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Before I rewired my brain, even my house reflected my codependent belief system. I had a closet in my office reserved for gifts I collected throughout the years. Whenever I saw something online or in a store that I thought a person I know might like, I’d get it and throw it in the ole Make People Like Me Gift Closet. Or if someone gave me a gift, I’d put it in the closet to give to someone else down the line. I know that may seem pragmatic or just downright frugal, but I even did this with gifts I actually wanted to keep for myself. I just felt compelled to give everything away—from my energy to my time and even to my gifts. This was also a closet I needed, a closet I could have used for much more useful things like to store bully sticks, since I very recently discovered that they’re dried cow dicks that smell like dried dicks covered in dried balls and should be buried deep in faraway closets. I could have used the unnecessary gift closet for all the miscellaneous crap in my garage that I bump my car on every time I pull in. My point is, if you got a gift from me in my twenties, I want you to know that I did not buy it for you, you don’t deserve it, and please give it back.
I even decorated my home with the comfort of my guests in mind instead of my own. I had chairs that only guests could sit on, while I sat on a wobbly, too-tall barstool at my kitchen counter, which caused me to sit like I was either throwing pottery or puking outside a nightclub. It never occurred to me that I could enjoy sitting on the cozy couch or leaning on the fancy pillows—my cozy couch and my fancy pillows that I had bought on sale at Anthropologie. Nope, those were reserved for guests. I also never used my own dinnerware. I had nice glasses that I never used because I didn’t want to soil them in case someone came by who needed to be dazzled with faux Moroccan tumblers from Pier 1. Meanwhile, for four years I ate off plastic plates and drank out of the same weird Comedy Central mug that I stole from some guy.
My fridge and cabinets were stocked with food, but just not food for me. I had all sorts of fancy Himalayan pink salt, mānuka honey, olive spread with different-colored olives in it, dark chocolate covered in goji berries (or whatever the berry of the moment was). All unopened, all waiting for the day that someone whose approval I needed came over so I could impress them with my cornucopia of overpriced garnish that made me worthy of eternal love.
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Perhaps the most obvious area in my life that codependence has kicked my ass is with romantic relationships. Until very recently, I thought that dating someone meant abandoning your own life and disappearing into the wormhole that is the studio apartment your boyfriend shares with his three roommates. When I started dating someone, I would literally go missing. I’m actually kind of offended that none of my friends put me on a milk carton or at least called the police, because when I was in a relationship I was gone, girl.
At a young age I learned to make a man my first priority. Revolving one’s life around a man is the perfect medicine for someone with low self-esteem. “This guy wants to hang out with me, I can’t be that terrible.” I outsourced my self-worth: If someone else “loved” me, I didn’t have to love myself. My philosophy was, if a man asked you to jump, you asked, “Off which cliff?” And I’d take a cab to the cliff so he could have my car after I die from the fall, since he probably didn’t have his own car or had his license taken away for driving when drunk.
When I was growing up, all the behavior in my home was reactive to the men. We ate what the men wanted to eat. We had heat when the men paid the bills. When they didn’t, we froze our tits off. When men wanted to cheat, the women chose to believe their lies, knowing full well that nobody got hung up at an office job overnight or were in “crazy traffic” at eleven P.M. To make this dynamic even more pernicious, I also had very entertaining men in my family; they primed me to think men were more fun to be around than women. My dad and uncles were hilarious and charismatic, always acting out scenes from the Vacation movies (“Big Ben! Parliament!”) and skits from the old Saturday Night Live shows (“Land Shark!”), whereas the women in my family were tired and mercurial, complaining about how much work they had to do and always asking me to do boring chores. I learned pretty early on that “Guys are a blast! Women are a buzzkill!”
In retrospect, I now know the women in my life were like that because they were essentially the first generation with nine-to-five jobs who were also expected to be full-time homemakers. Of course they weren’t laughing at Chevy Chase impressions—they were exhausted. They worked too hard and slept too little, while getting poisoned every morning by hair spray and being asphyxiated by those hateful control-top panty hose that get swampy and basically shut your intestines down.
When I was old enough to start dating, I applied my codependent chameleon ways to boys. I was so afraid of my real self being rejected that I would shape-shift into whatever I thought would make the relationship work. If we met and had nothing in common? No problem! I’ll fix that by pretending we do! Camping? Sure! Never mind that I hate camping and am allergic to bees, not to mention I can hardly sleep in my own bed, much less in a tent on a fire ant hill. A bar crawl? OMG, that sounds amazing. Even though I don’t like bars, beer gives me migraines, and I hate crawling. (Seriously, my parents said I started walking at like six months because crawling was so boring.) You’re not funny? No problem! I’ll laugh at your terrible jokes anyway! You’re broke? No worries, I’ll max out my credit card so you can buy video games and protein powder! You’re married? Even better! That means you’re not afraid of commitment!