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My recovery continues but my aloneness is devastating.
I ended 3 friendships with people I had met in support groups, all about 3 months ago. They were all pretty one-sided relationships. Gradually I became aware that the people didn’t like much about me, just what I was doing for them. And I started wondering “why do I care about these people so much? Sure they are beloved children of God but there are lots and lots of other children of God, too? Why do I think that I should be taking care of these particular people?” So I stopped feeling so obligated and compliant all the time. And when they asked me to do things for them that “pinched” I didn’t comply. In one case I was somewhat angry and said “This isn’t working for me. You don’t respect my time.” In another I asked the person “What are you going to do with your life?”
Maybe I wasn’t tactful enough? Any suggestions, anybody? But all of these people have had mental health issues, like me. So might they not have some understanding about where I was coming from? But they didn’t. Or maybe what they heard was – “I don’t want to be doing stuff one-sidedly for you anymore”. Maybe that felt shaming, embarrassing, or threatening to them. Maybe they hadn’t realized how one-sided it was, because everything was OK on their end. And I had not been putting limits on things earlier. That is my fault, but I hadn’t known it was a problem, until it WAS a problem. I had changed. I had done stuff for them, and had been glad to do it, until I wasn’t anymore.
I know now how to tell if something is getting codependent before the dynamic gets set up again, so I can back off and keep things casual if need be. I feel guilty, like I “should” have known better. I'm going to CoDA now. But until I knew, I didn’t know. Other people got hurt because I didn’t, and I feel bad about that. I wish I could learn stuff without me or other people getting hurt, but maybe that’s part of how we learn stuff? Sure wish there was a better way, though.
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