you today.
It never objectively did any good, but you believed it made you safe, so it did do you (subjectively) a lot of good. Fine. Not true today.
Step One is to identify that you have a placebo, and what it is.
Step Two is to identify what you were trying to help (with that placebo). I was fighting off loneliness and fear, a sense of futility and chaos in human relations. The fellow who avoids commitment was fighting off an invasive quasi-sexual mother. The man who wants margin, to owe no one anything, is defending against others taking credit for his achievements. The woman who cheerfully responds to everyone else is defending herself against despair.
Step Three is to strategize: how can you meet your real need in current –– and more effective, less damaging –– terms? What else can you do to reassure that little self in there, who still feels frightened, or invaded, or used by everyone?
Regardless of the answer, the very fact that you’re asking begins to heal you. No one saw your distress or really understood your exaggerated behavior (your effort to take care of yourself in some convoluted, indirect way). If you see it, and you see the deep need behind it, you’re already on a different footing. You exist, you matter, someone wants to help.
The urgency of attachment to your placebo behavior will ease, as will your tension and anxiety. It’s worth a try . . . .