I’m not afraid to admit I’m incredibly codependent.
I used to be the world’s most independent woman until I found someone who really loved me.
It’s easy to pretend you don’t need someone when they treat you like an object,
but it’s hard not to need someone when they talked you out of killing yourself for a month solid.
Tonight my fiancé is out partying. I couldn’t go because I have much less lenient parents.
My stages of codependency go like this:
Stage 1: Preoccupation – I try to keep my mind off him at all costs.
Stage 2: Depression – I mope around missing him.
Stage 3: Neediness – I’m in physical pain because I miss him, and I have the need to hold him and kiss him.
Stage 4: Paranoia – I tell myself he really must not care for me at all and lied to me about where he’s going and who he’s with and they’re all laughing at me behind my back.
Stage 5: Anger – I think everyone else must be more important than me, and I become really obnoxious and stand-offish. (Did I mention I have moderate OCD and I can be really controlling?)
Then the vicious cycle repeats. I’ve already been through it twice tonight; I’m now on my third cycle somewhere between Stages 4 and 5.
Times like these make me wish I could still afford therapy.
I know I probably sound like a pathetic idiot, but saying all this is helping me feel better.
I had a massive breakdown last night and cried for three solid hours in which I got into a few I-guess-you-can-call-them-arguments with my fiancé, and our differing opinions on a lot of important things still terrify me. I have the urge to try to control him and force him to change his mind to make myself feel better, but I know that for one, that would never work, for two, that wouldn’t be loving him for who he really is, and for three, that would only make me a cold-hearted bitch, and I wouldn’t be happy in the end. But I’m so attached to him, that even if he did something I really disapproved of that should warrant me leaving him, I couldn’t do it. I’ve trapped myself. I’m anxious as fuck right now. Pete just went home, so I’m alone now, which scares me because I don’t do well alone, but which is okay because no matter how long I know a guy, I can’t be alone with him without being on edge, especially if he’s a lot bigger and stronger than me, which most men are. I have this paranoia regarding being sexually assaulted by one of my male best friends, especially the ones who go out of their way to tell me I’m attractive. I know they do it to try to raise my self-esteem, but really it makes me more paranoid. The nicer someone is to me, the less I trust him or her. If you’re hostile toward me, I won’t let you into my life, so you can’t hurt me. If you are nice to me, I will yet you in, and that makes me vulnerable to you. You can use anything you know about me against me.
I felt shitty today because my fiancé laughed at me when I asked him to teach me to fight. I know I’m sort of weak, but I want to learn to defend myself. I need to know how to take down someone bigger than me. Maybe I’ll just have to hide behind a taser like every other scared young woman.
I ask myself sometimes, “What makes me happy?”
The answers are generally: sex, drugs, and food.
I probably need to re-evaluate my life, but I really haven’t the motivation for that.
I’m sorry you read my depressing ramblings, there was just no one around to listen, and no one I would have told to his or her face anyhow.
– Atl Coaxoch
From Dust to Light 