KittenBoo

After reading many many posts here by various people there seemed to be a running theme that resonated with me when one day recently I had a lightbulb turn on in my brain and went..."I don't know me anymore".

Why?

I had been acting in ways that I had not acted since I was about 18 years old, so 20 years ago when I did not know any better and was ignorant to the world, to relationships, etc. 20 years went by and I learned a hell of a lot, but somehow I landed in a relationship that would blow me out of the water and test everything I thought I knew.

I thought I would never ever be involved with someone like my AXBF, but I was. I allowed it. I lost my mind. I allowed myself to fall- heart, mind, body and soul and then I hit hard. Thankfully that phrase entered my mind "I don't know me anymore." It has woken me up and shaken me to the core. I want to piece it back together, but mostly move to something new, not necessarily focusing on any 'old self' images, or at least not the parts that have no usefulness at this point of the journey.

I guess I could also title this thread my "W-T-F Moment".

Anyone else want to share a wtf moment or just a point where they realized they had gone so far astray from their rational, life-learned, emotionally intelligent, aware, mature selves that they questioned what happened?

Lara

Yes, October 2010 when I allowed H to pick me up in his Range Rover - he was wired out of his mind on cocaine (and probably drunk) - he drove me at speeds which make me feel physically ill when I think about it... drinking openly in the car.... I stayed in the rangerover believing that if I was with him - he would slow down- come to his senses - My gorgeous little boy at the time was 4 years old (he was waiting for me at home)....
That was truly a 'WTF???' moment! And the height of my co-dependency.

Lily1918

oh ya. been there. When my BF was still using I caught myself checking his pulse when he was asleep. I thought that was my wtf moment, but no. It wasn't until he was detoxing here right before rehab. It was terrible. He was screaming and crying to God. I sat on the living room floor and listened to him barber and pray from the bedroom for hours and hours. He didn't sleep for 3 days. On the 4th day I woke up to silence and was like "Oh God... what just happened!? how did I let this go on inky house for so long?"

anond

My WTF moment didn't even come from the A, who I expected to be bat-crap crazy because of his drug addiction. It came from his equally bat-crap crazy family and the depths THEY could stoop to, to try to stop me from leaving this relationship for good. He is THEIR problem now and they frankly don't like it one bit and are out for revenge. All I know is that I want as far away from them all as I can be. Life is too short for this nonsense!!!

mely86

hello,

I need to share my experiences too. It's been sometime now since he left me but what my axbf did to me still haunt me, especially during the nights. I completely lost my self. I got the excuse he was my 1st one, so I can say I did not know many things about relationships in general... However he blew my mind very well and I can't seem to recover. I think I need a kind of therapy cos i'm such a fragile person I cant forget those moments. Maybe it was only unexperience, maybe it has nothing to do with his addiction... I don't know... He once pushed me out of bed while we were sleeping together. It was so hurting...He would complain about me moving a lot but f... it was not true! Anything would disturb him but I cannot understand... I'm such a quite person... If I said "I'm hot" during the summers...he would shout that I was in menopause!!!!!!!!!! and he seemed sooooo annoyed and I did nothing... I remind once we went to visit a sanctuary... i am religious and he took me there out of the blue, without me asking him. I was very surprised he wanted to go there since he does not believe but once we got there he started to have oral sex with me at the parking lot. HE!!!! WHO has no sexual drive cos of what cocaine did to his body....HE wanted to have sex with me at the parking lot of a church!!!!!! I don't know if he did it on purpose to see how stupid I was getting with my codependance----he is such a tricky person... He played me a lot...I wish that what they say..."what comes around goes around" is true cos I did not deserve any of this....

broken101

My came just a few weeks ago when I stupidly took 10 sleeping pills. I felt so hurt by my ex's actions how dare he left me home sleeping in our bed to go make out with some random chick he meet on craigslist. How stupid was I to do that never in my life again will I feel anyone's actions or words are worth my life. I have since opened my eyes wide open.

EnglishGarden

I've read many old fairytales and myths and I identify with the characters in them who are under a spell, an enchantment, who "follow willingly as if in a trance." The characters who do this following are always described as innocent, inexperienced, without guile.

A counselor told me once that the reason I could not believe the addict in my life was seducing me with lies and deadly illusions is because it is not in my own nature to treat others that way, therefore his behavior was "unimaginable" to me. When we have no experience of something, it is not within our ability even to imagine it.

So like the characters in fairytales who find themselves at the mercy of someone who has the power to enchant and to imprison them, we too become very easily manipulated by someone who is driven by a base instinct to control and to use other people.

My worst codependent behaviors took place many years ago in an alcoholic marriage. My husband was by day a very charming university professor and by night, with half a bottle of bourbon in him, the most dangerous man in my life. I experienced in my marriage with him the most intense out-of-control emotions I have ever felt. And especially rage. Rage I did not know was in me because I was always so quiet, such a good girl.

I violently shoved him from behind one night when he was yet again drunk out of his mind and I was beyond desperate to get him to listen to me. I am very lucky he did not kill me, for he was a martial arts practitioner. (It is so ironic that he had been working with a master of Kung Fu for years...this man of emotional and psychological violence practicing such a refined and disciplined art which at its core taught its students never to be violent against another person except in self-defense). He did threaten to break me in two if I ever touched him again. But I left him before he had the opportunity.

My heart goes out to anyone who becomes someone else in relationship with an addict. I have enough life experience now to have compassion for anyone who fails to live her highest principles in such a relationship. It is very humbling, when we who have lived many years perhaps thinking we would never demean ourselves for a lover realize that indeed we are as vulnerable to losing our own "original self" and becoming our "second and worse self"--as Dr, Jekyll is described in the story-- when under the spell of addiction. Even though we never for one moment drank, shot, snorted, or smoked any drug whatsoever.

Ann

My moment of enlightenment came shortly after I found myself outside a crack house in a town an hour away from where I lived...threatening to kick down their door if my son did not come out.

That was stupid and dangerous and most certainly I had become a person I never dreamed I would become. I am quiet, polite, and sensible, not the kind of person who finds herself at crack houses in strange towns in the middle of the night, threatening to kick down doors.

On my drive home, I pulled off the highway in tears and told God that I could not go through one more day like that. It was there and then that I relinquished the care of my son to God and I have never looked back. I pray for my son each morning and leave the rest of the day between him and God.

I live well today. I got reacquainted with that stranger called "me" and grew to like her again, and today I find joy in every day and beauty in each sunrise.

Hugs