My Confession of Control

The state of humanity rests in three camps: addicted, rehab, and free.

Before you tell me to be careful with those words, take a look at how many posts remind us not to pick up our phones first thing in the morning. Good. Now that I’ve proven my point, let’s get to why acknowledging which camp you’re in will bring you peace.

I’m not advocating a migration. I’m not making one camp morally superior to another. I’m simply naming what already exists. Some examples for context:

Social media addiction

• Addicted: 3 a.m. scrolling.

• Rehab: Mid-scroll, you realize you need to stop…and keep scrolling for five more minutes.

• Free: Phone down. Sleep. Choosing life over distraction.

Relationship addiction

• Addicted: Overlooking red flags to keep the peace—including your own toxic patterns.

• Rehab: Calling out behavior but doing nothing about it.

• Free: Naming what isn’t working and choosing self over attachment.

There are addictions to shopping, food, sex, control, righteousness, companionship, victimhood, power, drugs—aka altered states. Legal or illegal doesn’t matter; opioids are proof of that. If I missed your addiction of choice, feel free to add it in the comments. We’re all addicted to something. Vices exist for everyone; right now we’re focusing on our behavior, not the vice itself.

My Confession

For years, I told myself I simply loved, love. I believed I was nurturing, patient, emotionally intelligent—someone built for deep connection.

The truth: I was addicted to control.

Control was my drug of choice, disguised as generosity, emotional labor, and perfection. I became who they needed—shape-shifting to fit their world, their wounds, their convenience. Then, quietly, I resented them for it.

Being “the understanding one”, I performed through strategic softness. Then came the cycle: I gave too much, built silent resentment, then withheld love like punishment. Cue the familiar trauma dance:

• Make-up sex that pretends to be reconciliation.

• Over-explaining in long messages hoping they’ll finally get it.

• Doing “the work” alone so they can wake up and choose you.

• Holding on just long enough to avoid being the one who “gave up.”

If you’re irritated reading this, it’s probably because you see yourself in it. That ache in your chest? Recognition. Stay with it.

Self-contortion is not devotion—it’s control wearing kindness as a costume.

You told yourself you stayed because you loved them, but you really stayed because leaving meant losing the illusion of control. So you tolerated crumbs. You rationalized neglect. You spiritualized dysfunction. Like any fiend, you kept going back for another hit of emotional intensity.

And let’s not lie—there were hits:

• The first kiss that fried your nervous system.

• The bottom lip bite.

• The scent that unlocks every memory.

• The way he grabs your hips like he owns time.

We don’t just chase people. We chase highs.

The Ingredients of Addiction

You might say, “But those things can exist in a healthy relationship.” Correct.

Cocaine comes from a plant with purpose on this earth—distort it and it becomes a powder that ruins lives.

It only takes two ingredients to turn something beautiful into an addiction:

Ingredient One: The natural thing
Love. Pleasure. Connection. Creativity. Achievement. The internet. The coca leaf.

Ingredient Two: The distortion
Control. Manipulation. The algorithm. The powder. The contortion. The lie you tell yourself.

Natural thing + distortion = addiction.

The internet isn’t addictive. The algorithm is.

Love isn’t addictive. Control is.

Sex isn’t addictive. Emotional anesthesia is.

The Peace in Naming It

I lived in the addiction camp for years—especially with love. Then I graduated to rehab: awareness without change. I could name the pattern while still crawling back for another emotional fix disguised as “closure.”

I’m still working on free.

But everything changed when I stopped calling it love and started calling it what it was: control addiction. Naming it didn’t heal me, but it gave me something better than delusion. It gave me peace. Peace in honesty. My new mantra: peace over performance. And let’s keep it real—control can be performance art.

You don’t have to leave your camp today. You don’t have to purge your habits or burn your life down. But if you want peace, start here:

Name your addiction without defending it.

Your phone.
Your relationship.
Your work grind.
Your need to be chosen.
Your savior complex.
Your story of brokenness.
Your performance of strength.

Which camp are you in?

And can you say it out loud—without a single excuse?

There is work to do to unlearn the programming that got us here. I don’t care if it’s generational trauma, a bad breakup, or the relationship with your phone. There is no shame in calling the thing what it is, regardless of its origin. It’s the most radically honest thing you can do towards self-love.

I’m just one human, going on a journey through life, unlearning bullshit—one day, one revelation, one self-love action at a time.