Many of you have searched or considered the question “Does mental illness cause
Your thinking about mental illness and affairs may be totally backwards.affairs?” or “What is the link between mental illness and affairs?”. Have you ever considered that you may be looking at this question the wrong way. You may be assuming that the mental illness somehow contributed to or caused the affair.
The reality could be the other way around. The affair may have created the mental illness. The illicit sexual relations may have changed you rather than something being wrong with you leading to the affair. Consider for the moment, the story of Frank and how affairs changed him.
When Frank had an affair, many changes occurred in his body and brain. New pathways were created in his mind. With each affair, new layers of change were created. New connections were made in his brain. At first, he never noticed all the changes taking place in his brain. He never even thought about it.
Over time he noticed that his thinking changed. At that point, the power of the connections became noticeably stronger. The more affair connections, the stronger they become.
One day, Frank noticed that his ability to focus, what he focused on, and his emotions were ‘different’. He used to be able to direct his attention and control it. Now thoughts intruded into his mind that he had not intended to. They just burst into his awareness unannounced.
In the past, he could pick up a pencil and use it. Now even simple objects overflowed with sexual meanings and uses. It was no longer picking up a pencil for writing purposes. It became what sexual acts the pencil could be used for.
His response to people had changed as well. He was now able to seduce better than ever, and make suggestive comments without even trying. He also picked up on signals that women wanted with greater frequency. It was now something he had a sixth sense for. In the past, he had to go looking for signals, now he only had to just look around.
His ability of controlling his emotions was also not what it used to be. Over time, it was as if they controlled him.
Frank also noticed that he paid more attention to himself. He thought it was because he needed to look good in order to get women. He looked at the world differently.He found himself always thinking about sex and seduction. The more sex he had, the more he wanted and the more extreme he wanted it.
Initially he thought that he just felt good related to having the affairs. It never occurred to him that all those new pathways formed in his brain actually changed the functioning of his brain.
Over time, Frank found that his world began revolving around sexual conquests. The thrill of an affair often ‘turned on his whole brain’. He discovered that the only time he felt ‘really alive’ was when he was planning or involved with an affair.
He discovered that anytime he went anywhere that he never considered women in terms of their skills or personalities, he only evaluated all the women he encountered in terms of what he imagined they would be like in bed. At first he would pick and choose the women he mentally undressed. Over time, he was mentally undressing all the women he encountered.
He dismissed these changes as ‘I’m just being a man’. He attributed the changes in his thinking, emotions and focus to just liking sex and being an adult. It never occurred to him that his affairs may have turned him into a monster. He never considered how the affair changed his brain, his emotions and his thinking.
Did affairs change Frank? Did affairs alter his thinking, his emotions, his behavior? When anything can change your brain function, behavior, emotions, focus and thinking, it changes your life.
If the affairs were a pill that changed a person that much, they would be regulated if not outlawed. They would be considered dangerous. Although affairs morph your brain and transform your emotions, they are rarely considered the ’cause’ of problems.
Your cheater may be like Frank. Affairs changed him. He became a different person. His wife may have attributed his changes to narcissism, to addictions or some other disorder. You could even make a case that with the changes in attention, it was his ADD that led to the affairs. Your assumptions are all wrong. The changes in Frank came AFTER the affairs, not before them.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Best Regards,
Jeff
If your thinking has been changed by affairs, you need the e-book, “Why He Cheats” which goes into the fantasies and changes that occur.
