Seventeen month checkup, Part 2

I figured I'd finish commenting on the first list of codependent traits as a continuation of my last post.

• abandon their routine to respond to or do something for somebody else

Loving
myself!

I think I've gotten better about this one.  This is a bad habit I got into with Hot Pants.  He'd have an emergency (often one that he created for himself) and I'd drop everything -- even leaving work -- to take care of whatever he needed at that moment.  Since then, I've taken a much harder stance that anyone's self-generated emergency is not my problem.  I've also made it clear that any emergency that can wait will wait.  After all, they aren't really emergencies if they can wait.  And a lot more things can wait than some people realize.

• feel harried and pressured
• blame others for the spot the codependents are in

Again, I've come to realize that most things are not as pressing as out of control people like to pretend they are.  As such, I give myself permission to take my time in dealing with situations, if I decide to deal with them at all.

As for blaming others, I don't do that much.  If someone is out of control, I'm much more likely to "cut bait" these days.  I figure it's not my problem to begin with, and I'm not the one in a spot.

• feel angry, victimized, unappreciated, and used

This still happens on occasion, mainly because I'm still too kindhearted for my own good.  After all, overcoming this sort of thing is a work in progress.  But there's been a lot of progress made.  I'd say that these days, this is a monthly occurrence when I stop and point out to myself that I'm taking on a bit too much.  Back in 2010, it was a more-than-daily occurence.

• blame themselves for everything
• get depressed from a lack of compliments and praise

The first one is practically a non-issue.  Now I only take responsibility for my own choices.  Also, I've accepted than I can't control everything, so I have no reason to blame myself for other people's choices, which was the real problem.

I still occasionally struggle with feeling underappreciated, though.

• feel different from the rest of the world

I still struggle with this, though it's getting better.  I actually feel like part of the crowd at Home Bar, which is a good sign of progress.

• fear rejection

I don't struggle with this as much.  I've accepted that some people aren't just going to get along with me.  I'm also coming to realize that those who won't get along with me are usually the kind of people I'm better off without.  The process of separation is still a bit painful, though.  And I fear facing that pain at times.

I don't take it quite as personally though.

• take things personally

Guess I just answered that one.

• feel like victims

Not so much.  I sometimes (and rightfully, I think) feel like I've been wronged.  But I don't feel like a victim.  When I'm wronged, it's a matter of someone behaving badly (and possibly a sign that I've trusted the wrong person), but I don't see myself as constantly being taken advantage of anymore.

• be afraid of making mistakes
• expect themselves to do everything right

I'm still a bit of a perfectionist and I have very high standards for myself.  But at the same time, I feel I'm much more forgiving of myself when I make a mistake.  I don't spend nearly as much time kicking myself or wondering what I could have done differently "if I had been paying better attention."  (See?  It's that whole control thing again.)

• feel a lot of guilt
• try to help other people live their lives instead

I'm pretty much over feeling guilty and avoiding my own problems by fixing other people's lives.  Thank Athena.

• wish other people would like and love them

I still struggle with this a bit, though I'm much more aware of the people who do care deeply about me and love me.

• settle for being needed

I am so over this one.  It's one of the reasons I still struggle with the previous item.  I spent so much time defining my value to others by what I could do for them that I often feel like that's the only reason I was ever valued.  I now want to be valued for my sense of humor, my insight, my interests, and the fact that I'm adorable.

• worry about the silliest things
• think and talk a lot about other people
• lose sleep over problems or other people's behavior
• worry
• check on people
• try to catch people in acts of misbehavior
• feel unable to quit talking, thinking, and worrying about other people or problems

These are all things of the past.  (Though I do think I've talked a bit about my frustrations with Sweet Cynic a bit too much lately.)

• abandon their routine because they are so upset about somebody or something
• focus all their energy on other people and problems
• wonder why they never have any energy
• wonder why they can't get things done

Again, these are no longer problems.

The rest of this first list has to do with trying to control others.  I think I've already covered that topic.

I'll move on to the second list in a future post.

Healthy Attention Whoring?

I've been feeling like something of an attention whore lately.  I just feel like drawing as much attention to myself as possible.  I suppose part of that is an overcompensation from when I didn't talk about myself because I wasn't sure anyone found me interesting.  So now, my attitude is, okay if since I'm so interesting, why aren't you hanging on my every word?  Pay attention to me already!

I suppose is the long run, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as I temper it with my usual charming and personable self, the side of me that takes a sincere interest in and deeply cares about other people, their lives, and their stories.  It's just a matter of a balancing act, I suppose.

Yeah, this is me right now.

That's one of the things that I admire about Management right now.  I've been spending a lot of time at Home Bar talking to him, and he seems to strike that balance.  He's extremely confident and will talk up his own abilities.  On another person, some of the things would come off as completely narcissistic.  And I suppose at times, he does come off a touch like that, himself.  But then, he balances it out by talking about the abilities and accomplishments of others with that same level of enthusiasm.  So while he comes off as thinking he's this great person -- and that's an opinion that I'd be hard pressed to argue with -- he tends to think of others as equally great.  He's not like Hot Pants, who tends to view everyone around him as lesser beings meant merely to reflect and bask in his awesomeness.

Plus, unlike both Hot Pants and Rumor Queen, Management has this incredible knack for expressing concern for other people.  Every time I stop in, if he can make the time (after all, he's running a business, which must come first), he sits down, asks me how I'm doing, and listens like he actually cares about the answer.

In the end, I want to find that same kind of balance.  I want to draw attention to myself -- preferably in healthy and natural-seeming ways rather than obnoxiously and awkwardly -- and build myself up so that people want to get to know me better while still managing to show reciprocal interest in those who are drawn to me and lift them up as well.  I just have to keep practicing.

And if I need to practice the self-promotion and attention-seeking more because I have the other part much more polished, that's perfectly understandable.  Right?

Memories of a Former Friend

So the past couple nights, I've been having weird dreams about someone who used to be in my life, Hot Pants.[1]  I don't remember much about the dreams (I'm not sure that there was actually more than one), just that they featured Hot Pants in some way or another.  This has had the side effect, however, of causing me to think aboout him.  Thinking about Hot Pants is never a fun or desirable experience.

I haven't heard from him since back in March when I posted an ad on Craigslist[2] and he unwittingly responded to it.  Yep, at the time he had been in a relationship with another guy for three months at that point, had even been talking about what a great time he was having with this guy, and I caught him trying to cheat.  Not that this is a shocker, mind you.  Hot Pants cheats on guys he claims he "loves" almost as frequently as he lies.[3]

Before that, I hadn't talked to him since November, where I flat out told him that the only way I'd even consider giving him another chance as a friend was if he made a public confession of all his lies and games.  Of course, this was unacceptable to Hot Pants, as keeping people unaware of his web of deceit is central to his goal of using people at every opportunity, so he announced that I "wasn't even worth being an associate of."  Ouch.  Burn.  The narcissist and compulsive liar didn't want to be my friend anymore.  I cried for about thirteen nanoseconds and then got over it.

Besides, Hot Pants indirectly did one thing for me for which I will always be grateful.  He helped me reach the absolute low that I needed to hit to wake up, recognize my codependency, and get help for it.  In short, he's the reason I was only with Snuggly Bear for three and a half weeks rather than trying to hold onto a doomed relationship and drive myself to ruin trying to make things work out.

So perhaps it's not such a horrible thing to be thinking of Hot Pants right now.  Perhaps rather than revisiting how selfish he is and all the ways that he hurt me and fretting that he's still "under my skin," perhaps I can focus on that gratitude that through all his shit, I managed to start the healing and growing process.

Who knows, maybe I'll even raise a glass to Hot Pants and his rather unique way of helping me become a better person later this evening.  wouldn't that be a kicker?

Notes:
[1]  Good news!  The score card has been updated.

[2]  Yes, I do Craigslist and a few other "slutty" things from time to time.  I'm a human being.  I have needs.  I do what I feel will meet those needs.  Any questions?

[3]  Incidentally, that's why I gave him the code name "Hot Pants."

Broken Up, but not Broken-Hearted

It's been a while since I posted an update.  That's mainly because I was too busy running around with Snuggly Bear.  Sadly, I'm no longer running around with Snuggly Bear.  This is mainly because I broke up with Snuggly Bear last Saturday.  I am once again single.

In many ways, I'm okay with the break-up.  In many ways, I'm proud of the break-up.  Truth be told, the relationship wasn't going well, and it was becoming obvious that things in the relationship weren't going to improve, at least not unless I was willing to keep pushing, making threats, and otherwise make things progress through sheer force of will...and manipulation/coercion.

I just didn't need that, nor did I want it.  For starters, it would've required me to put way too much into the relationship than I really should have to.  Plus, you know, I don't want to go back to being maniipulative or coercive.  It'd be the Karpellian Drama Triangle all over again.  If I have to go back to that to keep a relationship going, then it's not a relationship worth trying to save.

In many ways, I'm proud of myself for acknowledging that truth and acting on it.  Even a year ago, I would have tried just about anything to keep things going, to try and make things work out.  I was that desperate.  So I'm patting myself on the back for saying, "No way, Jose" and moving on.

Granted, I'm also hurt.  I'm hurt that it came to that.  I'm hurt that Snuggly Bear seemed willing to keep the relationship going the way it was, even though I felt it was obvious that the relationship was going the way it was at my expense.  I'm a little hurt -- and sad for him -- that he seems willing to walk away from the relationship -- something he once claimed was the best thing that ever happened to him -- just so he can bury his head in the sand and avoid facing up to the hard work of making the changes that would have been necessary to make things healthy between us.

But as a good friend once told me, people don't change until the pain of remaining the same becomes too great to bear.  And it seems that Snuggly Bear can still withstand -- or avoid -- the pain remaining the same is causing him.  Unfortunately for him, I'm no longer to bear the pain it's causing me.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't think Snuggly Bear is a bad person.  But one things that my time in therapy taught me is that sometimes, it really should be about me.  I'm declaring this one of those times.

Learning to talk about myself

This post is inspired in part by this ongoing conversation about The Friend Zone.  Read the linked blog entry if you don't know what The Friend Zone is.  Read the linked blog entry if you do know what The Friend Zone is.  It's well worth reading, as are the comments.

I especially want to draw attention to the following statement by the commenter emilyperson:

Oh, and that you can't expect your object of affection to be interesting enough for both of you, so you should probably start contributing something to the conversation besides endless compliments.

This is something I've struggled with in the past.  Historically, I don't talk about myself much.  It's not that I don't think I have anything going on in my life.  It's not that I don't have opinions or interests.  I just historically haven't felt like the average person really would be interested in what I have to say or my life.

The reason for that is complex (though can basically be boiled down to "low self-esteem and codependency") and complicated.  Part of it has to do with the fact that I grew up in an environment that taught[1] me that I was supposed to show more interest in others than myself, that talking about myself (at all) was "bragging" and "being an insufferable egomaniac."

So as I developed friendships and relationships, my general attitude has been, "If the other person really wants to know about me and my interests, zie will ask."  It seems perfectly logical, really.  I spend time asking zir about zir life and interests and zie will do the same.

The problem is, that doesn't always work out in practice. I think part of that stems from the fact that a lot of people in my life simply aren't as curious as I am, nor have they developed the skill[2] or patience I have for drawing people out of their shells and sharing things about themselves.  In some ways, it's frustrating, as I feel people should want to get to know me better and put in a little extra effort to find out more about me.[3]

But in fairness to others, I've realized I don't exactly make it easy for others, either.  I don't volunteer a lot of information about others.  I tend to answer what questions people ask me with as short of answers as possible.  The result is that for someone to get to know me, zie practically has to put me through an interrogation process, winning any knowledge of me one tiny fragment of a time.

That's not "a little extra effort."  That's a monumental task.  If offered to Sisyphus was offered this as his new punishment in Tartarus, I suspect he might choose to stick with pushing his rock.

So I'm trying something different.[4]  I'm trying to be better about volunteering information.  I'm trying to answer questions in ways that volunteer more information than the basic answer to the question.  I'm trying to remember that if I mention someone in my life and I happen to have a picture of them in my phone or on Facebook, I should whip out my phone and show the picture.  And if there's a story behind the picture, I try to tell the story.

I'm not doing a perfect job yet, but hopefully it's doing more to show that I'm a real live person.

---

[1]I don't think that anyone meant to teach me these ideas.  If I spoke to my parents, teachers, or religious leaders that influenced me growing up about this, they'd probably be mortified that this is the message I perceived from them.

But that's the thing about childhood youth.  The lessons those in charge intended to teach and the message perceived by the young don't always look the same.

[2]  Granted, I'm not sure if it's skill so much as cosmic rays or some other strange phenomenon.  I've had far too many people tell me deeply personal things without five minutes of meeting me for the first time to say it's something I'm doing, at least not on a conscious level.

[3]  To some people's credit, they've done exactly that.  Sweet Waiter asked me a number of questions while we stood outside of Home Bar and chatted.

[4]  And as I have a new boyfriend, he gets to be one of my primary helps in this.