I love, love, love this post HP. I remember making that connection in my own life & feeling that AHA so strongly, it felt physical. It was also an unexpected look at how I was totally uncomfortable with myself - like evidence of how much I really didn't know who *I* was any longer.
I had such self-frustration in those first months of early recovery when I would force myself to GO DO SOMETHING for myself, ANYTHING, just to go, just to change habits, just to start a new pattern.... because even all alone, by myself, with no one around to Codie on *I'm* the one that couldn't answer questions like, "What do I want to eat?" "What movie do I want to watch?"
I was so used to deferring to someone else or factoring in their unexpressed needs. The biggest absence though was the inability to react - alone, everything is an ACTION. Deliberate, not a response to those around you. I would sit there, in a parking lot with multiple restaurants & fast food places stretched out across co-joined shopping centers & just..... sit. "I am hungry, I know I NEED to eat.... what do I WANT???!!???"..... previously, I would have laughed at the idea of being struck dumb over something so insignificant!