A label
I finally have a word to define what my problems with relationships always is: Codependence.
Of course, everything goes back to your relationship with your parents. They are our role models for relationships. They can teach us what not to do, or what to do; for better or for worse they are the first example and most profound impression we have of how relationships work.
parent-child relationships are complicated at best. add to that the layer of immigrant parents, and then the layer of their own mental health issues..you end up with a hell of an onion.
My parents are lovely people. Kind. Sweet. Will do anything for anybody. My mother's tehilim list is 10 pages long. she cries for strangers the same way she cries for her own children. However, healthy relationships- not their forte. They very much rely on their children for their happiness. Everything we did or did not do is a reflection of if we love them. emotional blackmail is how one friend referred to it. let me do things for you, so you will see that i love you and you will therefore love me back. let me take care of you. even now as a woman in my 30s they are constantly trying to take care of me.
i realize that i do this as well. i worry about being alone and being left alone. i have developed a pattern. i somehow attract or find people that need to be rescued. and i rescue them. i adopt them. i literally take them into my home, sometimes for months a time, feed them, shop them help run their errands, airport pickups and drop-offs. homework , projects, moving - you need it L'm there. and i do this all with such "selflessness" or at least that is what i tell myself. but eventually, the one-sidedness gets to me and i start to get resentful. and then it just keeps perpetuating until it turns ugly - the other person leaves and then i am heartbroken and destroyed.
anyways, the cycle can be a painful one. so my work over Shavuot was to read a book called Codependent No More: how to stop controlling others and start caring for yourself by Melody Beattie. The book was originally written in 1986, before i was born.
at the end of each chapter there are exercises listed; that i was not able to do because of it was YT.
this is going to be my homework for now, to get out of the cycle. to live for me. not for others. not because of others. to live for me because i am worthy of living for. my thoughts dreams and aspirations ( when i figure out what they are) are enough of a reason to live. one line i read in the book was this girl who said that though she is suicidal she would never kill herself because of how it would affect others. that hit me because that is something that i say and think all the time. i dont -not - kill myself because my life is beautiful, but because i don't want others to be in inconvenienced. how F-ed up is that?
Of course, everything goes back to your relationship with your parents. They are our role models for relationships. They can teach us what not to do, or what to do; for better or for worse they are the first example and most profound impression we have of how relationships work.
parent-child relationships are complicated at best. add to that the layer of immigrant parents, and then the layer of their own mental health issues..you end up with a hell of an onion.
My parents are lovely people. Kind. Sweet. Will do anything for anybody. My mother's tehilim list is 10 pages long. she cries for strangers the same way she cries for her own children. However, healthy relationships- not their forte. They very much rely on their children for their happiness. Everything we did or did not do is a reflection of if we love them. emotional blackmail is how one friend referred to it. let me do things for you, so you will see that i love you and you will therefore love me back. let me take care of you. even now as a woman in my 30s they are constantly trying to take care of me.
i realize that i do this as well. i worry about being alone and being left alone. i have developed a pattern. i somehow attract or find people that need to be rescued. and i rescue them. i adopt them. i literally take them into my home, sometimes for months a time, feed them, shop them help run their errands, airport pickups and drop-offs. homework , projects, moving - you need it L'm there. and i do this all with such "selflessness" or at least that is what i tell myself. but eventually, the one-sidedness gets to me and i start to get resentful. and then it just keeps perpetuating until it turns ugly - the other person leaves and then i am heartbroken and destroyed.
anyways, the cycle can be a painful one. so my work over Shavuot was to read a book called Codependent No More: how to stop controlling others and start caring for yourself by Melody Beattie. The book was originally written in 1986, before i was born.
at the end of each chapter there are exercises listed; that i was not able to do because of it was YT.
this is going to be my homework for now, to get out of the cycle. to live for me. not for others. not because of others. to live for me because i am worthy of living for. my thoughts dreams and aspirations ( when i figure out what they are) are enough of a reason to live. one line i read in the book was this girl who said that though she is suicidal she would never kill herself because of how it would affect others. that hit me because that is something that i say and think all the time. i dont -not - kill myself because my life is beautiful, but because i don't want others to be in inconvenienced. how F-ed up is that?
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you know what to do....