Tuesday: Today I’m grateful for feeling…

Sad and confused about the way forward. It’s slowly becoming more obvious (and hard to look at) that Cubu is an enabler for me. He lets me stomp on his boundaries “for the larger cause” and had learned to not assert his own needs. I’m not supposed to control him, so I can’t change any of that. I can change whether or not I continue to disrespect the boundaries I knew he used to want. I don’t know if I’m there yet, if I’m strong enough. I know I got us into this mess but I wish it wasn’t all on me to get us out. I could probably just talk to him about this. 

Angry, sad, upset that Cubu and I are enmeshed, and a large portion of my inner children DO NOT want that to change. Firstly, it gives them a sense of purpose to be tied to someone else in every way. Secondly (and the likely cause of the first point), they don’t know who they are on their own and are scared of finding out. I must be at some precipice of change because everything feels so uncomfortable now, I can’t stand for things to stay as they are. I just can’t see the way forward that doesn’t make me want to die. Am I pushing too hard? Feeling very lost. 

Sad to realize I’m scared of physical loneliness now. I used to not fear it because that was just the state I lived in, I didn’t know any other way. Now the thought of sleeping without Cubu next to me is revolting. My reaction probably shouldn’t be that strong, right? It should just feel neutral, or even good to not wake up at someone else’s movements. I now have something to lose, which is a treasure, but it brings about a new problem of dealing with that level of codependency as well. 

Ashamed. I talked to Cubu last night about that Camino plan: I walk the first three weeks, he joins me in the last week. How would he feel? He said he’d feel fine and I was crushed. I realized on the spot that I WANTED him to say he’d be devastated without me, that he wouldn’t be fine, that I’m important and integral to how his life works and he wouldn’t know how to fill his time without me. How fucked is that? I know it’s just my fear of abandonment cropping up again: what if he has 3 weeks to himself and realizes that life is better without me? That I’m more hassle than I’m worth. Then I think: what’s the point of having me around if you’d be fine without me? It just gets more fucked. And then: Is that how I feel about him? I realized the answer is yes, I have no idea how to fill that much time without him and would have a really hard time with it.

Generally down on myself and having a hard time accessing my self-compassion. The road ahead seems so long and obscured and so difficult it feels impossible. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember. It’s so hard to imagine being any other way. I’m so tired of working on core traumas, I’m feeling petulant and want to throw something in frustration. Why can’t this be fucking easier? Why does it have to be so goddamn painful???Why can’t I just BE BETTER?!?!? NOW!

Revelatory? I’m not sure if I’ve realized this before or not, I think I realized a different angle before but not this new one. I straight up resent people who can play games for the fun of it, play without any purpose whatsoever. I’m jealous that they can be so carefree. In therapy we discovered all the issues I have tied in with being unproductive, all the ways it hits some past hurt. During my dark era, all I did was purposeless leisure and it was the most disconnected time of my life. When I started really putting work into therapy, I realized how much progress I can make by being productive all the time. I’ve been addicted almost to the feeling of working on myself to the point where anything that isn’t furthering my goal of growing, I’m not interested. Now leisure equates to depression and a lack of growth in my mind, an inescapable staleness where I’m completely alone. Okay. So I’ve dug deep. Now what to do? My homework for the week is to play this completely purposeless video game that I’ve been ogling but can’t seem to start (because it’s purposelessness) lol. Wish me luck.

Feelin’ good…

• Released, grateful to have set a boundary, but sad to see an ending. I finally messaged my heroes group that I won’t be going for the rest of the summer at least. It’s not even a group anymore really, and the past two months I’ve been making an excuse each week to not go. So I’m glad to have finally just made an ending for myself. I worry about that one fellow hero but now recognize that to be codependent too. She’s an adult with resources, I can’t lead her to water and supporting her didn’t seem to make the difference she needed. Staying in the group purely to make sure she doesn’t die is not a job I want to take on, or am responsible for. 
• Connected after a phone call with my foster mom figure from Wisconsin that I just went to visit. She’s known I’m “doing trauma work” but I finally braved up and told her about SIA and CODA and stopping glasswork in favor of self-work. She was so proud of me and took it wonderfully, I wish I had just told her earlier. It was very affirming. I wished it was how my mom reacted, so that made me a bit sad. Besides that, we had a good convo and caught up, I just love talking to her. I’m so grateful to have met her and been folded into her family. 
• Prepared and enabled in the event of a zoom bomber in one of my meetings. My CODA meeting was bombed with porn today, which was awful for me and a number of others. I was down for the count, laid down and stayed there until I felt safe again, then got back up and relogged into the meeting. The admins had cleared it up and the meeting went well after that. I stayed for fellowship after to learn how to kick people out and suspend the meeting in the event of a bombing. I’m proud of the self soothing I did, proud that I showed back up and participated, even if I had to clutch my bear and was wrapped in blankets. I’m so grateful to know how to prevent this in an SIA meeting and to have found such a good CODA group. This kind of sexual violation would really hurt the survivors in SIA.