For hours now I’ve been putting off writing.

I keep making excuses as to why I don’t need to tonight, but I know if I don’t, I’ll let the rollercoaster of this week slip by. I’ll try to block it out and pretend it didn’t happen.

To put it brief, I’ve been fucking up recently.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’ve lost confidence in myself, but I realized just how much of my worth I placed in other people this week. From my friendships to relationships, I see now how my codependent habits have continued to follow me despite my recognition of them.

I don’t know how vulnerable this post is going to get, but I need to be honest. I’m tired of sugar coating how I feel especially on a platform of my own creation.

When I realized I was codependent earlier this year, I was shocked. I always associated this label with those who needed someone else to be happy and couldn’t be separated from them for long. Now, I know it isn’t so much a need for that person, but the feeling that comes from what you do for that person.

Over the past couple of months, I put myself in an on-and-off situation where I was trying to be there for someone. I did whatever I could to keep them happy while simultaneously neglecting a lot of my own self-care. My finances felt tight, I didn’t sleep enough, I was hardly sober, and overall, all of this occurred with me not getting much in return. It wasn’t until last weekend that I truly saw what I had been succumbing myself to.

Not to mention that I let a lot of my other relationships suffer because of my attachment to this person. I thought I could save them when in reality, you can’t be a shoulder for someone when you need a shoulder for yourself. I was in no position to be putting myself through that kind of stress when contrary to popular belief, us codependents don’t act out of the goodness of our hearts. We do all of these things for other people because we want to be liked. We want to feel loved. We want something in return for our efforts.

 

When we get nothing in return, we blame the other party for not appreciating us when truth is, they never asked us for anything in the first place.

 

I take responsibility in that regard. However, I’ve been placing a lot of blame on myself for being involved in this far past its expiration date.

I’ve told myself how dumb I’ve been, how naive.

How I should have listened to those who warned me from the beginning.

Thing is, I wasn’t ready to give up until now. I still had it in my heart that I could handle everything myself and that I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t hurting myself that bad, I said. I know this person,  I know they have my best interests at heart, I said.

It took a lot for me to realize they didn’t because I want to see everyone’s perspective in a situation.  I continued to let myself be blinded by this person because at least with rose-colored glasses on, someone was there. I thought that maybe, just maybe, things weren’t as bad as they seemed.

I told myself I was okay with spending money. I was okay with running errands. I was okay with sacrificing my own hobbies and other relationships because this person needed me.

If they were to read this, they would tell me this is a distorted view, but I can’t change what happened for me. This is my point of view.

I wanted to believe they cared and still do, but in my heart, I know I had way too much invested in a ticking time bomb. It was only a matter of time before this all blew up in my face.

I’ve spent a lot of this week doing damage control.

I’m trying to fix a lot of what I broke during this codependent spiral.

It’s been through damage control that I’ve learned how much I’ve invested myself in other people’s opinions of me. I’ve apologized far more than I needed to and I’ve found myself walking on eggshells all week. I’m scared to make anyone mad or have them disown me because for the first time, I feel like I’ve actually had people there for me and I’m scared to screw it up.

By shutting myself down and trying to please everyone to make things right, I feel less like myself than ever. It’s as if all of my redeeming qualities are nowhere to be found and I’m reading in to every little changed tone as someone being angry with me.

After a week of this, I’ve come to a conclusion.

 

I need to chill the fuck out.

 

If we live in a world where people are nothing but mirrors to us, others being upset with me is only me being upset with myself. I’m creating all of this by judging my actions as anger-worthy.

Not to mention, I’ve been a little emotional this week and every time that has come up, I get a vibe that others are sick of it. Which internally ends with me shaming myself for being ‘too much.’

If I’ve preached anything the most this year, it’s this – you’re allowed to feel exactly how you feel.

We live in a society that says bottle up your emotions and toughen up, so as a girl who wears her heart on her sleeve, I feel like an anomaly a lot of the time.

Every time I cry in a public setting or find myself moping over the same issue a million times, I get a little frustrated. I know as a human being that feeling out my emotions is the only way through them but in this world, you’re supposed to save that shit for the door.

It’s not that I want to be dramatic or cause a scene, truthfully, I want the furthest thing from it. I can’t control the responses my body has. If something upsets me, there’s a reason for it. If I get mad, there’s a reason. Even if I’m feeling good, there’s a reason. Our bodies react in accordance to how what occurs in our lives makes us feel. Our emotional responses are nothing more than our reactions to the triggers life throws at us.

I used to be really good at hiding how I felt. I actually prided myself on it in the same way a lot of people do today.

For most of my teen years, no one ever really knew how messed up I was. As I said earlier, I saved it for the door. Unsurprisingly, this was also the darkest my depression had ever been. I didn’t feel I could confide in anyone because I didn’t think my emotions really mattered. I thought I was insane half the time.

So now, when others witness my true emotions often, I feel very defensive about it.

When people tell me to check myself and be professional, I get angry. That’s all I ever used to do and it led to some of the loneliest times of my life. I won’t go back there no matter how many times I’m told to be less emotional.

Well truth is, others have kindly told me to work on it. I would say I’m the hardest on myself about it. I’m not so much getting defensive towards other people for my emotions, but the part of me that says I’m acting irrational. The part that tells me to just ‘be normal’ and put on a front like the rest of them.

I tell myself I could and everything would be fine, but I know deep down I’d feel nothing but repressed. I feel how I feel for a reason and I’m allowed to express that.

I’ve had a week where nothing I did felt right. I was saying the ‘wrong’ things, coping with cutting someone out, and wondering if I’m not in the right place anymore. My mind kept going to places where I should just leave and restart again, but I know running away will never solve my issues. I’ll continue to attract the same problem until I actually overcome it.

I learned how deep my confidence issues actually run.

I’ve spent a lot of my life being the person everyone could get along with so when I felt actual animosity from people this week, it threw me for a loop. I felt incredibly insecure and the fact it hit me that deep shows me I have a lot to work through here.

 

I’m never going to be okay with who I am if all I am is who others want me to be.

 

It’s okay to have fights here and there with people because it means you fought for something you believed in, you didn’t just conform. All I’ve done is conform for so long that stating how I actually feel is terrifying. It doesn’t feel safe.

However, it feels more painful to conform than to be honest now. That’s how I know progress is being made within me. When you begin to resist old patterns, you know a change is on the horizon.

I still don’t really know how to feel right now.

While I feel better than I did a week ago, I have yet to find an equilibrium again.

It feels strange to not be helping someone I know needs it.

It’s odd to feel like I’ve become a burden or annoyance to some people.

I’ve never done well with conflict, especially conflict that’s my own doing, but maybe that’s the lesson in all of this.

I’ve felt a little less uncomfortable everyday so my hope is that over time, I can build a love for myself again. A love that isn’t dependent on what I can do for someone or how others perceive me, but a love that I wholeheartedly know I deserve.

I’ve never been one to stir the pot of life on my own, but maybe it is my turn to rile things up a bit. I have opinions. I have emotions. I have a lot inside of this ol’ body of mine. It’s time I stopped standing by idly for other people and let the truth of who I am be heard in spite of those who don’t want to hear it.

In the grand scheme of things, I know all is well.

 

Nothing is as a big of a deal as we make it, but that doesn’t mean the emotions that come with it are any less real.

 

It’s been a hard week but yet again, my resilience surprises me. I make it through the darkest of nights every single time. The nights that I never know how I can come back from always pass and the debris only sticks around momentarily.

I have no clue where this year will continue to take me. It has been nothing I expected thus far, so I can only expect more of the unknown.

I’ve forgotten how much power I truly have over my life and it wasn’t until tonight that it all started to come back to me.

I’m allowed to feel how I feel. I can cut out or talk to anyone I wish to speak to. I don’t have to have the same ideals as anyone else. I don’t have to exist to make others comfortable.

My only requirement is to follow what feels right to me and truth be told, I am the only one who can know that for sure.

So, here’s to coming back to me.

The road has been rocky. I’ve detoured quite a few times.

But in the end, I never had set route.

Only a will to do better and for tonight, that’s all I really need.