 When you love an
addict or someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, your God-given emotions
are taken captive. Not only does addiction invalidate your truth, but it
deceives others to turn against you too.
Codependents
remain hopeful that things will change. Meanwhile, our emotions become steadily
numb. Better not to feel anything at all, then to live with the doubt that our
feelings are unsubstantiated.
In
my previous marriage, I surrendered the emotion of excitement. If something good
happened, I could enjoy it, but the pain of looking forward to an event would be
too crushing when it fell short of my already low expectations.
I
remember the final days of my previous marriage where toxicity ruled. Though I
had tried to avoid the pain of unmet expectations, I could never actually
protect myself adequately.
On
my birthday, I hoped to hear “Happy Birthday.” As the day passed without my
ex-husband acknowledging it, I eventually fell into tears. He didn’t forget it
was my birthday; he could not celebrate me. I still didn’t understand that yet;
I expected something that wasn’t possible.
When
I wrote my first book, I again had unrealistic expectations. The sturdy box that
authors love so much arrived. I was alone when I carefully sliced the packing
tape and revealed the stacks of books that I had authored. I screamed like crazy
with my own excitement. When my ex-husband got home, he saw the box, and he
didn’t say a thing.
“Did
you see? I wrote a book.” “Yep.”
There
was no celebration whatsoever. What should have been the greatest accomplishment
in my life, came and went without so much as a congratulatory smile.
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