When two become one

Deciding not to blog here while I have the wedding blog up and running was supposed to make things simpler. But I realised the more I tried to separate my life from the wedding life, the harder it was to keep track of things, not to mention that I didn't really just try to separate them. In fact, I made one i.e. my life the lesser priority of the two.


Feeling torn up about which blog I should spend what little time I have updating is probably not something that I should be broadcasting to everyone, seeing as how trivial it does appear once put into words. However, I saw this not as a phenomenon on its own worth mentioning, but as a symptom of something larger, more problematic: It so happens that regardless of whether it's about blogs, convenience, or schedules, I would want to/ do/ will give up things on my end for another because it's easier, an ease extant only because that puts me in control of the situation. I don't always end up the better for it though and given time (just as in the case of blogging) I often find myself fleetingly wondering why I should be the one sacrificing something, anything.


And I'm like "... wait a minute, how did I get from blogging to here??"


Glimpses of such resentment makes me feel uncomfortable because I believe that like Rome, it is not built in a day. After letting it simmer for a while (the thoughts, not the resentment) I was beginning to sweepingly conclude that this was another one of my self--inflicted neurosis, a bitter emotion borne of feelings akin to trying to be a martyr and not receiving the gratification expected for the act.


But I had read from a magazine once that people in abusive relationships often remain stuck because they think that their situation will be different from the last one, that they are the only ones who can change their disturbed partner and thereby save him from himself - what pop psychology calls the "saviour complex". Seemingly irrelevant - the abuse issue, I mean - I googled "savior complex" wondering if it had anything at all to do with this self-styled martyrdom notion of mine.

What I found was even more perturbing because familiar:

People who are codependent care a lot; they devote their lives to saving others who are in trouble. Sounds wonderful! But that isn't the full story. Codependency is caring run amok. Melody Beattie (1987) describes codependents as angry, controlling, preachy, blaming, hard to talk to, subtly manipulative, amorphous non-persons, and generally miserable. Not exactly angels of mercy. They have tried so hard to manage someone else's life--to "save" them--but they fail, and sooner or later their life crumbles into bitterness, despair, guilt, and hopelessness. They become martyrs, tyrants, people-pleasers, clinging vines, distraught parents, 24-hour-a-day caretakers, etc. They have lost control of their lives.Naturally, these "rescuers" are attracted to people who certainly need lots of help, such as alcoholics, drug
users, con artists, habitual criminals, sex addicts, mentally ill, physically ill, and, perhaps, most unsuspectingly, selfish, irresponsible, troubled children or ambitious workaholics who need someone to support them while they "do their thing." - From Scioto-Paint Valley Mental Health Center

Am I codependent???

I started off trying to rectify what I thought was just a simple case of learning to let go of things - perhaps that should have been a clue since denial is afterall the most commonly cited symptom of addiction - only to find that I'm actually worse off than when I began.

My only consolation, I guess, is that at least I'm self-aware... and admission as they say, is the first step to recovery.