Originally Posted by
searching peace 
Wow Noinsanity! That is an amazing and uplifting, inspirational update!! I am so happy for you!!! Will you please share your success and how you have arrived at such healthy thinking and outlook with the others of us on here that are still struggling and still stuck in our unhealthy thinking and actions. I know reading about how you have healed and the steps you took to become healthy again, will be inspirational and helpful to many of us. I think a lot of us get overwhelmed in the thinking that we are just as sick as our A with codependency, enabling etc. and the road to our own recovery seems daunting. But you seem to be proof that some of us are not as sick as some indications would have us believe. Some of us are as sick as we are led to believe and some of us even more sick. But your story is proof that for some healing is not as much of an undertaking as thought to be.
Again, so very thrilled for you in your success and future!
I don't want to pretend that I've got it perfect or that I'm no longer a codependent. I think the first step to healing from this is just recognizing that I will always be a codependent, and that's something that I will never be able to change. I will always have that tendency (accept the things I cannot change).
The only way to recover from codependency is to treat it like an addiction to anything else. To keep my head out of the sick thinking and that desire to go back to her in spite of all that happened, I've set up blocks to prevent myself from doing that (the courage to change the things I can). I blocked her and all her family from my phone, from Facebook, Skype, etc. I don't allow myself to have idle time. When the thinking starts, I think about something else. If it gets overwhelming, I talk to someone about it, usually my parents, my sponsor, here, or in a group. Sometimes I just have to leave my room and go to the gym or to see my parents. I lost about 20 lbs really quickly after leaving her, and most of it was water weight from stress, I think. Staying with her would have killed me.
I've also been seeing a professional counselor once a week, and she's helping me understand how domestic abuse works and how to recognize abusive personalities early on before this stuff happens. (The wisdom to know the difference.) She's helping me see how the things she did or said to me were not normal and how it all played into her little game of control over my mind and my life, even though she had no idea she was doing it. It's been a lot of hard work, but what keeps me going is just knowing that I can't afford to make this mistake again. I got out early and with little permanent consequences, but next time who knows what price I will have to pay. It could be my life.
There are still things that trigger me. I'll see something that reminds me of her, or drive by a place we used to go to, or sometimes a thought about her will return to my head. I still have that feeling of overwhelming sadness and anger at what she did. I still cry about it when I talk it out at meetings or with someone else. I know that I can't blame her for acting the way that she did and not even knowing she was hurting me. It's all she knew.
She loved me the best that she could, and she was fully convinced, even after we broke up, that she loved me more than anything (her letter stated that pretty clearly). However, just because she says she loves me, and just because she believes it 100%, does not mean that she actually loves me. The things that she did are not something that you do to someone you love. Love for her was more about how I could let her live a double life in secret from her family, protect her from the consequences of her addictions, do whatever it was that she wanted, make her feel good about herself, give her the affection and attention that her dad never gave her, and give her a sexual release. Love for her meant that she could say she finally had the good guy who would value her, be there for her, be faithful to her, and comfort her while she could engage in her addiction, treat me like an object, leave me to fend for myself with finances and emotional trauma, cheat on me with other people, and tell me how I should feel about what she did while she was drunk. It was a very selfish, narcissistic, and exploitative form of love. I don't think she ever truly loved me. She just needed me.
Just because it's not her fault she's sick, though, doesn't mean I have to let her destroy me. The little dog you love can catch rabies. It's not its fault for getting sick, but you have to lock it away or kill it, otherwise it will pass the death sentence to you.
I'd have to say, though, that the biggest help has been turning my addiction to her over to God. I made her my idol for two years, and I started to become like her as she dragged me into that lifestyle. I ask for help every day, and I think the only reason I've been able to heal from this at all is that God has given me the strength to do it. I've been attending Celebrate Recovery, too, which is a Christ-centered 12 step program. It's helped a lot to meet people who have gone through what I did, even if it was another addiction.
In summary, I think these are what have helped me the most:
- I admitted that I was powerless over my addiction to her, and that my life with her was completely out of control.
- I believed that God could give me the strength to return my mind to healthy thinking patterns.
- I decided to turn my life and my will over to God's care.
- I'm currently working on an extensive moral inventory of my life, including events that happened before I met her, to find the root of this addiction to her and how my other addictions led to an addiction to her.
- I've set up a support structure with a sponsor that I meet with weekly, and Celebrate Recovery meetings twice a week, so I can tell others where I've been slipping up. I tell God about my slip ups with her, too.
- I asked God to remove these things that are wrong with me that cause me to think about her in an unhealthy way.
- I asked God to take away my weaknesses that caused me to cave to her demands instead of having the strength to stand up for myself.
- I've started to list people that I harmed by giving her control of my life and also the people that I harmed with my other addictions.
- I have plans to make amends to people, but only if it won't hurt them or someone else. In that case, I'll write a letter that I won't send.
- I'm continuing to examine how I behave every day, sharing my thoughts about things with others, and admitting when I am wrong.
- I've been reading my Bible and praying every day, so that God can give me the strength to continue to live a better life without her or someone else like her.
- I post on these forums in the hopes that my story will encourage someone else, and I also help others by sharing my story with them at Celebrate Recovery or when an opportunity presents itself. I let others know that they are not alone, and that there is hope for a better life. I try to lead by example rather than by words.
I hope that this post helps someone out there who's hurting from someone that abused them the way I was abused.