The comfort of receiving compassion is one of the sweetest and most alluring feelings in the world, one that everyone indulges in from time to time. However, while some use its virtues to heal and grow, others get addicted to its false sense of security, unable and unwilling to change.
According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, emotional comfort is the process of communicating care and concern for one another, offering reassurance, empathy, comfort, and acceptance. This environment can be created through kind comments and validating others’ feelings.
Emotional comfort can be a driving force to just live another day, especially for those struggling with severe mental health struggles or going through really hard times. While it is a foundational starting point on the journey to get better, it’s not a cure-all.
According to a study by the National Library of Medicine, humans naturally find ways to positively adapt their status quo to mitigate negative mental states. People actively seek to restore their psychological needs through coping mechanisms such as interpersonal consolidation to get a form of catharsis.
For many with psychological, emotional, and social stability, kind words and compassion are a solid occasional Band-Aid for coping with small issues.
Yet for those living with larger mental health challenges — such as depression, anxiety, and other trauma-related conditions that not only isolate but also distort the perception of hopelessness — comfort and compassion can become some of the only positive forces that bleed through the negativity filter that these issues create.
According to another study from the National Institute of Medicine, emotional misery in the form of social isolation leads to increased attention to nonverbal cues and, more importantly, an increased desire to engage in social behavior.
This means that people with mental health challenges often place a higher emphasis on emotional comfort and social connection, becoming much more susceptible to developing an addiction to receiving interpersonal compassion.
Addiction to emotional comfort can come in many forms. Sometimes it’s a constant need for consolation after failing a test or a craving for validation to feel confident. Often, people feel a strong need to vent in order to achieve the same emotional catharsis they felt in their previous interactions.
While an overreliance on emotional comfort is most susceptible to those who face mental health challenges or social isolation, it’s important to note that an addiction to emotional comfort can be found in anyone, especially as newer generations feel more isolated and lonely.
An overreliance on emotional comfort may be seen as irrelevant or even supportive for individuals; however, this perspective disregards two crucial factors underlying the disadvantages of an addiction to emotional comfort: stagnation and compassion fatigue.
An addiction to emotional comfort harms all parties. For those who are always trying to provide a helping hand to others, it’s easy to experience emotional burnout and compassion fatigue.
According to the Canadian Medical Association, compassion fatigue is the cost of caring for others’ emotional pain, leading to reduced empathy, increased helplessness toward others in suffering, and even neglect in self-care.
People with a constant need for validation often do so at the expense of the people trying to help them. While it’s rarely malicious, its negative effects still stand. While most recognize that something is likely wrong with their relationship dynamics, they often don’t notice the negative side effects of their actions and therefore don’t stop.
Because emotional comfort creates a false sense of security, it blinds people into thinking they are more okay than they may actually be. This leads them to feel comfortable enough to ignore the urgency of their problems, discouraging them from seeking real help or making real changes. It becomes a scapegoat that people use to cover up the root of the problem rather than actually address it.
As validation and kind words continuously create dopamine-driven feedback loops, people stay addicted, which lulls them deeper into an environment of stagnation and normalcy. And without emotional discomfort, people fail to see the need to change.
This becomes an incredibly toxic cycle of emotional drainage and inaction for all parties involved. No one wishes to leave and abandon the other, resulting in fetters of emotional dependency.
An overreliance on emotional comfort doesn’t promote long-term healing, but rather prevents it. When people are always being told that they are okay and that their problems will all go away with a bit of time, it only discourages them from seeking critical help from professionals.
It’s like when our bodies try to cover up a thorn stuck in our skin, healing over it and causing long-term painful discomfort rather than addressing the issue and removing the thorn in the first place.
Comfort and stability are always crucial first steps in the journey of healing; however, the most important aspect of comfort is the second step, leaving it behind.
To actually get better, there must be a balance between comfort and discomfort, along with a desire to improve. According to an additional study from the National Library of Medicine, optimism about getting better is a necessary step toward improving quality of life.
While it may be especially hard for those living with mental health challenges to step back into discomfort, it is an important step to heal and grow. It’s crucial to take our own mental health into our own hands. Without one’s own motivation to change, no amount of kind words will help.
It’s important not to get fooled by the normalcy that an addiction to emotional comfort brings, but rather to seek true understanding, healing, and growth that may lie in discomfort.
