Of life's little placebos.

Today's Muse This, and a conversation with a friend, led to this post today. The conversation pertained to a particularly fucked up scenario that played out in our little cadre of friends and associates... I'd say it ended, but in many ways it hasn't, and never will. Fix that broken vase with as much paint and superglue as you want, it'll still always show the cracks if you look close enough. But this post isn't about them, that situation is as well on it's way to being repaired as it can be. Honestly, I envy their strength even as I pity the strife and pain the situation caused. No... This is a post about me, and how I wish I could protect myself from what I want. I keep throwing myself into situations that are, frankly, inadvisable. I follow my heart, and maybe that's a lot of the drive and problem there, but follow it I do. And when it talks, it tries to convince me that I'm stronger than I think I am. That what is this obstacle in the face of what we want? Looking back on it, of course, one must ask the question... What exactly is it we want? And is what looks like what we want really what we want? Does this obstacle, this act of strength to survive it, make what we think we want, less of what we 'really' want? I don't know that there's a clear answer. Life has a nasty habit of not giving us anything free and clear, we can get everything we want, but it'll come at a price. Everything has it's price. Sometimes that price is a demand on our comforts, our boundaries, our beliefs. Sometimes that price requires that we sacrifice everything we once held dear and holy on a pyre. Sometimes it's just a little time and money. The question we have to ask, in the end, is is it worth it? I don't suppose that we ever really know. All I know is that there's a price I've chosen to pay. But every time the price comes up, every time I'm reminded that pay day is an eventuality, not an if, I feel a little more like a beaten puppy. There's a sense of 'this again' and knowing that there's no escaping it. I suppose at least this time it's just a matter of time, one knows, one does not suspect. In the end, what I decided I want may end up being the very poison that burns me out. I made this choice, this was not a thing anyone but I did. I wish I didn't think I was going to regret it so much, a part of me already does. But there are promises to be keep...

The Flame and the Crystal

Tonight I sit quietly in my room, deep in contemplation. In the kitchen stands a beauty who doesn't know her worth, singing with the voice of angels unbound. Whenever she sings, she sings my favorite types of song, ones of woe and triumph, tragedy and sorrow. The kind of music that makes my heart beat quiet and cool, a moment of truly being alive. This is her wont, her style, and it just happens to match my tastes perfectly. (We won't talk about her taste in movies or popular music however, that's a bit less enticing). She's been through a lot in her life, and it's left her fractured and broken in a lot of ways. But it's also shaped her into the most beautiful crystal I've ever had the good fortune to share my life with. And, gentle readers, for those of you who know my past, that is certainly words worth considering. But this post isn't really about her, the crystal. It's about where I feel I lay in the analogy. The flame. It sounds like a vainglorious position to put myself in, but I hope you will come to know I mean it with the deepest humility. She has thought herself a thing without worth for most of her life, and I love her in the only way I know how. Which is a complete mystery to her. She thrives in it, and shines even brighter than she did before. It is not often in my life that I feel myself out-shined. And, for once, I am content to live in her shadow, to marvel at this miracle of creation. But don't worry, this post isn't merely the sentimental ramblings of a love-struck fool. It makes me consider my position, and my feelings about myself. Here I am, burning brightly, shining in the feelings of her love, and the reflection of her own light prisming out across the velvet black. I know I have my own inner strength, but it's hard for me to feel it. Because right now all I want is to be here, in this moment, drowning in it, and let the future be damned. I don't want to do anything but go to sleep in this perfect moment, and let it be the last thing I remember. Contentment. Many of you have known me on the seas, as a salty old Captain, and there's one thing that that mindset has imbued in me. The knowledge that life is one great sea, with many ports of call, but the storms always come. They'll be coming again and again, and all you can do is hope to find a port in the storm. Some sailors have had good fortune, finding a home port with familiar waters. They learn every reef, every pool, every secret cove in the beautiful complexity of an island. And this, they call home. A stick and palm branch shack on the shore, looking out over the seas they used to sail. Not with regret, but with fond memories, and knowing they've found a place they'll be content. I envy them. Those who have found their shore, their small island in the ocean that they know intimately. I don't know how they do it, I don't know how they and the natives of that isle find an accord that invites them in. And maybe that's the failing of my thought. I see them as a visitor to a place larger and greater than they. But my analogy includes the life that surrounds the island, the day to day. The people they come to know, those who make up their family, their friends. It may seem a strange place to be in ones mind at the beginning of a relationship... But I want to find home. Maybe I've just lost the will to believe it exists. What I do know is that this particular island in my life is among the most beautiful I've found. Not just the lovely woman in my life, but the friends I have, the things going on in my life. All in all, it's rather nice here. Not without it's dangers, but what place of beauty lacks those? I don't know how long I'll be ashore, life has taught me there's no knowing that. I am, however, determined to make the best of my stay.

Autumn Winds to Winter Sands

Good evening long neglected readers, There have been many, many changes in my life since last I wrote. Many long grueling hours of work, a continuing weekly visitation to CoDA meetings (yes, I'm still going), and an epic trek across the US to collect someone who's become most dear to my heart. So much to cover, so much time, and so many changes. Where to even begin... Let's start with CoDA. CoDA has become a very integral part of my week, I don't feel quite right if I don't go. The people who I see each week, old and new, have become rather important to me. More that they are there, suffering from the same things that plague me, and giving me a place to air the darker corridors of my mind. I find it cleansing, though I feel like I could be doing better work than I have been. But one day at a time, ya know? Right now the consistency of going is a solid change in and of itself. Never been very good at stick-with-it-ness. But this? This I'm sticking with, and thank your diety of choice for that. I've learned a lot, about myself, and others. I've watched those around me in that place grow, change, and some just maintain. I've seen people at all stages of their recovery, including the stage where you're just maintaining your current health. I've felt my own recovery fluxuate back and forth, days where I feel stronger, some where I'm barely able to hold my head up. The greatest gift it's given me is awareness, not just of myself, but of others. I've always been perceptive and able to read others to varying degrees, but I have always been my greatest mystery. That's changing these days as I'm able to identify my own internal waves, and seeing what generates them. And this leads to an interesting thought in and of itself. Perhaps not scientifically sound as a direct analog, but useful from a psychological standpoint. Emotions, methods of thinking, moods... They can all be very much looked at from a concept of wave forms. They are not things in and of themselves, but the reflection of things. Wind blows across the surface, small ripples form, but if the wind continues to blow, the ripples become waves, turning a glass sea into a torrent of choppy waves. We can calm these winds in our mind, if we think of them as our subconscious and active thoughts. But sometimes life throws a major change, an earthquake, and suddenly we're dealing with a tsunami. But like a tsunami, if we don't recognize the signs, it can suddenly crash into a towering wave destroying everything in it's path, without warning.. I'm going to leave this as it lay tonight. But it's an interesting thought to pursue.

"You're really bad about regular updates, aren't you?" Yes... Yes I am... This is not the same as being idle.. Dear god how idle I have NOT been. My life is full these days, Work Sun-Wed, CoDA on Wed nights, Therapy Thu mornings, and adventures on the weekends. My progress on CoDA has mainly consisted of actually going, I've been trying to remain aware of my thoughts and feelings, and how I interact with others. So much has happened in these past few weeks that it would be hard to wrap up. This post is mainly to make sure that you folks know I haven't forgotten this place, or my writings. It is going to go on my nightly to do list. I will try to catch you up in the posts that will follow.

So it's another night, and I'm going to try to do some more writing.. Figured I'd answer some more questions that the book I'm reading asks me.

1. What neglect and abuse did I experience growing up? This is a hard one for me, I always thought I had a pretty good home life with my mother and father and the like. They worked and took care of me and didn't quite give me everything and tried to give me some work ethic. Not terribly effectively mind you, but the effort was there. But I think I developed a fear of abandonment from them working the schedules they did. Mom worked nights, dad worked days, and I really didn't see a whole lot of either of them. Dinner was an important time, and food is still important to me because of that, I'm certain. But I didn't really have a parental presence most of the time, and I spent a lot of time being lonely. I also had my activities severely curtailed at first, I wasn't allowed to ride my bike up the hill into town, and I didn't have any friends who lived close. Well, I had one, and he uhm... Wasn't worth much really. There's a whole story there that can be told another time. School wasn't so bad, I had my social activities there, though until I got into high school I really didn't feel like I had any friends. So basically I wound up being pretty isolated during the summers. I don't really know how to talk about this, I have a lot of feelings of hurt and abandonment from my childhood days, but I don't think I've really nailed down where they came from. I know that, emotionally, I spent a lot of time feeling alone. I felt like the only person who really understood me that was family lived down in California, and I barely ever saw him. This person was my brother Lucky, yeah yeah, I've heard all the jokes, and what I haven't, he has. So this is a work in progress.. I know that even in this time I felt alone, abandoned, unwanted. But I don't know that it was my parents that were entirely responsible. It's hard for me to see how. I know that I often felt that my ways, beliefs, and hobbies were wrong. Mother always felt that DnD was a horrible evil game, I ended up becoming Wiccan at a young age because something about it appealed to me, I really had no appreciation of anything Biblical based. I'm not really sure how to answer these questions any further, there's a lot of bits and pieces, but nothing that's really straight up 'abandonment'. But abandonment is big in my list of fears.

2. When did I learn to turn my head when I and/or other people were being neglected or abused, and why? Another hard one, I really don't think I *DO* this.

3. Where did I learn that avoiding others was safer than being involved? Is there a point in your life where you can just... teach yourself these behaviors? I didn't have a way of dealing with the pain of rejection, or of constantly being subjected to reminders of seeing the faces of those who did. It was easier to run, to forget, to not think about it. So I did.

4. Where did I learn to control others for my sense of well being? I suppose I learned early on that people can't be trusted to be careful with your feelings, to treat you with love and respect, and when you trust them to give them that opportunity, they fuck you over pretty royally. A disturbing percentage of my relationships have been lost to them being lost to another person, usually one I feel close to and think of as a best friend. I'm actually still friends with one of them, and a strange but strong friendship has been born out of that betrayal. So controlling others, I guess, just became the safest way to protect myself, to keep myself from being made a fool of. Not that it's ever worked mind, because it conflicts with my desire to keep my relationship together. So even if I control and snoop and find, when I object it shakes the foundation the relationship is built on.

5. How did I learn I wasn't good enough or better than others?

To part 1: They always leave don't they? No matter what I do, they always leave. I do everything I can, and I still wind up alone. Usually for another man, so.. Yeah, I'm not good enough to keep anyone in love with me, leaving me inadequate, a temporary diversion.. a stop on their way home.

To part 2: I am god-damned magnificent, magnetic, charismatic, creative, talented, intelligent, and I shine like the sun when I'm happy and in a group of people. Other people seem so god-damned mundane, why can't they see with my vision? I always knew I was special, everyone told me so, and then I was able to make others believe it to. But considering part 1? How special was I really?

6.When, where, and how did I learn to deny my own feelings, thoughts, and needs for the sake of others or, conversely, to demand that the world revolve around me? I don't really know, Another hard one. In my head it just seems like the only way to prove I'm good enough. It seems to me that that's what love is, putting others first to the best of your ability. I always wanted to take care of someone, to let them know that they're the sun and moon and stars. I like feeding people, bathing people, generally tending to people in every way. I want to make the worship of each other part of a nightly ritual, a winding down at the end of any given day. I never understood how this became pathological. I wanted to do this for others, I wanted others to do it for me.

So, today has been kind of a day. It's full of good forward steps, and some terrifying visits from Pandora's Curse. I got in touch with my Therapist today, had a short 30min+ session, and then started talking about arranging regular therapy visits. This is a good thing. But before that, I talked to Mandi for a good 40 minutes, and 10 minutes after. This was.. It's a really difficult thing. Our conversation was easy, friendly. But every moment of it, hearing her voice, made me miss her more, but was also a rapture. We're still friends, if I can hack that. But that's it. When I asked her if there was a chance at all, she said "If there wasn't a chance in hell, I wouldn't be talking to you." She wants to keep in touch, wants to keep talking. But I don't know what that means, and really neither does she. That scares me so much. Because it's hope, and hope is a dangerous thing. My therapist, Kim, told me. "Your job right when you talk to her, is to be there for her. To listen to what's going on with her and her father's treatment. Focus on what she needs from you." and "Be in the moment when you talk to her.". To which I took to mean "Don't worry about the future, just be her friend, and let whatever happens come a day at a time." I'm working on taking this advice. I also took steps to get my schedule rearranged so that my schedule allows me to get to the CODA meetings on Wednesday nights. Little nervous about my first meeting of this type, but excited too. Ultimately, I'm tired of hurting, of getting lost, of hurting others with my Codependent behavior. It's one thing for a relationship to just not work out, it's another for it to be destroyed from within by one of the partners having a disease. ~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm sure I've mentioned this, but if I haven't, I want to express this. All I've ever wanted in my life was to have a wife, kids, a picket fence. None of the elements outside of it mattered. I wanted my partner to be someone I got along with, who didn't just accept me, but loved me for who I was with all my foibles. I feel like I've repeatedly had this taken away from me. Looking at it now I'm wondering how many times I took it away from myself, and after starting to take a critical look at myself, I'm beginning to think that ratio may be pretty high. It needs to stop.

I'm trying to start a journey I should have started nearly four years ago. The one that deals with my issues and my pain, my loss, my fears. I'm going to start going to CODA, it is painfully apparent to me that I am, in fact, Codependent in a pretty severe way. I'm doing this in my blog here because.. well.. Maybe it's part of the codependency thing but I really don't want to feel alone in this. I don't expect anyone to read it, but at least I won't be hiding it anymore. In Chapter 2 of the book, there's a series of questions that ask some pretty serious questions. I figure a good place to start is answering these questions here.

1. Do I control others to relieve my fears? Jesus... I want to say no to this, I really do. But I can't. I look back at my relationships in general, and I realize that yes, yes I do. Or I try to, and if I fail to I get severely fucked up in my head. I ask things of them that address my fears, and get really flipped out if they don't do them. These behaviors, to my knowledge, relate almost exclusively to romantic relationships. I'd like to say that they don't extend to my friendships, but I can't say that with any definitiveness. I don't trust myself to make that assessment. But looking back at my last two relationships, and most glaringly my most recent, I really did try to control her behaviors from day one. At first it was professed to be out of concern for her, but later it became because I was scared, and scared led to hurting, and hurting led to me trying to control my environment so that I could be secure in it. I have a very hard time just letting things be, it seems like when I just let things be, people leave me. But then it's been so long since I've been able to successfully just let things be, that I can't say for sure. But I will say it is this specific behavior that did so much damage to my last relationship, and is what ultimately drove her away.

2. Do I let others control me for fear of their abuse or neglect? I kind of felt like this one was in direct contradiction to the first one, if I did one, how could I do the other. This one is, honestly, the harder of the two for me to admit. I don't like villainizing others, but the thing is, it's not necessarily something they do knowingly. *I'm* letting them control my behaviors with them having any idea that that's what's happening. Instead of talking to them about the behaviors that make me start acting this way, I stop doing the things that make them do this. This may seem a perfectly reasonable response, and in moderation, it is in fact a perfectly reasonable response. I do not necessarily do this in moderation. It'll take a bit of time to really think about this and pick it apart, but I know it's something I do, even when the other person isn't seeking to control me. And it breeds resentment, which cycles back to the 1st question because I don't like resenting people I Care about.

3. Do I adapt or change my behaviors for others? See #2, yes. Doing things that I perceive that will make them happy, make them love me, keep them from leaving me. Again, this is almost purely a 'Romantic Relationship' behavior, my friendships I tend to be outspoken and fearless with my opinions. Though I don't feel very outspoken or fearless right now. And honestly, a lot of that outspoken and fearless may just be bluster. Dunno.

4. Do I validate my value and worth as a person through them? Especially the people I get into romantic relationships with. They loved me, thought I was wonderful and wanted me to be part of their lives. If that changes then I must have changed in some way that is no longer lovable. If I'm not lovable what good am I? And why did they stop loving me? They're so amazing and wonderful it couldn't be them. Then there's another fear, that it isn't me, which means it's just fate, which means I can never rely on any kind of stability in my life. Everyone will leave me eventually, and what does that say about me? Do I not deserve to be loved, to part of someones life till the end?

5. Do I avoid others to feel safe? Yeah, especially after a break-up. But even during the relationship I tend to start withdrawing from my friends to be with my partner. There's nothing inherently wrong with this at first, but I think in the back of my mind is the thought 'If we don't hang out with anyone else, she won't meet anyone else, she won't find out I'm worthless, she won't fall in love with anyone else, she won't leave me'. Which is completely totally unfucking healthy, I know that.

Well, it's a start, and there's definitely some heavy truths in there. They all scare the hell out of me. My understanding is that codependence is a lot like alcoholism, you never really stop being codependent.