Combine those sorts of core beliefs with the fantasy of what a boy can provide, and it’s easy to see why a girl might get hung up on getting with boys. She can easily come to believe that a boy will save her from these terrible things she believes about herself. He can make them untrue. I encouraged Paula to notice when she had that thought about not being special, and then we worked together to examine the thought process that led her to that false belief. Over time, she began to recognize that there was little logic to it. Having this sort of awareness so young—fourteen years old—Paula has the potential to avoid heading down a loose-girl path.
MAKING NEW HABITS
Deb was in the perfect mind space for changing her behavior, for creating new habits. One of the dangers of loose-girl self-harming sexual activity is that your brain develops habits. In the same way that one might develop a psychological dependence on a glass of wine in the evening, or a few hits of marijuana to sleep, girls (and boys) can develop a psychological dependence on promiscuity (as with other process addictions). Deb, for instance, knew she was making bad choices. She knew she had a false fantasy, and she hardly believed in it anymore. But just knowing is sometimes not enough. Often the behavior is entrenched enough that we have to
It’s important to note that often the predictable pattern feels good. Something about that drama and pain, something about getting to feel the feelings we usually tamp down, feels good. Think about any other sort of addictive pattern. Imagine you were a heroin addict. Imagine the ritualized process of calling your dealer, driving into that seedy part of town. The haggard people on the streets. Your heart beats wildly in your chest. You know that you will get that feeling again. Then after doing that drug, imagine how it feels to come down and feel desperate for more, how familiar it is. The process is almost comforting, even as you start to sweat and feel sick. You know it by heart. This is the same for the loose girl. She gets pleasure from the process, even as it feels like hell. Those familiar neurons fire, those same sections of the brain light up, the various neurochemicals begin their work. The loose girl must acknowledge this buzz as part of her necessary awareness.
In most therapies for substance abuse, the addict is told to commit to staying away from his or her triggers, and that absolutely applies to the loose girl. If she usually messes around with boys at parties and regrets it later, she should stay away from parties. If she gives blow jobs in the school stairwell, she should stay away from the stairwell. Not forever. Just until new habits can take hold.
There are a number of established studies about how behavior changes, and they all point to the idea that there is a limited period of time in which a habit should change. The best documented is the work of Prochaska, Norcross, and DiClemente, who determined through research that habits form after just about twenty-one days. They also established the “stages of change” approach, which recognizes that people are in precontemplation, contemplation, or preparation, all before reaching action and maintenance; it’s important to know where one is among these stages before trying to change.{119}
Thus far, I’ve been encouraging the contemplation stage, where you build awareness about your issue and begin to believe you might want change. Put another way, I’ve been encouraging readers to move out of precontemplation and into contemplation. Assessing what your triggers are, such as parties, is part of the preparation. When you are ready to commit, you can move out of preparation and into action, which I discuss shortly. Maintenance comes with the gradual rewards that arrive, although they don’t arrive quickly. First, lots of challenges come, including the opportunity to relapse, which commonly happens and is no reason to give up. Finally, environmental controls are established, and often the person who changes does some sort of work in the world— perhaps as a therapist or writer or teacher—to help others with change, too.
Something I appreciate about the stages-of-change model is that it acknowledges that not everyone is ready to change. I would take this a step further and say that we should never judge where a person is. Not one of us knows what it’s like to be anyone else, what resources a person has internally and externally. When you aren’t ready to change something in your life, you aren’t ready. That’s all there is to it. You can try to force it. You can beat yourself up about it. But it will happen when it happens. The human psyche is not readable that way, and thank goodness. We are multifaceted and complicated, and that humanness is beautiful enough to keep me in love with my work. Be patient with yourself. Accept where you are.
This is a good place to note the myths about change, and in particular about change for a loose girl. The first myth is that change is simple. Of course, some have an easy time changing, but we hate those people (kidding!). Most don’t have an easy time. Most, in fact, have tried many things. Change for a person who is deeply entrenched in a habit, who is acting addictively, is not easy.
A closely related myth is that willpower leads to change. Willpower is necessary, of course, to reach a place at which you will commit to change. But it is only a small piece of change. For a loose girl, she needs willpower to not go to that party where the boys are, especially when she’s feeling down on herself. But the willpower isn’t enough. She needs to engage in a circuit of efforts, including social support, acceptance of herself, and self- awareness about her fantasies. She needs to be willing to sit through some pretty painful feelings that come when she doesn’t relieve her anxiety with male attention.
The other important myth here is the magic bullet. Our society can probably be blamed for much of the origins of the magic bullet. We do not cater to patience or discomfort. Technology has practically removed the word
CREATING RULES
So, action. The first action is to remove your triggers. You can think of this like rules. Here are some examples:
“I may not go to the bar until further notice.”
“I must remove Dylan’s phone number from my phone and never contact him again.”
“I may not text a boy back until he has texted me twice first.”
Rules are terribly useful. You can write them on sticky notes or in your phone. Refer to them often. Pull them out whenever you need. Addicts in general, and loose girls in particular, need rules because we often live our lives out of control. In fact, loose-girl behavior can be a failed way to try to get control.
EMBRACING DISTRACTIONS
Along with rules, loose girls need a list of distractions they can turn to when necessary. Examples of distractions are exercise, calling a particular friend who won’t judge you, chopping firewood, knitting, cooking, or playing piano. It seems simple, but it really is a necessary part of the process, because when a loose girl doesn’t go out boy hunting or doesn’t text the guy she knows will grant her a booty call and then ignore her afterward, even with all her awareness about her patterns, she will experience anxiety. And distractions will help her cope.
FEELING THE FEELINGS
