let’s see how long this thing lasts…
Or, honestly, if it even begins. Do you know how many journals I’ve started over the years? How many stacks of empty books that each have maybe half a dozen pages filled out?
No, seriously. Do you?
Because I can’t even begin to try to count them.
But I really want to keep an account of my life. My thoughts. My growth. For myself, but even more so for my daughter (D❤). Someday, she may have access to my thoughts and maybe she’ll enjoy learning more about me. Maybe she’ll find she’s not alone in the her thoughts or feelings.
Maybe.
But for now, for today, I’m diving in to the topic that’s heavy on my mind.
Codependency.
It’s a word I thought I understood, but until my marriage therapist (MT) suggested a book (The New Codependency by Melody Beattie) I actually had no idea how completely wrong I was.
After reading the first few chapters, I sent MT an email, in which I said:
The first paragraph made me cry, though I'd just had a fight with Nelson, so my emotions were already heightened, but that first paragraph alone was shocking to me. Even the first line of the book about losing "yourself so badly you don't know if there's a you or ever was one" or a few lines later about giving "until I was depleted." Excuse my language, but holy shit, this book is painfully eye opening.
Now that I understand more about what codependency is, I think I am the most codependent person I have ever known. The idea that other people's responsibilities have a starting point and (more importantly) that mine have a stopping place is wild in how truthful it is and also in how I don't think I've ever -- in my entire adult life -- paid attention to that stopping place, instead letting guilt drive me to do more and more and more to make the lives of everyone around me easier. Until I'm so depleted I just... stop. I hit a wall and avoid everything -- at which point the guilt just gets a million times heavier and my anxiety about letting people down paralyzes me from doing anything at all.
Understanding what I'm doing -- and realizing I don't have to do it anymore? It makes me feel about a hundred pounds lighter.
While boundaries have basically been foreign concepts to me in the past, I'm really excited to start thinking about my own and putting them into practice.
And I meant every single word. I don’t think I’ve felt a bigger shift internally, emotionally, in my entire life than after starting this book.
Not sure if anyone will ever read this, but if you found my journal and are wondering what the heck I’m talking about, here’s a definition of codependency by Merriam-Webster online:
Definition of codependency: a psychological condition or a relationship in which a person manifesting low self-esteem and a strong desire for approval has an unhealthy attachment to another often controlling or manipulative person (such as a person with an addiction to alcohol or drugs)broadly : dependence on the needs of or on control by another.
My own, newbie, definition of codependency (and how it relates to me) is along the lines of: losing my sense of self by feeling the need to help others beyond anything I might need.
I mean, I am really, really good at understanding where other people are having trouble — whether or not they explicitly tell me. And I never, ever want to burden anyone with anything more. I actually tend to go out of my way to lighten their loads whenever I can, regardless of how capable they are (should be) themselves, and regardless of how it weighs me down too much to care for myself.
In fact, I’m so used to ignoring my own needs, that I can’t even tell you the basic things that might make me happy. In my marriage, or in most other parts of my life. (I mean, give me a good book, a successful day of shelling at the beach, or a hug from D❤ — but beyond those things? I have barely a clue. Which I’m determined to work on.)
The first paragraph of Beattie’s book hit me so hard I sobbed:
I know what it’s like to lose yourself so badly that you don’t know if there’s a you or ever was one.
Two sentences later she says,
I gave until I was depleted.
And, sis, that’s me. In almost every aspect of my life.