One Again .....and Control

As a follow up to my most recent post, allow me to say that I had hoped that things were improving.  In a way, I think they are. But I wish I felt better about it. 

I have no control over others. I can't force people to make me a priority in their lives or invite me places or even remember that I exist. This includes the people closest to me.  It's nobody's fault. Everyone is just living their own life as best they can. But when a child that I care about very much hugs me and tells me that she "hasn't seen me in forever", how do I respond without letting her see into my soul. Because I don't think anyone in their right mind wants to see into my soul right now.  So I put on my adult face.  Smile. Agree and change the subject.  Because I have no control over this. Victory.  Right?

Acknowledging this really should be some sort of victory ....yes?    I guess it is. It doesn't feel like a victory, but then I guess not all victories are meant to feel good. 

What this victory means to me right now is that I'm back to trying to figure out my purpose in life, knowing that I may have to do it basically alone. The black hole in front of me is still there.  My job is to figure out what's in there waiting for me. 

Maybe if I concentrate on this instead of obsessing over the "alone" part, I'll be able to finally figure it out.  I'm only 52 years old, but at times I feel like I've already become my mother.  Even she had a better social life than this at age 52.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  Maybe some day cows will fly. 

I'm developing a theory in my head that our relationships are like the food pyramid.  And each person's relationship "plate" is unique and some plates are much more complex than others. I know where people are on my plate. But I'm never really sure where I am on theirs. And I have no control over where I am on theirs. And I never will.  We eat to nourish our bodies. Relationships nourish our souls.  I am now at a stage in life where I am more in control of my physical nourishment than I ever have been before.  The other..... no control.  Irony. 

One is the loneliest step

I have co-dependent personality disorder.  There. I've said it and I've written it.  I realized this a few months ago. Once I identified why this came to be, I needed to figure out what to do. I am now trying to get a grip on my life.

Like many other disorders, the road to recovery involves a 12-step program.  I have zero experience with these programs.  I really thought they were only for addicts. But isn't that what I am in a way?  I'm addicted to destructive behavior. Behavior that is destructive to me and to my relationships with others. 

I had to start somewhere if I was to ever find peace. So a couple of weeks ago, I started working on Step 1. Step 1 goes like this:

We admitted we were powerless over others - that our lives had become unmanageable.  

I thought this sounded so easy.  And I was so wrong.   Because it's about trying to manipulative and control others with our words and actions. These are things I've been doing my entire adult like.  For me, this is like breathing.  Now I no longer trust my own thoughts or words.  I feel like I have to examine everything for ulterior motives. But in the heat of the moment, I'm prone to forgetting, and I revert back to what comes naturally to me.  A part of me wishes I could just go away somewhere and practice on total strangers for however long it takes me to get it right.  I'm being too hard on myself, I'm sure.  I've only been at this for a couple of weeks, and it might take years.  Why did I think I could just flip a switch?

"When we love others too much, when we so desperately want and need what they have - whether that is acceptance, approval, love or friendship - we forfeit our ability to take care of ourselves with them, out of fear that we may not get what we need.  We may hope that if we hold things in place by willpower, we will finally be safe and get what we need.

We won't."

This is wretchedly difficult. I never thought that something that sounds so easy could be ... to this extreme, not.  Because I am no longer sure if my words are born of opinion, concern, advice or manipulation. And this makes me feel very scared and alone.   To be clear, I know I'm not alone.  But being alone and feeling alone are very different.

What I've read is that some of us are completely ready for Step 1 because we are "tired".   Tired. Tired of fighting, I guess or of mental agony of constant self doubt?  It is tiring, but somehow it isn't that black and white for me.  When I examine my relationship with my spouse, I feel as though I'm on the cusp of surrendering to this Step. Because I've been trying to manipulate him for such a long time, and because I see the positive results lately in those instances when I've just let go.  But he's just one person.  What about everyone else?

A few years ago, I put myself in the position of being the "great communicator" in one of my volunteer positions.  It just dawned on me that, in my current condition, I must be insane to continue in this position.  What's coming around the bend for me and the people I serve?  Should I view this as "good practice"?  Or maybe as self-help exercises?  It doesn't seem quite fair to the people who find themselves having to put up with me.

I've had a couple of minor victories at home and elsewhere but for every step forward there seems to be three steps back. I guess the fact that I'm even aware is a step forward - instead of stomping through life like a wrecking ball.

I've also read that co-dependents have a habit of apologizing all the time for things that they shouldn't be apologizing for. Yes, there is truth in that.  Somehow I have to get control over Step 1 before I deal with extraneous apologies. I'm having a hard enough time categorizing my communications properly before, during and after I issue them without wondering if I should or should not be apologizing for miscues. 

I guess I really do need a support group. Because I have no idea if I'm on the right track or not. And in those moments when I think I'm on the wrong track .... I just want to go off and curl up in a ball and cry. Sometimes I just need someone to put their arms around me and tell me that eventually it will be alright.  How in the world did I, someone who was deprived of physical and emotional affection as a child, end up married to an emotionally challenged man who doesn't like to be touched?  I suppose that's a subject for a different post and a different time.

Right at this moment I don't know if this is better than the black hole I was looking into last month. If I knew that someday I might be able to just communicate like a normal person if I were to stay on this track, I'd say it's worth it. That day seems awfully far into the future. I just hope when it finally arrives, I'll have someone to communicate with. 

The Undiscovered Path to the Afterlife

Suicide is a mystery to those who have never contemplated it.  Why do some people choose to end their lives while others who appear to be so alone in the world choose to soldier on, day after day?  Catastrophe.  The stock market crash of 1929.   The poor souls who chose to jump from the upper floors of One World Trade Center on 9/11.   People with severe addictions.  Even people with terminal illnesses.  But what about the others?  What about the people who look like they have it all together- even to their loved ones?

When the answer is not easily known, then I think that only the deceased can know the entire story.  Suicide is so personal, so individual as to almost be beyond the comprehension of anyone other than a higher power.  I reject the idea that it is an unpardonable sin that condemns the deceased to Hell.   I choose, rather, to hope that the deceased had strong faith in a merciful God who will thereafter cradle that person in his arms and will grant the thing that the deceased wanted above all else – peace.

My fatal flaw is my total inability to deal with uncertainty.   I’m not talking about everyday uncertainty like what to order in a restaurant.  I’m talking about real conflict resolution that involves major pieces of my life.    I don’t know why I do what I do, and maybe only a psychiatrist would ever be able to figure it out.  When serious conflict arises that jeopardizes the future, my coping mechanism is to do whatever I have to do to identify steps to a solution.   I compulsively must do this.  Whether the solution be in the near future or far off does not matter.  Maybe the real solution has yet to really be defined.  But if I can at least know in my head that there is a path leading to peace, I will be ok.   

How do I go about identifying those steps on that path…. that’s the hitch.   Usually I talk to the other parties involved until the path reveals itself.  The parties are not always happy about this.   I would even go so far as to say that the parties are usually not happy about this and sometimes will even tell me what they think I want to hear just to shut me up.   This tends to backfire – on me, not them – when the path never actually happens and I end up feeling betrayed.  Sometimes I write rather than talk.  Writing is not the ultimate solution but at least it allows me to “get it out”.

I am writing now because I am talked out and don’t know what else to do.  Because every major aspect of my life is in a state of uncertainty and conflict, and I’m fairly sure that the other people are tired of my talking, while in other cases, there really is nobody to talk to.  

When I write about looking for a path, what I really mean is that path that I was on has ended.  Imagine that you are hiking deep in the forest by yourself on a path miles from anywhere or anyone, and the path just ends and you are staring at tall woods.   That is what my life feels like right now.   Only this is a one-way path.  There is no turning around and going back from whence I came.    I must go forward…. except I’m lost.  I don’t know which direction to go or what I’m going toward.   As I struggle to cope, my brain will not shut off.  It is filled day and night with scenarios and outcomes.  I have conversations with myself.   “What will I do if………”  “Who can I talk to about……?”    “If this turns out like _____, then…………, but what if _______ happens?”   One of my conflicts is so unpredictable on a day-to-day basis that it sometimes feels like walking in a never-ending minefield where the only way out is to step on a mine.  Or if I do somehow find my way out, I might have to run away from it as fast as I can.   I find myself having imaginary conversations with people because the real thing has just become too difficult.

Everything resolves.  Or so I’m told.   The act of suicide has been described as cowardly and selfish.  I don’t know if I totally agree with that.   I actually think it takes a lot of courage.  I know I could never pull it off, and I know that the people who care about me don’t deserve to be punished in that way just for living their lives to the best of their ability based who they are deep inside – whether or not their act of living does anything to help me.    What I know for sure is this.  We all have a path that we are destined to walk.  Sometimes we stray down wrong paths.   The worst is when the path disappears completely.  For some people, there is only so long they can struggle to find it again before it all just becomes too much.   As for me, I don’t think I will ever again be one of the people who ponders a suicide and thinks – “We never saw it coming.  What could have happened?”  Every story is unique, but ultimately it comes down to the undiscovered path.  

 

 

A No Good, Very Bad Post

I hate my husband when he gets into his moods. Those moods where I can do nothing right. I'm sitting in my car in a church parking lot right now because it's better than sitting home with him. 

Just once I would love it if he would be able to suppress this part of himself. Just once. I know now that he is incapable of it, but sometimes I am just too tired to be the bigger person. 

So I am sitting in my car.  I am tired, my back hurts, my head hurts and I have 3 more hours of human interaction before I can go home and bury my face in my pillow.  

I hate him when he's like this. I hate my life when he's like this.  But life goes on, doesn't it?   So tired......  Just tired. 

Irrational Fear or Destiny

I've blogged incessantly about my lack of friends, why and how I came to have a lack of friends and what (if anything) I can do about it.  For a period of time,  that's pretty much all I blogged about.  I really thought I was in a better place mentally and emotionally because I didn't feel the need to blog incessantly about it.

I was wrong.

I still think about my Mom a lot.  I try to think of her as she was when I was younger and not as she was in her last years, but I can't help but think of her life as sort of a collective body of work with a very unhappy finale.  I've also insisted that I don't want to end up like her, but I'm starting to think that I have little control over the situation.

I always assumed that my mother was a solitary person who didn't mind spending time alone.  I never paid attention to whether or not she made any attempt to change her situation.  I do remember that she was very good friends with my sister in law's mother.    When my Dad was alive, the four of them were very social together going to dinner, movies, concerts, etc...  When my Dad died, Sue was her rock.   When my sister in law's father retired, however, that's when things got dicey.  He was very possessive of his wife, and her personality was not one that lent itself to .... shall we say... independent action...   We found out a few years later that he had Alzheimer's disease.  Unfortunately, the damage to their friendship was done.  I knew my mother was sad about it, but I now believe that she was probably devastated.

The bottom line is that I really have no idea if she tried to cultivate new friendships as she progressed through her middle age years and beyond.  Besides making me question my worth as a daughter, this leaves me with all sorts of questions.  I am really like her?  Did she have friends when she was in her 20's that she gave up on?  Did she, like me, try to turn her work associates into personal friends only to have her hopes dashed?  She bowled with friends and relatives well into her 50s.   Did she think that they would become close friends?  Was she upset when she stopped bowling and the friends drifted away out of her life?

The simple fact is that I am petrified of spending the last years of my life alone.  I have always thought that my mother was alone most of the time because she was crabby and disagreeable....  but just maybe she was crabby and disagreeable because she was alone.   A vicious cycle.  Which again causes me to question my worth as a daughter.  Would her mood have improved if I had forced myself to spend more time with her?  I'll never know.

Yes, we have the power to shape our destinies.... to a point.

I'm married to a man who prefers his old antique car to me a lot of the time.  He thinks that spending time at home is a waste of time, I guess.  I don't know.   He doesn't realize that his presence is the important thing - not that we have to be engaged in conversation or activity together every minute he's home.  What is that saying about two people who are just able to be in each other's presence without the need for words?

I am miles ahead of where I was 10 years ago, in that at least I do have one important friend.  She is 20 years older than me.  We're an interesting and unexpected pair.  Sometimes I get the feeling that people don't know what to make of us. We don't talk about the age difference very often anymore.  I think that when people connect on a mental, emotional and spiritual level, chronological age is rendered irrelevant.  I love this woman.  She has made me a better person in more ways than I can count.  We are good for each other in all sorts of ways.  But I can't deny that I find myself thinking about what I will do without her someday.  The thought of this makes me want to cry and- in fact, I have done just that.  I don't like reminders of her age, but they are there and for me to ignore them or disrespect them is unkind and unfair.   If I'm to be any kind of friend,  I must respect them and be considerate of them and of her.  I've gone through periods of flat-out denial, and other times I've attempted to bridge the gap by pointing out the signs of my own advancing age.  I guess my behavior has been sort of stupid at times.  And really, who knows what the future holds?  I really am getting to the age where people my age are passing away from untimely deaths-all the time, it seems like.  What if I'm next?

Right now I am 51 years old and already feeling alone.  Which makes my problem worse than my mother's problem at this age.  I'm on the fast track, comparatively speaking.  What to do?  As I've said before, one doesn't just impose oneself on other people and expect positive results.  I can't force people to invite me to things.  I can't force my husband to stay home.  He'd probably be miserable - at which point I'd end up telling him to go away.   This aloneness makes me irrational.  Another vicious cycle.  Who wants to hang around with an irrational, clingy and needy person?

Maybe it would be best to accept my fate.  I may become the crazy cat lady who carries on conversations with herself.   And the cats.   At least they won't argue with me.....much.

What to feel when you don't know how to feel.

Lately, I've been trying to flood my psyche with happiness-inducing memes and stories and quotes, because I figure... sooner or later, something has got to stick with me.   So what have I got to be unhappy about?  If I knew the answer to that question, I might know how to help myself.

I recently figured out that I have a co-dependent personality.   For a little while, this brought some relief.  That there was a root cause for my behavior.  But now, more and more, I realize that I'm sure not going to be cut any slack by anyone based on this revelation.  The only person who can cut me any slack is me.

I have felt unhappy, lonely, and misunderstood for the majority of my life.  It's become very difficult to do anything or make any decision or say anything without second-guessing myself.   Almost impossible, really.  I'm not even sure who I am most of the time.  I think I can be a reasonably pleasant person when I try.  Other times, it feels very difficult and when that happens, I feel defeated by myself and that's when I become the angry, bitchy me.  Which leads to more second-guessing and self-condemnation.  It's a vicious circle.

I read something on Facebook about how people who have committed suicide are wrongly considered to be selfish.  This post went on about how people who are depressed enough to end their own lives truly believe that the people around them would be better off without them in the world.   I'm going to admit that I understand that thinking.  There have been times when I thought that very few people would know or care if I ceased to exist.  And sometimes I wonder .....  how fine is the line between very few people and nobody?

Maybe I just need to start cutting myself some slack.   I mean really, what are the facts?

I am NOT the most challenged, downtrodden person on the face of the earth.  Here are the facts of the past ten years:

Many of my immediate family has dispersed to other states.  Many of our most joyful holiday traditions no longer happen.  Hell, these people have essentially disappeared from my life.  I miss them more than I care to admit.

Three members of my family passed away in the span of 10 months.  One of these people was my mother.  One of these people was a 10-year-old child.  In the years since then I have experienced the deaths of people my age and people I sang with.

Roughly around the same time, I found myself fully engulfed in perimenopause - night sweats and brutal hot flashes.  I now know that my hormones had also rendered me incapable of maintaining an even keel of emotions for more than an hour or two.  Sadly, I was entirely focused on the physical issues and was dwelling on the deaths in my family,  and it took months for me to recognize that I was basically acting bat-shit crazy.

I have identified my co-dependent personality and, as I said, there was relief.  But now reality has set in.  My wacky co-dependent behavior is why I  am sitting home alone on a Saturday night.  Or, that's how it feels at the moment.

So..... what now?

How do I turn erratic behavior into something a bit more consistent - consistent, as in consistently good..... not consistently bitchy?  Hormone patches were a start.  What 's next?

How can I help myself feel more positive about "alone time"?    Since it seems to be a fact of my life,  I need to find a way to put a positive spin on it.

How do I stop beating myself up and second-guessing everything I say and do?  That's the tough one. That's where the whole co-dependent personality thing comes into play.

What is likable about me?  

I am funny - in a sarcastic way, mostly.
I am loyal.
I am creative

.....hmm, I'm sure there's more, but I don't think I'm at the point yet where I can come up with more.

So, I guess this explains why I don't know how I feel about too much these days.  Except that, mostly... I'm just afraid of messing up the rest of my life.  I'm afraid of alienating the people I care about.  I'm afraid of acknowledging that I deserve to be treated as well as I should be treating others.

Basically, I'm just afraid.   So there.   Let's move forward, shall we?

A Startling Self-Revelation

For the record, let it be known that I am NOT an Oprah devotee.  I subscribed to her newsletter, because once every ten e-mails or so, there is something interesting there.  A few days ago, the title of an article caught my eye.  You know, when you're checking off all of junk that's headed for the e-mail "trash" and suddenly.... whoa.... what's that???   The title that grabbed my attention...."The Day My Best Friend Broke Up With Me".   Yikes!   Due to my ever-present paranoia, I felt that I'd better read it, just in case, because you just never know when a useful nugget of information will present itself...

As I read it,  I felt the most weird combination of relief and horror.  This woman was me.  She was absolutely, positively ME.  The woman with a co-dependent personality disorder was her AND me. Of course, the story had an upbeat and hopeful ending, and of course my best friend has NOT broken up with me...but it left me with all sorts of questions.  But after further research, my initial suspicions were confirmed.  I have a co-dependent personality disorder.

This is a difficult thing to communicate.  Most people associate co-dependent personalities with relationships involving substance abuse.  That's what I always thought, anyway.  It seems that this is not always the case.   Now, the other issue is that we all know that it is quite unacceptable these days to blame your problems on your parents and how they raised you.  You hear this all of the time.  Yet, it seems that a lot of people with co-dependent personality issues were raised in environments that were emotionally deficient and/or abusive.  This is what I'm finding out now.  Wow!  After all of these years of trying to not be one of THOSE people, it turns out that I really am.... one of those people.

Where do I go from here?  This explains so much about my whole adult life up to now.  The lack of friends, the low self-esteem, and on and on.  And I can take steps to help myself, starting now.  I can help myself to be a better wife, friend, person... everything.   If I have the guts, that is.  Do I need to go to support group meetings?  They actually exist, come to find out, and practically in my back yard.  Yes, I have some real thinking to do about my next steps.  But at least there is so much more about my behavior that makes sense now.

For anyone who cares to learn more about this journey of self-discovery, here are some links:

This is the story on the Oprah website that started it all:  http://www.oprah.com/inspiration/Best-Friend-Break-Up

More interesting info:

http://coda.org/
http://www.wikihow.com/Tell-if-You-Are-Codependent
http://www.codependencynomore.com/codependency-quiz-2/

Half optimism, half fear......