October 12, 2025 • 42 mins
This week I'm gabbing about some of my codependency origins and how they're haunting me in the present. Where do I think some of these self-destructive habits came from? Why are they so hard to break away from? How do I keep moving forward when all my old patterns are trying to pull me backwards?
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello.
(00:00):
Hello, it's Steph and thanks for joining another episode of Solitary Creature.
I have a confession to make.
So anyone who's been listening to my podcast regularly, knows that last week I was having a real struggle trying to one, get my episode out on time.
Shocker, I am still struggling with that this week.
(00:22):
Two.
each week I pick a word of the week and it's supposed to be a mindful intention to help me focus my thoughts a little bit and try to feel like I have like little wins.
If I can't make big wins in big parts of my life, at least I can feel like I did really well with one particular thing that week.
And it also gives me like a framework to examine certain.
Pieces of my self-improvement and healing journey in very specific ways.
(00:47):
So it feels like a little less overwhelming.
That being said, my word of the week last week was supposed to be body, which meant, and that didn't, that did not happen.
That became a whole kind of other thing.
So then I was supposed to think about that word this week as well.
I will say that it's not that it's not on my mind, it really is.
I think about I honestly think about my body constantly.
(01:08):
I don't know how there are people out there who don't have all consuming thoughts about their body.
I'm not saying that having those all consuming thoughts is healthy.
It's definitely not.
But I don't know how people can just like.
Move through life without all this body noise.
And this week was definitely no exception for me.
So I've been trying to move more.
(01:29):
I've been trying to eat better.
I've been trying to get more sleep.
I've been trying to drink more water.
All these different things that are the different facets of body.
Like body doesn't have to just be your weight, a number on a scale, things like that.
It's really just about, it can be about weight, it can be about, the mind body connection, and it can be about how your body stores stress.
(01:50):
It can be about confidence and body image.
It can be about how you just like move and take up space in the world.
It's a huge topic.
I don't wanna talk about that, and so I'm not going to I don't know what the holdup is.
I've tried recording an episode about it a few times.
It never feels quite right.
I've tried splitting it up into two episodes.
(02:11):
It still doesn't feel quite right.
Something about it is just like not, it's just not settling well with me.
And I don't wanna put out anything that I'm not actually proud of.
And I also, I think I'm also like a little afraid, and I think it's okay to be a little afraid of stuff as long as you confront it at some point.
Some people probably think that's like super weak of me.
(02:32):
I don't care.
I think people need to do what feels right in the moment, and I'm still pushing myself, I feel in a lot of ways by doing this podcast and everything.
I just don't wanna talk about it right now, and I probably will at some point, but I think if you're not feeling something that doesn't feel like it's helping you and it feels very forced, I think that is, I.
(02:53):
You yourself trying to tell you something.
And so I'm putting that on the back burner for right now.
So I thought what might be helpful, because I'm on this self-improvement and healing journey, is like, who the fuck am I? Like, why are you listening to this podcast? Why should you care what I have to say? I would say take everything I say with a grain of salt.
This is just me.
(03:14):
Blabbing into a microphone about my feelings and putting out into the ether and getting out of my body.
I'm not an expert.
I'm not a nutritionist.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not a therapist.
I'm not a psychologist.
I've been to therapy.
I've done a lot of therapy.
I've read a lot of self-help books.
I listen to a lot of self-help podcasts.
(03:34):
I have some very wise friends.
I think I give pretty good advice.
Don't always live by my own advice, but I can definitely dish it out, but so I thought maybe it would be good.
I'm like a, I think like a month and a half or something into.
This podcast.
And so I thought like I just, I think I'm just gonna use this episode for you to like get to know me a little bit and that just feels a little bit better to me than going into this really heavy topic.
(04:00):
I have been having a really heavy last month and a half, but I've especially been having a really hard last two weeks.
And I'm just gonna.
I'm just gonna say it like I, my most recent ex is currently in treatment for alcohol addiction.
(04:20):
I haven't talked about that a lot, I don't think.
I feel like I maybe talked about it in the very first episode and just left it at that, but that has been.
Weighing very heavily on me.
And for about a month or so when he was starting rehab, we could only write letters to each other.
And so I was writing letters to him to just make sure that he knew he had someone that was there to, as a friend, I thought as someone to help support him, know that there was someone rooting for him, make him not feel alone.
(04:52):
And the truth of the matter is I do still love him.
I love him a lot.
And I broke up with him prior to him going to rehab.
And I think that in part was a catalyst for him going to rehab and now we're at the point in rehab where he is able to he's moved on to the second phase of it where he's allowed to use a house phone and stuff like that.
(05:12):
He's still at treatment, but he is just like the reins are off like just slightly.
And since that has happened, I have felt a lot of my codependent behaviors and.
I need to fix everything.
I need to super focus on him and his feelings and solve problems for him and what's he gonna do when he gets outta treatment And all this stuff.
I've been like so consumed by it and it has felt like I've been taking quite a few steps back while also trying to still take steps forward.
(05:39):
And it has just been like a real push and pull tug of war kind of situation the last few weeks.
And that has definitely been a huge drain on me.
On top of all the work stuff I've been going through and on top of the change of season, which is always hard for me, and on top of still finding things from our life together in my house and having to pack 'em up and finding Heidi holes where I'm still like finding beer cans around the house in the garage and where he was clearly hiding the cans.
(06:11):
So it tells me that.
Those were drinks he was drinking during times when he was supposed to be sober.
And so I guess I don't wanna go into a lot of detail about that because I feel like that's his story and his journey and I don't feel like I should be putting him on blast.
But at the same time, I do think it's a big piece of my story and a big piece of what I am going through, and I just wanna be upfront with that because I know a lot of people struggle with it and I don't want to live in the shame of it and live in the shadow of it and feel disingenuous.
(06:41):
But I also don't feel like I need to go into a ton of detail right now about that.
But.
That is a big pressure point in my life right now.
It's just a convergence of a lot of feelings around that, around the relationship ending around my confusion because I do love him.
I do still love him a lot.
We didn't, I didn't dump him because I don't love him anymore.
(07:03):
That wasn't a factor at all.
I ended things because they weren't working a lot to do with his drinking and partly because of like the things that his drinking directly or indirectly impact in our relationship.
And also because I'm super codependent.
So a lot of that was like also coming to fruition in our relationship and his.
(07:25):
Drinking.
That's been something that's been on my mind a lot is just moving through a lot of those feelings and how do you.
Try to move on from someone who you don't know if they're gonna be able to help themselves.
How do you make sense of your own codependent feelings? How do you not try to constantly rescue someone? How do you make space for yourself when you have spent, three years not really making a lot of space for yourself? those are just a lot of things that are.
(07:54):
On my mind right now, and it's been a lot, but I think that's, it's like an important foundational part of who I am, and my codependency didn't start with that relationship.
I've been codependent for most of my adult life, and I know a hundred percent that I'm codependent because I feel like if I don't give.
(08:18):
110%.
If I'm not giving more than I want to be giving at any given moment that someone's not gonna wanna be with me, whether it's a friendship or a relationship, but especially romantic relationships, I feel if I don't pay for someone, if I don't pay more than 50% of the bills, if I don't let someone use my car, even though I know that they could potentially be drunk driving in it, or if I don't pick up after somebody I have struggled with low self-esteem most of my life, and that is where my codependency has festered.
(08:49):
It stems from not feeling like I have anything to offer other than giving money, gifts, mental space, energy time.
If I'm not giving big chunks of myself and big chunks of my finances and putting myself on the back burner, then someone's not gonna wanna be with me.
(09:12):
So that is a big reason why I started this podcast I wanted to really, in the aftermath of this relationship, figure out how to stop doing those things That is a big reason why I ended things with this person was just because it had become unmanageable to keep putting myself on the back burner.
(09:33):
I was putting myself into debt because I'm paying for the life of two people with someone who isn't contributing a cent, literally, not even a cent.
I am putting my car and my property in danger by letting someone.
Who is often untrustworthy use it.
I am giving too much and not really getting anything back from this person.
(09:57):
Not because I don't think that they want to give back, but because they are currently incapable of giving back for whatever, for a myriad of reasons.
Not just the drinking, but just depression and anxiety and selfishness too, to a degree.
That breakup really was like the first time I had taken a step for myself and really put my foot down and actually stuck with it.
(10:22):
I've tried ending things before with this person and I've tried like shaking them into action before and it has never worked.
It's just I end up caving and they come back and things are just like.
Either exactly the same or oftentimes it just gets worse and I'm still left in the lurch and I have a crazy amount of resentment and anger that is now piled up.
(10:50):
And I feel like even though it's been like, I guess almost three months since I ended things, I still feel so much of the tension in my body.
And part of that is my fault because I haven't fully let go.
'Cause we're still talking and I'm writing letters and I'm still obviously concerned about his wellbeing, probably to an unhealthy level.
(11:15):
But I'm pleased with the progress I've been making because.
The stuff from a year ago would not have gone three months.
With this person not in my house and him being rehab probably makes it a lot easier for sure.
And that is probably why I have been in such panic mode the last couple of weeks because I know that his time at treatment is coming to an end.
(11:39):
And all of that codependency is wiggling its way back up to the top of my mind.
'cause I've been able to put it a little bit on the back burner.
I feel like I've been taking a lot of steps forward.
But the reality is so much of it is still there and it's it, because it doesn't just go away because you made one decision and stood up for yourself one time, the point is that I.
(11:59):
Struggle with codependency big time.
And I didn't realize that it was codependency until I was in this relationship.
And it's been a slow build for most of my life.
It wasn't like I just woke up one day and was like, I'm gonna put myself on the back burner.
Obviously a lot of it stems from my childhood.
I was like a chubby kid from most of my childhood and.
(12:20):
Honestly, most of my life I've been overweight.
There's been like small periods in my life where I haven't been overweight, and I got there by very unhealthy means.
And of course once I lost weight, I got a lot more attention.
I was getting attention from boys that used to pick on me.
I was getting attention from girls in my class who wanted to hang out with me all of a sudden.
There has always been this.
(12:42):
Deep seated thing with me around, I'm not valuable unless I'm giving someone else what they want from me.
Whether it's whether I look the way they want me to look or because I'm smart and I'm gonna let them use my notes.
And now this person likes me and oh they wanna study with me now.
They'd never give me the time of the day because I take great notes.
Or I feel like I've lived a lot of my life being like the backup plan to a lot of.
(13:05):
People who have had crushes on.
I remember in high school I used to always like, I was like a very good girl, and I never really got into trouble and I was a straight A student and all this stuff, but I remember I used to go and party with my friend on the weekend.
And the amount of drinking I was doing in high school was crazy.
(13:25):
But.
I remember I used to make out with this football player at these parties quite a bit, and I don't think he really wanted to make out with me.
And I was we're drunk so we're gonna do that.
And I remember I did not like him, right? I did not I don't know that I even found him attractive.
I was just like glad to have someone who wanted to kiss me and I wasn't leaving high school.
(13:47):
Not having ever been kissed, and I remember he was just like so ashamed, and I felt, I knew I was like being in the butt of a joke at the time, but I just didn't care because I just did not want to be the girl who'd like never been kissed and.
I remember the first time we made out the next day at school or like the following Monday at school.
(14:09):
He looked at me when he was walking past my locker and looked at me like, like I made out with you this weekend, but let's not tell anybody like you're my secret.
And I remember thinking like, I don't want anyone to know.
I made out with you.
You are a dumb football player.
I don't want people thinking that.
That's the kind of guy I like because I don't But that's how it always felt with guys in my life.
(14:30):
Like I was always a secret.
I was always a backup plan.
My first real relationship in college was I, fuck him, I don't even care.
I I dated this guy Blake, and we were together for almost 15 years.
He was my first real boyfriend in college and.
So we dated basically from 18 to like what, like 34 or something.
(14:53):
When we first started dating he, God, it's like you look back to these stories and you're just like, that was crazy.
But I gar.
But like I also know that, I know that the story is crazy, but also I can think back to other stories that are very similar, that are in my more recent dating history from like the last, like five years ago.
Didn't really learn from that experience, but Okay.
(15:15):
When we first started dating he was actually into my friend and she didn't want to date him at all.
And so we just started hanging out here and there.
And then it seemed like he started to like me.
But then, and then I found out that he was also really into this girl Mandy and.
This girl was never gonna give him the time of day.
But I knew that if she would have, he would pick her.
(15:36):
I was the backup, I was the backup plan and I was fine with it because I didn't think anyone else would wanna date me.
And that's a really, that's a hard thing to admit that I don't, I thought he was like cute.
But, I think back to the first time we made out and I didn't really feel anything.
And I think back to the first time we had sex and was not good.
(15:59):
But I dealt with it for 15 years 'cause I thought you better take what you can get because I went to a very small school and it's like there might not be another person for you.
This might be it.
You either date this person or you're not gonna date anybody in college.
Do you wanna be that girl? And I did not.
And I remember he would say the most horrible shit to me, which I'm not trying to make him, he was not like a bad guy, at all he was.
(16:26):
He could be.
He was genuine, genuinely very sweet.
And especially in the beginning of the relationship was very thoughtful and he was affectionate.
And I do think he grew to really like me and love me and all of that.
And I do feel like eventually, he ended up picking me.
I don't know how much of that was like, we'll have to pick her 'cause no one else wants to date me either.
But aside from that, he did say like some kind of fucked up things to me though, one thing was he, so he was like really into this Mandy girl and you could tell like he really thought, he was like trying to figure out which one he wanted, even though that really was like not the case.
(16:58):
Like he and I had actually been hanging out.
He had, he was not hanging out with this girl at all.
It wasn't like they were like going on dates or, hanging out in his room or anything none of that was happening.
And I remember him saying to me, oh, there's like a 70% chance we'll be like dating next week.
Now I will say, granted he's on the spectrum.
We found that out much later towards the end of our relationship.
(17:21):
I knew for a long time I suspected he was on the spectrum, but how do you have that conversation with somebody? And so looking back, I'm like, I feel like that is a very, black and white.
thing to say, And I think he meant, I know that he meant it because of knowing him so well.
I know he meant it as like a compliment and in some fucked up way.
(17:42):
I took it as a compliment because I thought seventies pretty good.
That's like a C, right? I'll take that.
Looking back, it's just so fucked up.
Like I was I was, there was part of me that was annoyed in the moment, but there was also a part of me that was like, take it girl.
Just fucking take it.
Like 70 percent's pretty fucking good.
That's like good odds, just get through next, just get through the next couple weeks when you might have a boyfriend.
(18:05):
And I wish I had.
Not, I wish I had just been like, no, fuck that.
If you're not sure about me, we don't need to be together.
But I was not in that head space.
I just wasn't, I wanted a boyfriend and he seemed, he was nice and he seemed to really care for me.
But he did like little things like that when we first started dating.
(18:26):
And the bigger point I'm trying to make here is just like when you don't have self-esteem.
That's where codependency starts.
I think like he and honestly, that is where.
That conversation is probably where my codependency really started, was just like, okay, now I need to keep this person, I need to make sure I keep this person.
(18:48):
So it's always about what movies he wanted to watch, what food did he want to eat, where did he wanna go for something? How did he wanna spend his time? And I do think part of that as our relationship evolved and we learned more about.
Him being on the spectrum and stuff like that.
Like I do think some of that was just some of that, like some of those preferences and some of that, like black and whiteness and some of that like it's me or the highway mentality.
(19:18):
I do think part of that was part of him being on the spectrum and, but I think another part of it was just him being particular and wanting his own way and just being with me, somebody who is absolutely willing to like surrender and just do whatever the other person wants, like if that makes them happy, then that's gonna make me happy.
(19:39):
It doesn't matter if I don't want to eat that food.
It doesn't matter if that's not how I wanna spend my Sunday, it doesn't matter if that's not where I wanna go on vacation or how I wanna use my time off.
That doesn't matter if that's what I wanna spend money on.
That doesn't matter.
If that doesn't align with my values or my goals, it makes that other person happy and that.
Makes me valuable to them.
(20:00):
And so if I just keep doing that and more of that, then they're going to keep me around.
And so it was just this like relationship survival thing.
after we broke up, my codependency just got worse.
Eventually at first, oh no, I take it back.
My code balance was really bad.
I take it back because I was gonna say I became, after we broke up, I really did find myself, I really started to feel at home in my body.
(20:24):
I felt confident even if it was like a fake till, you make it kinda situation.
I was really feeling myself at that time.
I loved being single.
Part of that was because part of the reason why I had stayed with him was because I didn't think I could afford to pay for this apartment and pay for everything on my own.
Even though I made more money than him, I just thought there's no way I'm gonna be able to come up with half this rent.
(20:47):
There's no way I'm gonna come up.
I'm gonna be able to come up with half the grocery bill or half this like light bill and all this stuff.
And the irony is that other than him taking care of the phone bill and him taking care of his half of the rent.
He didn't pay for really anything.
Like once in a while he'd be like, here's some money for groceries or whatever.
But when we broke up, he still owed me like thousands in back grocery money and he still, I paid off.
(21:16):
He would often like not give me money for things.
And so I'd end up like putting them on my credit card, whatever.
So I had paid off a tremendous amount of credit card debt probably two or three times during that relationship.
And, so I was paying a lot of money all the time, and he wasn't really, wasn't contributing much.
I could not tell you to this day where all of his money went because at one point he did have a pretty decent job where he was making not quite what I was making, but it was like good money.
(21:43):
And I could not tell you where all that money went.
I could not tell you.
Because even the frivolous things he spent money on, I'm just like, where did it go? But that's beside the point.
The point is that when after we broke up, I really started to feel myself.
I really started to feel confident.
'cause like I did, I was able to stay in that apartment and pay the full rent myself.
(22:07):
I was able to pay for everything and still save up some money.
I was able to I was able to handle it all.
I, and it was crazy because it was like, I thought once this person leaves, i'm gonna be so overwhelmed by cooking and cleaning and all these D things, and I reminded myself like.
He doesn't do any of that.
He doesn't do chores.
He doesn't, and we didn't own at that.
(22:29):
At that time.
It was just like renting an apartment.
So it's not like we have like maintenance to have to keep up with.
It's like he didn't do the laundry, he didn't clean the bathroom, he never washed the bedding.
He didn't do any of that.
In fact, he made everything more dirty because.
I don't know what it is with me and dating men who have hide holes, but he was like stuffing past due bills everywhere and literally piling up trash in the corner.
(22:53):
And there were things like I wasn't allowed to touch, the closet and clean out the closet and I wasn't allowed to touch these boxes, but he wouldn't move the boxes anywhere.
It was all this like weird ery kind of mentality stuff.
Guess what? When he left, which he broke up with me, by the way.
I just wanna call that out.
I didn't even end this crazy ass relationship.
(23:14):
I got dumped.
Dumped, But I did find like a lot of confidence.
'cause once he was gone, miraculously all of his junk went with him.
The house got completely cleaned out.
My dad was so nice.
He came over, he spent a whole day just like we took everything out.
We took it to, we cleaned out everything.
Every hiding hole got purged, everything.
(23:34):
And I got to.
Slowly build this apartment into my own little bachelorette pad.
And it was great and cute and fun and amazing and lovely.
And it's wild to me because, I really did feel confident.
Then, I really felt like I'm coming into my own and I really found myself and I felt centered and I felt at ease and I had a new job and I was making more money and just everything, it felt like everything was really aligning.
(24:03):
And then I got involved with an addict.
I got involved with a heroin addict who had been sober for five years, relapsed and.
This is like a whole thing, but he was not he was not on the, he was really not, he was really struggling.
He was trying to recover.
He could not, it was a wild tale.
It's and he eventually passed away while we were still together.
(24:25):
And he overdosed in a motel room.
in that relationship, my codependency skyrocketed because there is nothing that is going to make a codependent person more codependent.
Than someone who is struggling in active addiction because to this is gonna sound so offensive, but to a codependent person, that is the jackpot.
(24:49):
There's nobody who needs you more than someone who cannot help themselves and cannot.
See past their nose and cannot get themselves under control.
There's no one who needs you more emotionally.
There's no one that needs you more.
I never gave him money, but like obviously he's like destitute.
He doesn't really have anything.
He's like bouncing around from house.
He's bouncing around from job.
(25:10):
So there's like nothing that someone needs you more.
And that was addicting.
Like sometimes I think back did I really did I really have these strong feelings for this person? Or was I just like in love with being needed so much? And I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, unfortunately.
Like I think I probably would've really loved who he was when he was sober, but I didn't get to experience that person, and so my codependency just got like even worse.
(25:39):
Every time I get out of one of these like very codependent relationships, I have to immediately get involved with someone who is like gonna amp up my codependency.
It's it is like an addiction.
It's like you get used to a certain level and that becomes your normal, and then you need something that's gonna be even more codependent.
Someone's gonna need you even more and.
Then I found my most recent ex, who I love dearly, and I really thought we were, I was planning my life with this person.
(26:05):
I really thought this would be the person I get old with.
And to be very real, there is a part of me that still has those fantasies because how can you not, like when you've been planning your life with someone, I'm just not the type of person who can just be like, Nope, that person's dead to me.
And.
Some people could argue that maybe they should, but I'm just not that kind of person.
(26:29):
Like I just, my emotions are too big.
My codependency is too big, but also that seems very cold to me.
Even if it's right for you, I just can't shut off my feelings like that.
Like I'm sure eventually I might get there, but.
It's a hard thing to do to just shut off your emotions completely about this person when it's only been a few months, and that's just that's just the reality of it.
(26:54):
It's just real, breakups are messy, relationships are messy.
Codependency is super messy and confusing, and it's gonna take a long time for me to work through a lot of the things that codependency has brought into my life.
But outside of just the codependency itself, which is like a big enough hurdle to try to overcome all the anger that's like in my body now, all the resentments I have on my mind feeling used, feeling neglected, feeling guilt, feeling shame, feeling confused and feeling sad.
(27:32):
There's so many things that are just like tightly nodded up inside of me and.
Every day.
I'm trying to find a way to detangle like a tiny bit of it, but it's gonna take a long time.
It's gonna take a really long time and sometimes, especially like how it's felt for me the last couple of weeks, it's all that constant work that can just feel really overwhelming sometimes, especially when you feel like you're taking steps backwards instead of moving forwards.
(28:02):
For the last month or so.
I felt like really great.
I feel like I'm making progress, I'm moving forward.
I'm not looking back, I'm really like full steam ahead.
And when you start to feel yourself pulling back even in small ways, 'cause I think an ebb and flow is very natural.
I think everything in life was a couple steps forward, a couple steps back, couple, and because.
(28:27):
Your mind is not, doesn't process things linearly, and grief is not linear.
And breakups are not linear, and feelings are not linear.
There's not, everything is like a straight narrow path.
That doesn't exist.
You're gonna oscillate between different feelings on any given day but I felt like really dragged down by those backward steps the past couple weeks.
(28:48):
I saw myself repeating behaviors that I really didn't like.
But it is really hard when you see someone who is struggling and suffering, especially when it's by their own hands.
Because they just can't help themselves.
They can't.
You really wanna help someone pull themselves up out of the gutter that they've found themselves in.
(29:09):
You wanna pick them up from that rock bottom and you can't.
And but for a codependent person, that is incredibly hard and.
I find the people who give the strongest advice and get the most frustrated with me are people who are not codependent and they just can't understand what it's like to live in my mind and live with my thoughts and they don't understand why I'm codependent.
(29:33):
They don't understand that it's deeper than just cut that person off and don't talk to them.
It's like it goes so much deeper than that.
There's so many layers to it, so anyway, I really went on a tangent here but the point is like that's a big part of who I am and it's a big reason why I started this podcast and it's a big motivator for me to overcome it.
'cause I think if I can get a grasp on my codependency, I can have a lot.
(29:56):
Healthier relationships.
I can have a healthier relationship with myself.
I can move on.
I can reclaim my competence.
I can let go of my anger, I can let go of my resentments and hopefully not continue these patterns that make me feel like I'm wasting my time.
I've, I felt like I've wasted my twenties.
I've wasted my thirties.
I'm 38 now.
(30:16):
I feel like time is running out on a lot of things in my life and.
I know there's probably people that are gonna jump in and be like, no, 38, so young.
Yes, it is young, but i've lost a lot of valuable career time.
I've lost a lot of valuable creative time.
I've lost a lot of focus in my life.
I've lost a lot of opportunities in my life.
I've lost a lot of my sense of purpose and direction.
(30:37):
And a lot of that has come from how I'm codependent and how I have treated my codependency and ignored it to a large degree.
And I'm trying to find my way forward from that.
But the codependency is a big factor in my life, it's a big reason why I'm doing this podcast and why I'm working so hard to do better so I can reclaim my life.
(31:02):
From codependency instead of feeling like codependency has a stranglehold on me, I wanna reclaim my power, from something that I like didn't even realize was something I was really struggling with until the last couple of years.
So that's a little bit about me.
The other thing about me that I think is really important to explain to people, to understand like where I'm coming from and where I'm at with this podcast is I have, a big Virgo Energy.
(31:31):
I am a perfectionist.
I'm very Type A.
I'm very practical, but I also have a lot of emotion and I care a lot about the people in my life and, I struggle with that with my codependency because I feel like codependency is wild and untamed and just makes no sense whatsoever.
But I live in a realm of practicalities and they're just always butting heads with each other, I am always at odds with myself, and that plays a big role in the decisions I make and how I'm trying to improve myself and and all of that.
(32:08):
And part of that is I'm also a very creative person, so I have been writing my whole life.
I love writing fiction, I love journaling.
Like the first day I went into a library, I fell in love and the first day I realized that probably like three or four when someone, I really realized that these books just don't, these books just aren't here.
(32:28):
They are actually written by people and that's what they do for a living.
I have wanted to be a writer and my hobby in high school and elementary school was, I would sit down and just write novels.
I've probably written tons of novels and tons of story stories in my lifetime, and that used to be my hobby.
That used to be like the way I relaxed on a weekend was to like just spend all night just writing a story.
(32:54):
And I ended up going to school for creative writing.
I got my bachelor's in creative writing at a very tiny liberal arts college in nowhere New Hampshire.
And then I went on like literally two weeks after I graduated with my bachelor's, I went into my master's program at Goddard College in Vermont, RIP Goddard.
(33:16):
And I got my MFA in creative writing.
And then.
I think I took about, like a year off, I think a year or two off.
And then I returned to Goddard because I couldn't get enough of it.
And I got my Master's in education.
And I don't do anything with any of those now.
I'm still writing here and there.
It's not the top of my list all the time.
(33:40):
It has become.
There's so much pressure around it and I'll do an episode on that for sure.
But I am this like creative person and I think creative people often are very emotional people, I wanna be this really creative person.
I wanna live this like dream writer life, but I also am a practical person where I wanna be able to pay my bills and.
(34:02):
Be able pay my mortgage.
And I wanna be able to have a career and something practical and reliable to fall back on.
But I'm also always at odds with that.
And that's another thing that I'm like trying to figure out through this whole process is like balance like how can I manage both of these things that I want and feel fulfilled? Because when I'm not writing, I don't feel fulfilled.
(34:25):
When I feel like I am drowning in financial burdens because my job isn't making ends meet, I feel overwhelmed.
And I just wanna get to a place where these two pieces of my personality hold equal weight to each other.
And that I'm like moving forward in both of them, but they both take a lot of time.
(34:46):
I struggle with like balance and I always have, I've always been someone who like struggles to maintain balance.
That's also been on my mind a lot.
This episode has become like very ramly and strange.
But I feel like, I really hope that you're getting a sense of who I am, not like the superficial stuff necessarily, but like more who I am as a person and why I'm here making this podcast and where I sit in the world and how I sit with myself.
(35:12):
Some superficial things about me, just so you can visualize me a little bit more.
I live in the, I guess you'd call it the foothills of the White Mountain National Forest.
I'm born and raised in New Hampshire.
I love New Hampshire.
I love the nature of Northern New Hampshire.
I love small towns.
I love New England.
(35:33):
But I don't necessarily love the actual town that I live in.
I don't love the tourists.
I don't love how expensive everything is, but I'm a proud New Hampshire right.
for a long time during college, I lived in Southern New Hampshire and after me and my ex Blake broke up in 2020, I think spring the following year, my mom said to me you hate it there.
(36:00):
You've always hated it there.
Why don't you move back up to the White Mountains? You've always wanted to move back here.
Why don't you just do that now, you have nothing tying you down, just we'll find you.
My mom, God, my mom can be a tyrant.
But if there is one thing you can count on my family to do it is that when you say you want to do something, they will pull the trigger and it will be done.
(36:26):
So during a housing crisis.
During COVID when you couldn't find an apartment anywhere, and even people were having a hard time finding motel rooms to rent.
My mom somehow found me a tiny little apartment that was in the process of being.
Fully renovated.
(36:47):
It wasn't like renovated to be super nice, but like they ripped out of the carpet, they repainted, they added in, like they update the bathroom, like all this stuff.
My mom managed to find that for me.
And it was less money than my apartment that I had in Southern New Hampshire.
This was like a miracle.
And it was down the road from my parents' house.
It was at the edge of town.
It was at the edge, very edge of Crawford Notch.
(37:10):
And so it was a beautiful location.
It was a great location and it was a, it was at the TI World's tiniest apartment, but I moved me and my two cats at the time there, and it was wonderful.
It was like the perfect size.
It was just, it was so bliss.
It was such bliss.
And I wanna get back to that state of mind.
(37:32):
Where was I going with this? I don't even remember.
When I moved back up to the White Mountains.
I remember driving up my car packed full of stuff, my two cats clawing to get out of their crates.
And we were packed to the gills with whatever last remaining things were in my apartment.
And I remember coming up 93 and there's a little spot when you get between, like you get between past Plymouth and you're getting up towards Thornton and Campton.
(38:01):
If you know this area, if not, you don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
But you come around a bend and you can just see the whole white mountain range.
You get like a really good, beautiful view of these mountains.
And I just started crying 'cause it just felt like I was at home and things were still really tough.
But I remember every day.
(38:22):
When I'd go in, if I'd had to go into town for something on my way back, I would just get to see Mount Washington.
Mount Washington was like basically in my backyard, and it was gorgeous and amazing and I loved that time.
And so I am a diehard New Hampshire.
I love New Hampshire and I love the White Mountains.
(38:43):
And, and I also love cats.
I have four cats.
I'm a crazy cat lady.
I have Cosmo who is currently 17.
I have Star Fox who is just about 15, and I have two little baby girl cats, they're not baby cats anymore, but two formerly feral cats named.
(39:04):
Anchovy and ghost who I got from my best friend who had a stray cat who had a litter of cats in their garage and three of these cats survived and she took the boy, I took the two girls and then I think the next litter or two, the mom had another set of cats and she got another boy Catt From that mom, the mom has not been able to be trapped, so she's out there still.
(39:30):
But we try and so I love these cats.
They are like my children.
I dote on them.
And I think that's also why I wanna, I'm.
They are a big motivator for this journey.
Like I can't imagine how many fights they have seen between me and my exes.
I can't imagine the trauma that they have been through, even if they don't like really understand what's happening.
(39:53):
But I wanna be able to provide, it sounds so crazy, but I wanna be able to provide them the kind of life that they deserve, and I wanna give them a nice, calm, quiet, tranquil life.
And.
I don't want them.
I know they can feel me on edge.
I know they can feel my anger.
I know they can feel when I'm upset I do think my cats are very empathetic and I can't imagine how hard it must be for them to feel when I'm upset and to feel when I'm really sad or to feel when I'm angry.
(40:22):
And.
Not really be able to do anything to help, because I can tell that they're so concerned.
So I wanna I wanna get better for myself, but I wanna get better for them too.
I want them to be able to like, have a nice, calm, quiet, tranquil, easy life.
Especially like the girl cats, I feel like they've grown up with all this screaming and yelling and drunken fights and.
(40:49):
Door slamming and packing up and leaving, coming back, packing up, leaving, coming back.
And it's just I want them to have some, I want them to learn that like life doesn't have to be chaotic.
It doesn't have to be living out in the feral world, and it doesn't have to feel feral inside this house either.
I feel like I've rambled a lot and I don't know if you have really learned what I was hoping you would learn from me, but I didn't wanna talk about body this week.
(41:19):
I guess I spent a lot of time talking about codependency and obviously there were just like a lot of feelings I needed to get out there about that.
But I.
Didn't want to talk about body I think that's the beautiful messiness of a self-help, self-improvement, mindful living, whatever you wanna call it, journey, because sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
(41:41):
Give yourself over to the universe and say Something here is like not working.
And I'm really trying to force something and it doesn't feel right.
And just let yourself feel what you're feeling.
You can't control how you're feeling every day.
And I think I am a horrible offender of trying to make myself feel certain ways to compartmentalize my feelings, or to tam down my feelings or to feel acceptable or not to stress someone else out.
(42:07):
I think just learning to feel my feelings and talk about the things that I'm feeling, like talking about when I feel like talking about them would be a big, would be a big thing for me, would be a big step for me.
So I don't know if my word of the week is quite yet.
I think I'm still just trying to move through the next couple weeks 'cause I know they're gonna be like very tough.
(42:30):
Hang in there with me.
I hope you join me back next week.
I hope you found something in this episode that resonated with you and felt familiar, and I'm glad to have you here listening to this.
And wherever you are in your journey, I wish you the best of luck.
All right, that's it for me for this week.
(42:52):
I will check back in with you next.
Thanks everyone.
Bye.
Hello.
(00:00):
Hello, it's Steph and thanks for joining another episode of Solitary Creature.
I have a confession to make.
So anyone who's been listening to my podcast regularly, knows that last week I was having a real struggle trying to one, get my episode out on time.
Shocker, I am still struggling with that this week.
(00:22):
Two.
each week I pick a word of the week and it's supposed to be a mindful intention to help me focus my thoughts a little bit and try to feel like I have like little wins.
If I can't make big wins in big parts of my life, at least I can feel like I did really well with one particular thing that week.
And it also gives me like a framework to examine certain.
Pieces of my self-improvement and healing journey in very specific ways.
(00:47):
So it feels like a little less overwhelming.
That being said, my word of the week last week was supposed to be body, which meant, and that didn't, that did not happen.
That became a whole kind of other thing.
So then I was supposed to think about that word this week as well.
I will say that it's not that it's not on my mind, it really is.
I think about I honestly think about my body constantly.
(01:08):
I don't know how there are people out there who don't have all consuming thoughts about their body.
I'm not saying that having those all consuming thoughts is healthy.
It's definitely not.
But I don't know how people can just like.
Move through life without all this body noise.
And this week was definitely no exception for me.
So I've been trying to move more.
(01:29):
I've been trying to eat better.
I've been trying to get more sleep.
I've been trying to drink more water.
All these different things that are the different facets of body.
Like body doesn't have to just be your weight, a number on a scale, things like that.
It's really just about, it can be about weight, it can be about, the mind body connection, and it can be about how your body stores stress.
(01:50):
It can be about confidence and body image.
It can be about how you just like move and take up space in the world.
It's a huge topic.
I don't wanna talk about that, and so I'm not going to I don't know what the holdup is.
I've tried recording an episode about it a few times.
It never feels quite right.
I've tried splitting it up into two episodes.
(02:11):
It still doesn't feel quite right.
Something about it is just like not, it's just not settling well with me.
And I don't wanna put out anything that I'm not actually proud of.
And I also, I think I'm also like a little afraid, and I think it's okay to be a little afraid of stuff as long as you confront it at some point.
Some people probably think that's like super weak of me.
(02:32):
I don't care.
I think people need to do what feels right in the moment, and I'm still pushing myself, I feel in a lot of ways by doing this podcast and everything.
I just don't wanna talk about it right now, and I probably will at some point, but I think if you're not feeling something that doesn't feel like it's helping you and it feels very forced, I think that is, I.
(02:53):
You yourself trying to tell you something.
And so I'm putting that on the back burner for right now.
So I thought what might be helpful, because I'm on this self-improvement and healing journey, is like, who the fuck am I? Like, why are you listening to this podcast? Why should you care what I have to say? I would say take everything I say with a grain of salt.
This is just me.
(03:14):
Blabbing into a microphone about my feelings and putting out into the ether and getting out of my body.
I'm not an expert.
I'm not a nutritionist.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not a therapist.
I'm not a psychologist.
I've been to therapy.
I've done a lot of therapy.
I've read a lot of self-help books.
I listen to a lot of self-help podcasts.
(03:34):
I have some very wise friends.
I think I give pretty good advice.
Don't always live by my own advice, but I can definitely dish it out, but so I thought maybe it would be good.
I'm like a, I think like a month and a half or something into.
This podcast.
And so I thought like I just, I think I'm just gonna use this episode for you to like get to know me a little bit and that just feels a little bit better to me than going into this really heavy topic.
(04:00):
I have been having a really heavy last month and a half, but I've especially been having a really hard last two weeks.
And I'm just gonna.
I'm just gonna say it like I, my most recent ex is currently in treatment for alcohol addiction.
(04:20):
I haven't talked about that a lot, I don't think.
I feel like I maybe talked about it in the very first episode and just left it at that, but that has been.
Weighing very heavily on me.
And for about a month or so when he was starting rehab, we could only write letters to each other.
And so I was writing letters to him to just make sure that he knew he had someone that was there to, as a friend, I thought as someone to help support him, know that there was someone rooting for him, make him not feel alone.
(04:52):
And the truth of the matter is I do still love him.
I love him a lot.
And I broke up with him prior to him going to rehab.
And I think that in part was a catalyst for him going to rehab and now we're at the point in rehab where he is able to he's moved on to the second phase of it where he's allowed to use a house phone and stuff like that.
(05:12):
He's still at treatment, but he is just like the reins are off like just slightly.
And since that has happened, I have felt a lot of my codependent behaviors and.
I need to fix everything.
I need to super focus on him and his feelings and solve problems for him and what's he gonna do when he gets outta treatment And all this stuff.
I've been like so consumed by it and it has felt like I've been taking quite a few steps back while also trying to still take steps forward.
(05:39):
And it has just been like a real push and pull tug of war kind of situation the last few weeks.
And that has definitely been a huge drain on me.
On top of all the work stuff I've been going through and on top of the change of season, which is always hard for me, and on top of still finding things from our life together in my house and having to pack 'em up and finding Heidi holes where I'm still like finding beer cans around the house in the garage and where he was clearly hiding the cans.
(06:11):
So it tells me that.
Those were drinks he was drinking during times when he was supposed to be sober.
And so I guess I don't wanna go into a lot of detail about that because I feel like that's his story and his journey and I don't feel like I should be putting him on blast.
But at the same time, I do think it's a big piece of my story and a big piece of what I am going through, and I just wanna be upfront with that because I know a lot of people struggle with it and I don't want to live in the shame of it and live in the shadow of it and feel disingenuous.
(06:41):
But I also don't feel like I need to go into a ton of detail right now about that.
But.
That is a big pressure point in my life right now.
It's just a convergence of a lot of feelings around that, around the relationship ending around my confusion because I do love him.
I do still love him a lot.
We didn't, I didn't dump him because I don't love him anymore.
(07:03):
That wasn't a factor at all.
I ended things because they weren't working a lot to do with his drinking and partly because of like the things that his drinking directly or indirectly impact in our relationship.
And also because I'm super codependent.
So a lot of that was like also coming to fruition in our relationship and his.
(07:25):
Drinking.
That's been something that's been on my mind a lot is just moving through a lot of those feelings and how do you.
Try to move on from someone who you don't know if they're gonna be able to help themselves.
How do you make sense of your own codependent feelings? How do you not try to constantly rescue someone? How do you make space for yourself when you have spent, three years not really making a lot of space for yourself? those are just a lot of things that are.
(07:54):
On my mind right now, and it's been a lot, but I think that's, it's like an important foundational part of who I am, and my codependency didn't start with that relationship.
I've been codependent for most of my adult life, and I know a hundred percent that I'm codependent because I feel like if I don't give.
(08:18):
110%.
If I'm not giving more than I want to be giving at any given moment that someone's not gonna wanna be with me, whether it's a friendship or a relationship, but especially romantic relationships, I feel if I don't pay for someone, if I don't pay more than 50% of the bills, if I don't let someone use my car, even though I know that they could potentially be drunk driving in it, or if I don't pick up after somebody I have struggled with low self-esteem most of my life, and that is where my codependency has festered.
(08:49):
It stems from not feeling like I have anything to offer other than giving money, gifts, mental space, energy time.
If I'm not giving big chunks of myself and big chunks of my finances and putting myself on the back burner, then someone's not gonna wanna be with me.
(09:12):
So that is a big reason why I started this podcast I wanted to really, in the aftermath of this relationship, figure out how to stop doing those things That is a big reason why I ended things with this person was just because it had become unmanageable to keep putting myself on the back burner.
(09:33):
I was putting myself into debt because I'm paying for the life of two people with someone who isn't contributing a cent, literally, not even a cent.
I am putting my car and my property in danger by letting someone.
Who is often untrustworthy use it.
I am giving too much and not really getting anything back from this person.
(09:57):
Not because I don't think that they want to give back, but because they are currently incapable of giving back for whatever, for a myriad of reasons.
Not just the drinking, but just depression and anxiety and selfishness too, to a degree.
That breakup really was like the first time I had taken a step for myself and really put my foot down and actually stuck with it.
(10:22):
I've tried ending things before with this person and I've tried like shaking them into action before and it has never worked.
It's just I end up caving and they come back and things are just like.
Either exactly the same or oftentimes it just gets worse and I'm still left in the lurch and I have a crazy amount of resentment and anger that is now piled up.
(10:50):
And I feel like even though it's been like, I guess almost three months since I ended things, I still feel so much of the tension in my body.
And part of that is my fault because I haven't fully let go.
'Cause we're still talking and I'm writing letters and I'm still obviously concerned about his wellbeing, probably to an unhealthy level.
(11:15):
But I'm pleased with the progress I've been making because.
The stuff from a year ago would not have gone three months.
With this person not in my house and him being rehab probably makes it a lot easier for sure.
And that is probably why I have been in such panic mode the last couple of weeks because I know that his time at treatment is coming to an end.
(11:39):
And all of that codependency is wiggling its way back up to the top of my mind.
'cause I've been able to put it a little bit on the back burner.
I feel like I've been taking a lot of steps forward.
But the reality is so much of it is still there and it's it, because it doesn't just go away because you made one decision and stood up for yourself one time, the point is that I.
(11:59):
Struggle with codependency big time.
And I didn't realize that it was codependency until I was in this relationship.
And it's been a slow build for most of my life.
It wasn't like I just woke up one day and was like, I'm gonna put myself on the back burner.
Obviously a lot of it stems from my childhood.
I was like a chubby kid from most of my childhood and.
(12:20):
Honestly, most of my life I've been overweight.
There's been like small periods in my life where I haven't been overweight, and I got there by very unhealthy means.
And of course once I lost weight, I got a lot more attention.
I was getting attention from boys that used to pick on me.
I was getting attention from girls in my class who wanted to hang out with me all of a sudden.
There has always been this.
(12:42):
Deep seated thing with me around, I'm not valuable unless I'm giving someone else what they want from me.
Whether it's whether I look the way they want me to look or because I'm smart and I'm gonna let them use my notes.
And now this person likes me and oh they wanna study with me now.
They'd never give me the time of the day because I take great notes.
Or I feel like I've lived a lot of my life being like the backup plan to a lot of.
(13:05):
People who have had crushes on.
I remember in high school I used to always like, I was like a very good girl, and I never really got into trouble and I was a straight A student and all this stuff, but I remember I used to go and party with my friend on the weekend.
And the amount of drinking I was doing in high school was crazy.
(13:25):
But.
I remember I used to make out with this football player at these parties quite a bit, and I don't think he really wanted to make out with me.
And I was we're drunk so we're gonna do that.
And I remember I did not like him, right? I did not I don't know that I even found him attractive.
I was just like glad to have someone who wanted to kiss me and I wasn't leaving high school.
(13:47):
Not having ever been kissed, and I remember he was just like so ashamed, and I felt, I knew I was like being in the butt of a joke at the time, but I just didn't care because I just did not want to be the girl who'd like never been kissed and.
I remember the first time we made out the next day at school or like the following Monday at school.
(14:09):
He looked at me when he was walking past my locker and looked at me like, like I made out with you this weekend, but let's not tell anybody like you're my secret.
And I remember thinking like, I don't want anyone to know.
I made out with you.
You are a dumb football player.
I don't want people thinking that.
That's the kind of guy I like because I don't But that's how it always felt with guys in my life.
(14:30):
Like I was always a secret.
I was always a backup plan.
My first real relationship in college was I, fuck him, I don't even care.
I I dated this guy Blake, and we were together for almost 15 years.
He was my first real boyfriend in college and.
So we dated basically from 18 to like what, like 34 or something.
(14:53):
When we first started dating he, God, it's like you look back to these stories and you're just like, that was crazy.
But I gar.
But like I also know that, I know that the story is crazy, but also I can think back to other stories that are very similar, that are in my more recent dating history from like the last, like five years ago.
Didn't really learn from that experience, but Okay.
(15:15):
When we first started dating he was actually into my friend and she didn't want to date him at all.
And so we just started hanging out here and there.
And then it seemed like he started to like me.
But then, and then I found out that he was also really into this girl Mandy and.
This girl was never gonna give him the time of day.
But I knew that if she would have, he would pick her.
(15:36):
I was the backup, I was the backup plan and I was fine with it because I didn't think anyone else would wanna date me.
And that's a really, that's a hard thing to admit that I don't, I thought he was like cute.
But, I think back to the first time we made out and I didn't really feel anything.
And I think back to the first time we had sex and was not good.
(15:59):
But I dealt with it for 15 years 'cause I thought you better take what you can get because I went to a very small school and it's like there might not be another person for you.
This might be it.
You either date this person or you're not gonna date anybody in college.
Do you wanna be that girl? And I did not.
And I remember he would say the most horrible shit to me, which I'm not trying to make him, he was not like a bad guy, at all he was.
(16:26):
He could be.
He was genuine, genuinely very sweet.
And especially in the beginning of the relationship was very thoughtful and he was affectionate.
And I do think he grew to really like me and love me and all of that.
And I do feel like eventually, he ended up picking me.
I don't know how much of that was like, we'll have to pick her 'cause no one else wants to date me either.
But aside from that, he did say like some kind of fucked up things to me though, one thing was he, so he was like really into this Mandy girl and you could tell like he really thought, he was like trying to figure out which one he wanted, even though that really was like not the case.
(16:58):
Like he and I had actually been hanging out.
He had, he was not hanging out with this girl at all.
It wasn't like they were like going on dates or, hanging out in his room or anything none of that was happening.
And I remember him saying to me, oh, there's like a 70% chance we'll be like dating next week.
Now I will say, granted he's on the spectrum.
We found that out much later towards the end of our relationship.
(17:21):
I knew for a long time I suspected he was on the spectrum, but how do you have that conversation with somebody? And so looking back, I'm like, I feel like that is a very, black and white.
thing to say, And I think he meant, I know that he meant it because of knowing him so well.
I know he meant it as like a compliment and in some fucked up way.
(17:42):
I took it as a compliment because I thought seventies pretty good.
That's like a C, right? I'll take that.
Looking back, it's just so fucked up.
Like I was I was, there was part of me that was annoyed in the moment, but there was also a part of me that was like, take it girl.
Just fucking take it.
Like 70 percent's pretty fucking good.
That's like good odds, just get through next, just get through the next couple weeks when you might have a boyfriend.
(18:05):
And I wish I had.
Not, I wish I had just been like, no, fuck that.
If you're not sure about me, we don't need to be together.
But I was not in that head space.
I just wasn't, I wanted a boyfriend and he seemed, he was nice and he seemed to really care for me.
But he did like little things like that when we first started dating.
(18:26):
And the bigger point I'm trying to make here is just like when you don't have self-esteem.
That's where codependency starts.
I think like he and honestly, that is where.
That conversation is probably where my codependency really started, was just like, okay, now I need to keep this person, I need to make sure I keep this person.
(18:48):
So it's always about what movies he wanted to watch, what food did he want to eat, where did he wanna go for something? How did he wanna spend his time? And I do think part of that as our relationship evolved and we learned more about.
Him being on the spectrum and stuff like that.
Like I do think some of that was just some of that, like some of those preferences and some of that, like black and whiteness and some of that like it's me or the highway mentality.
(19:18):
I do think part of that was part of him being on the spectrum and, but I think another part of it was just him being particular and wanting his own way and just being with me, somebody who is absolutely willing to like surrender and just do whatever the other person wants, like if that makes them happy, then that's gonna make me happy.
(19:39):
It doesn't matter if I don't want to eat that food.
It doesn't matter if that's not how I wanna spend my Sunday, it doesn't matter if that's not where I wanna go on vacation or how I wanna use my time off.
That doesn't matter if that's what I wanna spend money on.
That doesn't matter.
If that doesn't align with my values or my goals, it makes that other person happy and that.
Makes me valuable to them.
(20:00):
And so if I just keep doing that and more of that, then they're going to keep me around.
And so it was just this like relationship survival thing.
after we broke up, my codependency just got worse.
Eventually at first, oh no, I take it back.
My code balance was really bad.
I take it back because I was gonna say I became, after we broke up, I really did find myself, I really started to feel at home in my body.
(20:24):
I felt confident even if it was like a fake till, you make it kinda situation.
I was really feeling myself at that time.
I loved being single.
Part of that was because part of the reason why I had stayed with him was because I didn't think I could afford to pay for this apartment and pay for everything on my own.
Even though I made more money than him, I just thought there's no way I'm gonna be able to come up with half this rent.
(20:47):
There's no way I'm gonna come up.
I'm gonna be able to come up with half the grocery bill or half this like light bill and all this stuff.
And the irony is that other than him taking care of the phone bill and him taking care of his half of the rent.
He didn't pay for really anything.
Like once in a while he'd be like, here's some money for groceries or whatever.
But when we broke up, he still owed me like thousands in back grocery money and he still, I paid off.
(21:16):
He would often like not give me money for things.
And so I'd end up like putting them on my credit card, whatever.
So I had paid off a tremendous amount of credit card debt probably two or three times during that relationship.
And, so I was paying a lot of money all the time, and he wasn't really, wasn't contributing much.
I could not tell you to this day where all of his money went because at one point he did have a pretty decent job where he was making not quite what I was making, but it was like good money.
(21:43):
And I could not tell you where all that money went.
I could not tell you.
Because even the frivolous things he spent money on, I'm just like, where did it go? But that's beside the point.
The point is that when after we broke up, I really started to feel myself.
I really started to feel confident.
'cause like I did, I was able to stay in that apartment and pay the full rent myself.
(22:07):
I was able to pay for everything and still save up some money.
I was able to I was able to handle it all.
I, and it was crazy because it was like, I thought once this person leaves, i'm gonna be so overwhelmed by cooking and cleaning and all these D things, and I reminded myself like.
He doesn't do any of that.
He doesn't do chores.
He doesn't, and we didn't own at that.
(22:29):
At that time.
It was just like renting an apartment.
So it's not like we have like maintenance to have to keep up with.
It's like he didn't do the laundry, he didn't clean the bathroom, he never washed the bedding.
He didn't do any of that.
In fact, he made everything more dirty because.
I don't know what it is with me and dating men who have hide holes, but he was like stuffing past due bills everywhere and literally piling up trash in the corner.
(22:53):
And there were things like I wasn't allowed to touch, the closet and clean out the closet and I wasn't allowed to touch these boxes, but he wouldn't move the boxes anywhere.
It was all this like weird ery kind of mentality stuff.
Guess what? When he left, which he broke up with me, by the way.
I just wanna call that out.
I didn't even end this crazy ass relationship.
(23:14):
I got dumped.
Dumped, But I did find like a lot of confidence.
'cause once he was gone, miraculously all of his junk went with him.
The house got completely cleaned out.
My dad was so nice.
He came over, he spent a whole day just like we took everything out.
We took it to, we cleaned out everything.
Every hiding hole got purged, everything.
(23:34):
And I got to.
Slowly build this apartment into my own little bachelorette pad.
And it was great and cute and fun and amazing and lovely.
And it's wild to me because, I really did feel confident.
Then, I really felt like I'm coming into my own and I really found myself and I felt centered and I felt at ease and I had a new job and I was making more money and just everything, it felt like everything was really aligning.
(24:03):
And then I got involved with an addict.
I got involved with a heroin addict who had been sober for five years, relapsed and.
This is like a whole thing, but he was not he was not on the, he was really not, he was really struggling.
He was trying to recover.
He could not, it was a wild tale.
It's and he eventually passed away while we were still together.
(24:25):
And he overdosed in a motel room.
in that relationship, my codependency skyrocketed because there is nothing that is going to make a codependent person more codependent.
Than someone who is struggling in active addiction because to this is gonna sound so offensive, but to a codependent person, that is the jackpot.
(24:49):
There's nobody who needs you more than someone who cannot help themselves and cannot.
See past their nose and cannot get themselves under control.
There's no one who needs you more emotionally.
There's no one that needs you more.
I never gave him money, but like obviously he's like destitute.
He doesn't really have anything.
He's like bouncing around from house.
He's bouncing around from job.
(25:10):
So there's like nothing that someone needs you more.
And that was addicting.
Like sometimes I think back did I really did I really have these strong feelings for this person? Or was I just like in love with being needed so much? And I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, unfortunately.
Like I think I probably would've really loved who he was when he was sober, but I didn't get to experience that person, and so my codependency just got like even worse.
(25:39):
Every time I get out of one of these like very codependent relationships, I have to immediately get involved with someone who is like gonna amp up my codependency.
It's it is like an addiction.
It's like you get used to a certain level and that becomes your normal, and then you need something that's gonna be even more codependent.
Someone's gonna need you even more and.
Then I found my most recent ex, who I love dearly, and I really thought we were, I was planning my life with this person.
(26:05):
I really thought this would be the person I get old with.
And to be very real, there is a part of me that still has those fantasies because how can you not, like when you've been planning your life with someone, I'm just not the type of person who can just be like, Nope, that person's dead to me.
And.
Some people could argue that maybe they should, but I'm just not that kind of person.
(26:29):
Like I just, my emotions are too big.
My codependency is too big, but also that seems very cold to me.
Even if it's right for you, I just can't shut off my feelings like that.
Like I'm sure eventually I might get there, but.
It's a hard thing to do to just shut off your emotions completely about this person when it's only been a few months, and that's just that's just the reality of it.
(26:54):
It's just real, breakups are messy, relationships are messy.
Codependency is super messy and confusing, and it's gonna take a long time for me to work through a lot of the things that codependency has brought into my life.
But outside of just the codependency itself, which is like a big enough hurdle to try to overcome all the anger that's like in my body now, all the resentments I have on my mind feeling used, feeling neglected, feeling guilt, feeling shame, feeling confused and feeling sad.
(27:32):
There's so many things that are just like tightly nodded up inside of me and.
Every day.
I'm trying to find a way to detangle like a tiny bit of it, but it's gonna take a long time.
It's gonna take a really long time and sometimes, especially like how it's felt for me the last couple of weeks, it's all that constant work that can just feel really overwhelming sometimes, especially when you feel like you're taking steps backwards instead of moving forwards.
(28:02):
For the last month or so.
I felt like really great.
I feel like I'm making progress, I'm moving forward.
I'm not looking back, I'm really like full steam ahead.
And when you start to feel yourself pulling back even in small ways, 'cause I think an ebb and flow is very natural.
I think everything in life was a couple steps forward, a couple steps back, couple, and because.
(28:27):
Your mind is not, doesn't process things linearly, and grief is not linear.
And breakups are not linear, and feelings are not linear.
There's not, everything is like a straight narrow path.
That doesn't exist.
You're gonna oscillate between different feelings on any given day but I felt like really dragged down by those backward steps the past couple weeks.
(28:48):
I saw myself repeating behaviors that I really didn't like.
But it is really hard when you see someone who is struggling and suffering, especially when it's by their own hands.
Because they just can't help themselves.
They can't.
You really wanna help someone pull themselves up out of the gutter that they've found themselves in.
(29:09):
You wanna pick them up from that rock bottom and you can't.
And but for a codependent person, that is incredibly hard and.
I find the people who give the strongest advice and get the most frustrated with me are people who are not codependent and they just can't understand what it's like to live in my mind and live with my thoughts and they don't understand why I'm codependent.
(29:33):
They don't understand that it's deeper than just cut that person off and don't talk to them.
It's like it goes so much deeper than that.
There's so many layers to it, so anyway, I really went on a tangent here but the point is like that's a big part of who I am and it's a big reason why I started this podcast and it's a big motivator for me to overcome it.
'cause I think if I can get a grasp on my codependency, I can have a lot.
(29:56):
Healthier relationships.
I can have a healthier relationship with myself.
I can move on.
I can reclaim my competence.
I can let go of my anger, I can let go of my resentments and hopefully not continue these patterns that make me feel like I'm wasting my time.
I've, I felt like I've wasted my twenties.
I've wasted my thirties.
I'm 38 now.
(30:16):
I feel like time is running out on a lot of things in my life and.
I know there's probably people that are gonna jump in and be like, no, 38, so young.
Yes, it is young, but i've lost a lot of valuable career time.
I've lost a lot of valuable creative time.
I've lost a lot of focus in my life.
I've lost a lot of opportunities in my life.
I've lost a lot of my sense of purpose and direction.
(30:37):
And a lot of that has come from how I'm codependent and how I have treated my codependency and ignored it to a large degree.
And I'm trying to find my way forward from that.
But the codependency is a big factor in my life, it's a big reason why I'm doing this podcast and why I'm working so hard to do better so I can reclaim my life.
(31:02):
From codependency instead of feeling like codependency has a stranglehold on me, I wanna reclaim my power, from something that I like didn't even realize was something I was really struggling with until the last couple of years.
So that's a little bit about me.
The other thing about me that I think is really important to explain to people, to understand like where I'm coming from and where I'm at with this podcast is I have, a big Virgo Energy.
(31:31):
I am a perfectionist.
I'm very Type A.
I'm very practical, but I also have a lot of emotion and I care a lot about the people in my life and, I struggle with that with my codependency because I feel like codependency is wild and untamed and just makes no sense whatsoever.
But I live in a realm of practicalities and they're just always butting heads with each other, I am always at odds with myself, and that plays a big role in the decisions I make and how I'm trying to improve myself and and all of that.
(32:08):
And part of that is I'm also a very creative person, so I have been writing my whole life.
I love writing fiction, I love journaling.
Like the first day I went into a library, I fell in love and the first day I realized that probably like three or four when someone, I really realized that these books just don't, these books just aren't here.
(32:28):
They are actually written by people and that's what they do for a living.
I have wanted to be a writer and my hobby in high school and elementary school was, I would sit down and just write novels.
I've probably written tons of novels and tons of story stories in my lifetime, and that used to be my hobby.
That used to be like the way I relaxed on a weekend was to like just spend all night just writing a story.
(32:54):
And I ended up going to school for creative writing.
I got my bachelor's in creative writing at a very tiny liberal arts college in nowhere New Hampshire.
And then I went on like literally two weeks after I graduated with my bachelor's, I went into my master's program at Goddard College in Vermont, RIP Goddard.
(33:16):
And I got my MFA in creative writing.
And then.
I think I took about, like a year off, I think a year or two off.
And then I returned to Goddard because I couldn't get enough of it.
And I got my Master's in education.
And I don't do anything with any of those now.
I'm still writing here and there.
It's not the top of my list all the time.
(33:40):
It has become.
There's so much pressure around it and I'll do an episode on that for sure.
But I am this like creative person and I think creative people often are very emotional people, I wanna be this really creative person.
I wanna live this like dream writer life, but I also am a practical person where I wanna be able to pay my bills and.
(34:02):
Be able pay my mortgage.
And I wanna be able to have a career and something practical and reliable to fall back on.
But I'm also always at odds with that.
And that's another thing that I'm like trying to figure out through this whole process is like balance like how can I manage both of these things that I want and feel fulfilled? Because when I'm not writing, I don't feel fulfilled.
(34:25):
When I feel like I am drowning in financial burdens because my job isn't making ends meet, I feel overwhelmed.
And I just wanna get to a place where these two pieces of my personality hold equal weight to each other.
And that I'm like moving forward in both of them, but they both take a lot of time.
(34:46):
I struggle with like balance and I always have, I've always been someone who like struggles to maintain balance.
That's also been on my mind a lot.
This episode has become like very ramly and strange.
But I feel like, I really hope that you're getting a sense of who I am, not like the superficial stuff necessarily, but like more who I am as a person and why I'm here making this podcast and where I sit in the world and how I sit with myself.
(35:12):
Some superficial things about me, just so you can visualize me a little bit more.
I live in the, I guess you'd call it the foothills of the White Mountain National Forest.
I'm born and raised in New Hampshire.
I love New Hampshire.
I love the nature of Northern New Hampshire.
I love small towns.
I love New England.
(35:33):
But I don't necessarily love the actual town that I live in.
I don't love the tourists.
I don't love how expensive everything is, but I'm a proud New Hampshire right.
for a long time during college, I lived in Southern New Hampshire and after me and my ex Blake broke up in 2020, I think spring the following year, my mom said to me you hate it there.
(36:00):
You've always hated it there.
Why don't you move back up to the White Mountains? You've always wanted to move back here.
Why don't you just do that now, you have nothing tying you down, just we'll find you.
My mom, God, my mom can be a tyrant.
But if there is one thing you can count on my family to do it is that when you say you want to do something, they will pull the trigger and it will be done.
(36:26):
So during a housing crisis.
During COVID when you couldn't find an apartment anywhere, and even people were having a hard time finding motel rooms to rent.
My mom somehow found me a tiny little apartment that was in the process of being.
Fully renovated.
(36:47):
It wasn't like renovated to be super nice, but like they ripped out of the carpet, they repainted, they added in, like they update the bathroom, like all this stuff.
My mom managed to find that for me.
And it was less money than my apartment that I had in Southern New Hampshire.
This was like a miracle.
And it was down the road from my parents' house.
It was at the edge of town.
It was at the edge, very edge of Crawford Notch.
(37:10):
And so it was a beautiful location.
It was a great location and it was a, it was at the TI World's tiniest apartment, but I moved me and my two cats at the time there, and it was wonderful.
It was like the perfect size.
It was just, it was so bliss.
It was such bliss.
And I wanna get back to that state of mind.
(37:32):
Where was I going with this? I don't even remember.
When I moved back up to the White Mountains.
I remember driving up my car packed full of stuff, my two cats clawing to get out of their crates.
And we were packed to the gills with whatever last remaining things were in my apartment.
And I remember coming up 93 and there's a little spot when you get between, like you get between past Plymouth and you're getting up towards Thornton and Campton.
(38:01):
If you know this area, if not, you don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
But you come around a bend and you can just see the whole white mountain range.
You get like a really good, beautiful view of these mountains.
And I just started crying 'cause it just felt like I was at home and things were still really tough.
But I remember every day.
(38:22):
When I'd go in, if I'd had to go into town for something on my way back, I would just get to see Mount Washington.
Mount Washington was like basically in my backyard, and it was gorgeous and amazing and I loved that time.
And so I am a diehard New Hampshire.
I love New Hampshire and I love the White Mountains.
(38:43):
And, and I also love cats.
I have four cats.
I'm a crazy cat lady.
I have Cosmo who is currently 17.
I have Star Fox who is just about 15, and I have two little baby girl cats, they're not baby cats anymore, but two formerly feral cats named.
(39:04):
Anchovy and ghost who I got from my best friend who had a stray cat who had a litter of cats in their garage and three of these cats survived and she took the boy, I took the two girls and then I think the next litter or two, the mom had another set of cats and she got another boy Catt From that mom, the mom has not been able to be trapped, so she's out there still.
(39:30):
But we try and so I love these cats.
They are like my children.
I dote on them.
And I think that's also why I wanna, I'm.
They are a big motivator for this journey.
Like I can't imagine how many fights they have seen between me and my exes.
I can't imagine the trauma that they have been through, even if they don't like really understand what's happening.
(39:53):
But I wanna be able to provide, it sounds so crazy, but I wanna be able to provide them the kind of life that they deserve, and I wanna give them a nice, calm, quiet, tranquil life.
And.
I don't want them.
I know they can feel me on edge.
I know they can feel my anger.
I know they can feel when I'm upset I do think my cats are very empathetic and I can't imagine how hard it must be for them to feel when I'm upset and to feel when I'm really sad or to feel when I'm angry.
(40:22):
And.
Not really be able to do anything to help, because I can tell that they're so concerned.
So I wanna I wanna get better for myself, but I wanna get better for them too.
I want them to be able to like, have a nice, calm, quiet, tranquil, easy life.
Especially like the girl cats, I feel like they've grown up with all this screaming and yelling and drunken fights and.
(40:49):
Door slamming and packing up and leaving, coming back, packing up, leaving, coming back.
And it's just I want them to have some, I want them to learn that like life doesn't have to be chaotic.
It doesn't have to be living out in the feral world, and it doesn't have to feel feral inside this house either.
I feel like I've rambled a lot and I don't know if you have really learned what I was hoping you would learn from me, but I didn't wanna talk about body this week.
(41:19):
I guess I spent a lot of time talking about codependency and obviously there were just like a lot of feelings I needed to get out there about that.
But I.
Didn't want to talk about body I think that's the beautiful messiness of a self-help, self-improvement, mindful living, whatever you wanna call it, journey, because sometimes you just have to go with the flow.
(41:41):
Give yourself over to the universe and say Something here is like not working.
And I'm really trying to force something and it doesn't feel right.
And just let yourself feel what you're feeling.
You can't control how you're feeling every day.
And I think I am a horrible offender of trying to make myself feel certain ways to compartmentalize my feelings, or to tam down my feelings or to feel acceptable or not to stress someone else out.
(42:07):
I think just learning to feel my feelings and talk about the things that I'm feeling, like talking about when I feel like talking about them would be a big, would be a big thing for me, would be a big step for me.
So I don't know if my word of the week is quite yet.
I think I'm still just trying to move through the next couple weeks 'cause I know they're gonna be like very tough.
(42:30):
Hang in there with me.
I hope you join me back next week.
I hope you found something in this episode that resonated with you and felt familiar, and I'm glad to have you here listening to this.
And wherever you are in your journey, I wish you the best of luck.
All right, that's it for me for this week.
(42:52):
I will check back in with you next.
Thanks everyone.
Bye.
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