‘Detoothing’ is a mental illness
Oct 06, 2006
I intended to date Ruth, but since her sister, Julie, was more amiable and confessed her feelings for me, I ended up with her. I guess that was the first mistake. <br><br>
By Oscar Bamuhigire
I intended to date Ruth, but since her sister, Julie, was more amiable and confessed her feelings for me, I ended up with her. I guess that was the first mistake.
She wanted money for airtime and because I was unemployed, I borrowed some money and bought her airtime.
A couple of days later, she asked for transport money to her home village in Mbarara district. I gave her the money and was left broke.
Shortly after that, she turned up at my door in the wee hours of the morning. “I used the transport money for my hair. Now, I cannot go to the village. Give me more money for transport,†she said, smiling, with her romantic eyes dancing and blinking gorgeously.
I told her, quite frankly, that I had no money. That is when the problems began. She began to insult me. She abused my little room, insulted me for not having a house, sauce pans and thermos flask, for using a paraffin stove, etc, and then walked out of the house.
A couple of days later, she called off the relationship. I was hurt for weeks.
Julie was a typical ‘detoother’ (one who expects material gains in exchange for love). Though ‘detoothing’ was once an exclusively female domain, increasingly men are becoming ‘detoothers’.
“The second misconception about love is that dependency is love,†writes Dr M Scott Peck, in his book The Road Less Travelled. “When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other. Dependency in physically healthy adults is pathological,†he adds. “It is sick, always a manifestation of a mental illness or defect.â€
Scott defines dependency as the inability to experience wholeness or to function adequately without the certainty that one is being actively cared for by another.
“One whose life is ruled and dictated by dependency needs suffers from a psychiatric disorder to which we ascribe the diagnostic name ‘passive dependent personality disorder’. It is perhaps the most common of all psychiatric disorders. People with this disorder, passive dependent people, are so busy seeking to be loved that they have no energy left to love,†Scott adds.
‘Detoothers’ always get into problems and the people they depend on desert them. In desperation, they cling to anyone they can depend on, no matter who they are. Many people have got married just this way.
Treating a ‘detoother’ is not easy. It requires a trained therapist. “Passive dependency has its genesis in lack of love,†says Scott, “The inner feeling of emptiness from which passive dependants suffer is the direct result of their parents’ failure to fulfill their needs for affection, attention and care during their childhood.â€
The first step in recovery, therefore, involves the ‘detoother’ making a commitment to be independent and then seeing a therapist to address their childhood problems.
Ends
I intended to date Ruth, but since her sister, Julie, was more amiable and confessed her feelings for me, I ended up with her. I guess that was the first mistake.
She wanted money for airtime and because I was unemployed, I borrowed some money and bought her airtime.
A couple of days later, she asked for transport money to her home village in Mbarara district. I gave her the money and was left broke.
Shortly after that, she turned up at my door in the wee hours of the morning. “I used the transport money for my hair. Now, I cannot go to the village. Give me more money for transport,†she said, smiling, with her romantic eyes dancing and blinking gorgeously.
I told her, quite frankly, that I had no money. That is when the problems began. She began to insult me. She abused my little room, insulted me for not having a house, sauce pans and thermos flask, for using a paraffin stove, etc, and then walked out of the house.
A couple of days later, she called off the relationship. I was hurt for weeks.
Julie was a typical ‘detoother’ (one who expects material gains in exchange for love). Though ‘detoothing’ was once an exclusively female domain, increasingly men are becoming ‘detoothers’.
“The second misconception about love is that dependency is love,†writes Dr M Scott Peck, in his book The Road Less Travelled. “When you require another individual for your survival, you are a parasite. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other. Dependency in physically healthy adults is pathological,†he adds. “It is sick, always a manifestation of a mental illness or defect.â€
Scott defines dependency as the inability to experience wholeness or to function adequately without the certainty that one is being actively cared for by another.
“One whose life is ruled and dictated by dependency needs suffers from a psychiatric disorder to which we ascribe the diagnostic name ‘passive dependent personality disorder’. It is perhaps the most common of all psychiatric disorders. People with this disorder, passive dependent people, are so busy seeking to be loved that they have no energy left to love,†Scott adds.
‘Detoothers’ always get into problems and the people they depend on desert them. In desperation, they cling to anyone they can depend on, no matter who they are. Many people have got married just this way.
Treating a ‘detoother’ is not easy. It requires a trained therapist. “Passive dependency has its genesis in lack of love,†says Scott, “The inner feeling of emptiness from which passive dependants suffer is the direct result of their parents’ failure to fulfill their needs for affection, attention and care during their childhood.â€
The first step in recovery, therefore, involves the ‘detoother’ making a commitment to be independent and then seeing a therapist to address their childhood problems.
Ends