A Breakup Tale In So Many Parts

Part 55

Part 55: 61 days, 23 hours, 36 minutes since you left me...

All hell broke loose with my best friend back home for the holiday, he got batshit alcoholic and I got batshit codependent.

A few weeks prior to this, I detached myself from him, completely out of love. I totally detached. Then I led myself right back to him and allowed myself to be emotionally and verbally victimized and brutalized repeatedly.

Why did I do that?

I did the same thing with you.

With both of you, I knew in my gut to walk the hell away. 

Starting Friday night, I went on Co-Dependent Bandstand. I went a-hoppin', I went a-boppin' away.

I was in a frenzy. I gave away enough energy in the last four days to light up the entire state of Louisiana. I actively participated in and encouraged my own victimization!

Hey, Ma! Look what I can do!

Read my new book: Ten Steps To Destructive Martyrdom.

Was this the "denial" part of the divorce being projected onto some other aspect of my life? Dr. Kubler Ross, is this the first phase?

I was clouded in a shroud of denial, feeling I should stand up for myself, then falling back into a dripping kaleidoscope of blame and shame, guilt and confusion, being hooked on every insult and bit of anger he threw at me; then grabbing desperately onto his occasional words of comfort or love. I tried too hard to make things "happen". I wanted to help him get better, to stop his drinking. I tried to control him and overstepped his boundaries from caring to co dependence, as he overstepped my boundries of everything.

I felt like I hadn't used that word in so long, then I realized I had been that way for so many years with you.

He called me "poisonous... crazy... insane... toxic..." and I am none of those things. He got onto his white horse like a white knight with a bottle of Glenn Levitt and then ran me through the heart with a lance in one joust. I though I was making him feel warm and safe, but I was only opening wounds farther and farther and letting blood that couldn't stop.

I try not to let his words shatter me like a stupid, cheap piece of glass; like razors cutting mindlessly in a circular motion. He told me that he chose those words deliberately. He also chose them wisely. I had told him that being called "insane" tore my heart and soul apart. Yeah, he chose wisely. So, there he stands on the other side of the bridge.

"I know why you hate it here (my hometown)", he said, "You have no friends left because no one wants to put up with your shit". Actually, none of them live there anymore, but I actually believed him for a second. "It's the alcohol talking," I said, as if he were the new Mel Gibson... I made excuses when people told me he was wrong and an asshole and my brother wanted to kill him for making me cry so much and for so long. I kept that cycle of denial and self-blame going on and on and on.

I can fix this. I can help him. He's right. I'll tell him he's right and then I can help him. If I could just bundle him off, swaddle him up and take him with me to New York and detox him for a week---

Wait right there, Co-Dependent Queen, we're taking your crown and putting you in a straight jacket.

Yeah, that's how crazy I got. That is how crazy, obsessive, compulsive, messed up codependent I got in four flipping days. I kept saying, "I shouldn't have gone over there Wednesday", "I shouldn't have let him kiss me", "I shouldn't have gotten in the car Friday night", "I should have stuck to my guns about him not drinking around me"... and my family and friends just kept repeating as I cried and cried, "It's not your fault, it's not your fault, it's not your fault".

Looking back, there's one example of how tricky he was, how I should have seen right through it all, how it really wasn't about me, after all: we were in the driveway of my Mother's house, Saturday morning. He had told me, the night before, that Wednesday was a mistake, etc., and he was being such an asshole about it all. He was telling me that he couldn't give me intimacy and sex because I was his best friend. He was telling me that it was different with another girl that he was friends with and gave those things to because he didn't tell her the same things he told me. He said I was his BEST FRIEND. He kept saying that: "BEST FRIEND". He was telling me that it would ruin the friendship for him, but he couldn't tell me why. So here he was setting up all of these boundaries and parameters about our relationship and I said something about Wednesday night and the kissing and tenderness and he says, "You really are a good kisser". 

What? What the HELL? Puh-scuse me? Where's the line buddy? What were we just talking about? Inappropriate! I call FOUL!

"You really are a good kisser"?!!? In the midst of it all? My God.

I am now gathering warm comfort from my family and friends and myself. I didn't think I would have to let go of someone else so flipping soon.

I am going to put as much into letting him go as I did into trying to get control of him. Letting things happen is what's going to happen anyway, yes?

Yes.

I wish him love. I wish him wellness. I wish him peace. I pray for him. That is all I can do.

I give him his life back. I take mine back. I set him free. I become free.

I will detach and let go.

I will detach and let go.

I will detach and let go.

I surrender.