The Stages of Codependency

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

Lollapalooza and Other Madness

I’m all registered for my senior year of high school now. I’m hoping it’s slightly less eventful than last year, and I won’t be spending a week of it, er, ‘institutionalized’. I’m meditating for better mental health this time around. 🙂

I had the wonderful opportunity of attending Lollapalooza, all-expense-paid, in Chicago yesterday with my lovely cousin and aunt. We saw ten different bands, including Florence + The Machine, who are my cousin’s favourite, and we saw The Jezabels walking down Michigan Avenue while at Panera Bread for breakfast. I had a blast. My cousin was a bit uncomfortable with all the half naked college kids toking to their favorite alternative bands, which I found funny. I feel like I should drop him off with my friends in the Main Street apartments for a few hours to desensitize him to soft drug use. Maybe he wouldn’t chastise me any more (ahahaha, yeah right). I really enjoyed Nadastrom (I’d never heard them before) and was bummed I missed out on Of Monsters and Men, but they played at the same time as Florence.

I love music, but I’ve dropped out of choir for this year. My director is a distasteful woman who killed any shred of self-esteem I’d managed to cling to. I’m hoping to find a way to still take vocal jazz instruction this year, and I’ll still have my fill of music between band and flag corps (I’m a corps captain this year~).

I’ve talked to my fiancé about the both of us going for all three days of Lolla next year, considering I’ll be moving to Chicago for college, hopefully at Roosevelt, which is right across from Grant Park where it takes place.
He informed me that he bought us tickets to see Amanda Palmer at the Metro in November for our anniversary and that his father now knows we’re engaged. I wasn’t expecting the second one. I’ve been seventeen for five months, and he’s one month short of seventeen. We’ve been engaged for 9 months. We didn’t want our parents to separate us, thinking we were too young, so we kept it a secret. Mom thinks my engagement ring is a very fancy sort of promise ring. I wouldn’t have gotten engaged to just any guy or girl I’d dated this young, but my fiancé and I had already been best friends for years. We used to sleep over at each others’ houses, and it was a brother-sister sort of relationship before the hospital. He kept me alive, and I’m forever grateful.
I was pleasantly surprised that his father approved, considering he’s generally very old-fashioned and seems to think we can’t grasp the consequences of our actions most of the time. I can get along with him well enough, it’s just a bit difficult.
I honestly wish I could tell my own parents with the same outcome.

I feel like I really only rambled today.

-Atl Coaxoch