I found this phrase in an article on surviving breakups, a phrase intended to excite w/in those going through a breakup to do just that-accept that the relationship is over and move on. what this article failed to consider is what if you're codependent and emotionally strained? Accepting and moving on is NOT simple; is NOT EASY in any way. I am codependent and moving on is about the hardest thing I've had to tackle.
I've been reading this book, Codependent No More & Beyond Codependency by Melody Beattie. She attempts to define codependency and illustrates the ways in which those of us who do suffer from codependency are to attempt to unlearn and redefine behavior that can bring so much havoc in the complicated task of daily living.
Back in late March & April, I'd learned that I was codependent while I was seeing a therapist about problems I'd had with anxiety. Imagine how I felt when I found out that anxiety wasn't my only personal concern. But instead of exploring that finding, I shied away from it. Honestly, learning that I didn't know how to relax was damaging enough to my already fragile pride and ego. Today, I wish that I'd have pursued the codependency with the same interest I had with the anxiety. Perhaps then, this breakup wouldn't have occurred or at least wouldn't have been so bad.
So the more I read Beattie's book, the more I've become convinced that the problems LRM and I experienced as the relationship progressed were responses to painful experiences we both encountered and hadn't addressed. I think that we both are codependent and the last thing that ever needed to happen was for 2 people like us, with our unaddressed problems, to find each other and fall in love.
Part of me feels the need to piece together the chapters I've read and make sense of what's occurred and my part in it all. For the last month and a half, I've felt strictly like a victim of someone else's pain and inability to treat me right. But now, I feel there's more to this. I understand that I inflicted hurt as well. I'm a product of a dysfunctional family. I grew up around alcoholism, verbal & physical abuse, and drug addiction and really believed that as long as I left Memphis and the past behind, that I would be okay...things are in shambles because of codependency-an emotional, psychological and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual's prolonged exposure to and practice of a set of oppressive rules-rules that prevented the open expressions of feelings as well as the direct discussion of my own personal and interpersonal problems. In a few weeks, I'll have my first session with a new therapist, FC. I'm looking forward to getting down the nitty gritty. My whole point of wanting this is so that I can change the person that I've become. She's not that pretty.
