The Devouring

There is a covert kind of abuse that eats away at a life.

It may not look dramatic at first.

It may look like stress.
Like “just getting by.”
Like needing more food, more buying, more stimulation, more approval, more coping, more explanation.

But under it, something is being consumed.

A person is placed under strain.
The strain creates need.
The need looks for a way to be filled.
The filling creates more cost.
The cost creates more strain.

The life struggles under over-expending their life-force,
and they take damage by negative impact done to them.

As the life erodes, they are likely to end up silenced, denied and fulfillment is extracted out of them - oft covertly.
Shortens the life-span, leaves them damaged and prone to .. undesirable choices.

That is the loop.

It was highlighted in a public context, and I am offering this take because there is vile predation on the dynamic: strain creates need, and that need gets misused to buy lives into dependency.

This post is free to read, and may assist lives to self-contain instead of selling themselves to prolong their life-span. But it is not permission to exploit my work. This remains part of a livelihood-pursuit and business-endeavor. I am sharing this specific piece freely because children get killed off, and there is no justice to be found. It is the most basic of consideration, not heroism.

This ‘Loop’ Was Coined “The Devouring”

It is not addiction.
It is often what comes before addiction-knots form.

Over-consuming.
Over-working.
Over-owning.
Over-explaining.
Over-attaching.
Over-feeding a path that is already draining the person.

Each time the body, home, wallet, spirit, or relation is forced to pay more than it can recover, something is eaten into.

A person may become angry at their surroundings.
They may feel heavy, feverish, melancholic, intolerant, or unable to accept things others call normal.

They may feel anxious without knowing why, and there’s something to be afraid of.

Sometimes things get explained away too quickly. The inner might attempt to let them know there’s a danger; using metaphors, or expressions that are close-to-the-truth.

But sometimes the signal is simple:
“This is eating into the self.”

Minus

Sometimes the devouring starts through knowledge, work, consumption, or social pressure.

A life is given information, tools, habits, or expectations.
They try to use it to survive.
But they may not see the cost of how it was procured, what it ties them to, or what it demands from them later.

Then the person cannot create enough value to balance the loss.

They become strained.
Stressed.
Drained.
More isolated.
More dependent.
More enmeshed in heavier and more complex demands.

They may even begin hiding from what they are participating in, because seeing it clearly hurts.
It can leave them giving their energy, to being complicit in harms upon yet others.

That hiding has a cost too.

It can block empathic connection.
It can shrink courage.
It can decay neural pathways, alleviatively suppressing awareness of what they do to continue as they do; some driven to.

Money isn’t free.
And no money, poverty, can cause risks and inability to move about, devouring into others by the intolerance.

The question is not only:
“Do I have enough?”

The question is also:
“What is this costing me, and what is it making me serve?”

And when others start pressuring on the life,
extracting out of them,
they get emotionally invested - craving to hide their participation.
It is deadly.

Imposition: Healing Isn’t Complicated - Up To a Point

But it can be inconvenient,
and not always to the one struggling.

Not always easy.
Not always immediate.
But simple.

It takes a bit of economic wisdom is all, forget superficial measurements.

The experience of shutting down, fevers and self-decay can be survival of the soul - protecting the lasting self. Overriding that is like making an entire life bad for a few hours of convenience. It’s something to work with, to respect and not try to control.

However, sometimes a life must make changes prior to an ending like death availing them. When that’s obstructed, when it gets explained away, lives possessively constrained, those attempted owned to contexts, can lead to grim results.

Sometimes small changes are enough. Often they are not. When these get misused by contexts to delay inconvenient but necessary changes, that can get the life stuck in a worsening loop. It spurs addictions, leaving the life to be blamed as others try avoid responsibility.

Only a life can themselves make the changes, imposing “the correct solution” will most likely just make things worse. Justifications of imposing disregard complexities like the movements of fate, that are beyond science, religions and oft neglects complicity and the like.

Only a life can navigate itself, easing things for their surrounds in their developing complicity; whom even if by neglect consume the devouring, subsequently developing the same.

Avoid the highs of fantastical spirituality, yet don’t deny lives metaphysical awareness or make it rigid, disrespecting perception by imposing some dominant depiction of the world, and what beings are.

Here’s a Start: Reduce Unnecessary Consuming

That may mean:

One less item.
One less false obligation.
One less draining habit.
One less argument.
One less food-pattern that makes the body heavier.
One less place where the self is bought, used, or pulled in the wrong direction.

Let unused things go.
Let excess knowledge rest.
Be careful with anything that consumes heavily and then demands that you create value to justify the loss.

Let the body settle,
let desire become cleaner.

Practice restraint where it protects the soul.
Seek natural, aligned chaste partnering where it protects both people - yet avoid impatience.
You may not like the taste, but without it healing is obstructed:
God’s creation of gender is not about reproducing. Treating sex as being about reproducing, and constraining intimacy to that, multiplies harm and is costly. May be better to avoid breeding into a devouring-pattern, but individuals do as they do. Do not let loneliness sell you into being used.

Upholding personal intimacy-boundaries, no matter the cost, can strangely invite support that reduces any loss, and it holds great value.

Sometimes a life must make larger changes before the damage becomes too severe. And sometimes surrounding people, systems, or habits will resist that change, because the old pattern benefits from keeping the person available.

Helping Another

Want to assist another life?
Do not impose “the correct” onto another.
That can trap them deeper.

Seizing the power in responsibility by misusing “helping”, builds the cost-heavy mistrust in seeking aid.
Deferring responsibility to thought-leaders, ideology, religion, education or the like either, does not remove personal responsibility either.

Upon desiring to help, at least start by looking into how the self may be acting a tributary, being part of causing their problem, without over-self-blame (costly…).

Sometimes the clean move is avoidance, patience, prayer, distance, simplification, and one honest correction at a time.

Balancing the Scales

For the life finding themselves devoured, adding even small value can matter.

A cleaner word.
A lighter demand.
A bit less waste.
A little more patience.
A refusal to misuse another person’s pain.
A choice as to what to give value.

Sometimes it’s about considering whether what you put out there is ecological, vegan/vegetarian or fairtrade.
And who said that you should ask for help?
Doesn’t mean not to seek assistance, division-of-labor is a thing.

It may be panic will help, it’s likely that it won’t.
If something comforts but takes life-force, count the cost.
It takes morale to keep going.

Get tactical; if addictive knots, danger, ails or drug-dependencies are involved, consider that setbacks and losses can impair the capacity to do what’s required.

It is vital to protect the capacity to make the efforts required.

Some of those that devour into a life, may be only the surface of a larger demand-pathway.
One with many tributaries, that feed into the malice experienced.
Seeing past that veil, spotting the proxy-like nature, doesn’t remove their responsibility.

Being denied basic joys; partnering, life, trips and making a living comes with a cost as well. So this is not about becoming lifeless, while modesty is time-tested wisdom.

Sometimes survival begins with refusing to be eaten.