If we look a little closer we will find many women in our counseling room using many different styles of self-medicating their pain and escaping their brokenness. Many common styles of pre-addictive denial are what I call “cocoon” comforters.   Cocoon Comforters: Hiding a Hurting Heart  These women are not yet addicts, and although most are not being abused or traumatized, some are. These are ordinary women—wives and mothers attempting to live life while carrying a heavy burden. In the midst of the hussle and stress of life, their pain and brokenness have become overwhelming. Maybe a past trauma is triggered or there is a major change in their lives, such as job transfer, a new baby, a difficult marriage, divorce, depression, stress, or lack of sleep—all wrapped around the lack of connections to a meaningful community or fear mixed with shame about sharing one’s pain.

To escape, these women curl up into a cocoon and participate in a particular set of “cocooning” behaviors in an attempt to avoid and numb their pain. These women may look forward to a nightly drink, relish a whole box of chocolates, take a prescription drug long after it is needed, surf the net for hours, daydream about a fantasy life, or keep reaching for food long after their tummy is full. These women might also participate in behaviors that provides them with an adrenaline rush—behaviors such as gambling, filling up her schedule with continuous activity, talking in a chat room on the Internet, watching porn, excessively shopping or working, or even shoplifting. These adrenaline rushes provide them with a surge of pleasure that acts as a distraction from their pain.

Some cocoon comforters in and of themselves are innocuous, while others obviously lack integrity or are wrong. What seems to start out as an innocent way of dealing with their stress and pain becomes the problem itself—often leading to addiction.  A behavior becomes a cocoon comforter when it is used to minimize, deny, hide, or cover pain rather than help a woman understand, manage, deal with and heal her pain. When these behaviors become life-draining rather than lifegiving, a woman’s growth becomes restricted and less than what it might be.

These behaviors cause a woman to numb her emotions, put her head in the sand regarding her situation, and block out the painful process she needs to go through in order to grow and get to the other side. As one woman said, “When life gets chaotic, I find walking up and down the aisles of a local discount store very relaxing.” But now she gets anxious if she does not go shopping several times a week. She shops to avoid responsibility, numb her hurt, and shut out the demands of her home life. Shopping has crossed over from a good de-stressor to a destructive distraction.   Living in romance novels.   It is common knowledge that women escape through romance novels. For a few hours, fantasy and daydreaming override reality. The Romance Writers of America (RWA) say that one out of every three women read a romance novel last year and 93% of romance novel readers are women. One woman stated, “Daydreaming keeps me from dealing with the pain in my life. For years it was my only way to escape; it helped me forget that life was so difficult.” It is apparent today that many women feel this way.

Over the years, women and their choice of cocoon comforters have changed. Although men engage in gambling, drugs, affairs, pornography and alcohol more frequently than women, research shows that women are starting to engage more and more in such behaviors, and for different reasons. Thirty four percent of women reported having consumed alcohol during the year. The National Council on Problem Gambling report that one third of women are problem gamblers. Women tend to gamble to escape the pain of life and men gamble for the excitement of it. Nielson NetRatings reported that one of every three visitors to adult porn websites is female.  Dr. Mark Laaser, in an interview with Christianity Today’s Marriage Partnership said, “We’re seeing a dramatic increase in the number of women who are hooked into pornography and other more behavioral ways of acting out.” Dr. Laaser explains, “Culture is rewiring the female brain. And I literally mean rewiring—neurochemically, neuroanatomically, women are getting rewired to be more visual and aggressive.”  The deception about cocoon comforters is that even though relief is found for a few hours, no real healing or solution has occurred. Reality is only distorted, good thinking blocked and a woman’s experience and emotions get tied into a knot.

Like the candy coating around a chocolate morsel, the protective, reactive secondary emotions hinder a woman from identifying and processing her deep, real primary emotions.  Unlike the benefits of numbing the physical pain of a broken arm, numbing emotional pain complicates the healing process (and I am not talking about the wonderful benefits of anti-depressants and such). Emotions are God-given and designed to move a woman through a natural process of healing. For example, the emotions of a broken heart are purposeful, as they allow a woman to make sense of her loss, help her slow down so she can grieve, re-organize life around the loss, and recognize her choices of reaching for comfort from her family and friends, thinking through options, and finding solutions for restoring life.  Resilience and positive psychology research show that when we make meaning out of our difficult times, we become stronger, better prepared and able to recover quicker from future painful seasons. To overcome difficult obstacles and thrive, a woman is required to wrestle with her pain and problem long enough to make sense of it, find meaning and a way through it, and in the midst of finding proactive solutions she will find healthy habits to reduce stress and soothe her aching bones and heart. If a woman has the space and safety to go through this process, she will foster hope and resilience, giving her the ability to go through the difficult season and come out on the other side stronger, wiser and gentler. Web counselor plays a vital role for the welfare of society.

Life is Difficult, but…  Scott Peck said, “Life is difficult.” As counselors, we know very well that life in this broken world is difficult. Therefore, when we sit in a room with women clients, we need to explore and understand the quiet and subtle ways women numb and self-soothe.  If we only assess for addictions, we will miss cocoon comforters. As counselors, we have an opportunity to be ‘hope givers’—gently bringing cocoon comforters out into the open and leading them on a journey toward feeling their emotions, thinking clearly about their situation and discovering how they can soothe their aching hearts in ways that are truly growth promoting, comforting and life giving. _Sharon Hart May, Ph.D., specializes in a therapeutic model called Emotionally Focused Therapy. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and conducts Haven of Safety Marriage Intensives for couples.