What I mean by it is clear as day to me: it took only the most subtle, slightest movement in the corner of my peripheral vision to quietly ignite or, rather, diffuse the bomb standing next to me this past Saturday. Basically, another girl who is not the girlfriend of my most recent OOMA (object of my affection) came so close to my OOMA's face, almost to a kiss, and suddenly I knew. She's a cheater. I knew she was a liar, but only knew that she had lied to me and who am I, anyway, right? If I'm a worthless nothing, then lying to me means nothing. But a cheater - now that is proof of her despicable character! Because it's not me she's cheating on or cheated on - it's someone else, someone I don't care for, either, but at least I can appreciate the pain that this information may have or might still cause her.
She led me to believe that the reason she ended our friendship - a friendship she claimed was so special to her that she called me her "best friend" - was because I crossed a boundary by developing feelings for her. I didn't do anything about the feelings, except that when I was away in Cambridge for a month I had a bit of a mental breakdown and wanted her friendship - leaned on her friendship - more than usual, and I got upset that she wasn't returning my texts and phone calls. We argued about it on two different occasions. Again, the whole time, I thought it was all me, all my fault. And she encouraged that belief that it was all my fault.
Whereas I am in a constant state of re-evaluation and personal assessment (more so than usual over this past year), she is without integrity, without true self-reflection, thus, without the ability to truly grow from her mistakes because, of course, she does not recognize them or claim them. Ok, then, I have figured her out - finally. I have gotten the resolution that I needed.
Since I started this post, I have found out more information. Since it's from the source (her), which is unreliable, I take it with a grain of salt - I have no idea how true or false it is, but must consider it as part of the pool of limited information that I have received. So she may not have actually cheated on her girlfriend - or, rather, ex-girlfriend - because they broke up at some point since I last knew her as a friend. When I found out this new tidbit of information, I immediately went back into a state of confusion - trying to reconcile it with other information I have that I know to be solid and true. Then I realized something. It's not the particular pieces of information that are the revelation here - it's the fact that she controls what information I am able to have (my therapist suggested that she probably does this with everyone, not just me - that, really, this is not a personal affront to me because this is her M.O.), she withholds information or blatantly lies to me, and then when I try to confront her about anything that may or may not have happened in the past, she claims something different from what I have known and understood to be true. This, I have come to see, is her trying to warp my reality - similar to the way a heavy object warps spacetime, creating the force of gravity. My sickness in it is that I haven't been able to see that she warps my reality (she and other girls like her - other "love avoidants"), and I fight to keep my sanity within this warped perception. It's this warping of my reality that angers me the most. How dare she try to control what reality I experience!
So it doesn't matter if she cheated or didn't cheat on her ex-girlfriend. What I felt above was a validation that our falling out wasn't all my fault - that this is a pattern of hers. She had to have at least been "intriguing" (a term used in SLAA to describe the flirtation stage of a relationship, before sexual consummation) with this other girl (who also happens to be the ex-girlfriend of hers prior to her most recent ex and is also on my rugby team) while she was still in a relationship with her ex. The other part is that I saw her about three weeks ago at that music festival (by shear "coincidence") and she was with her ex, holding hands, in fact, so it would appear that they were still together then. But, even if she never technically cheated - as defined by having a sexual interaction with someone other than their partner to whom they have made a monogamous commitment - it is that same type of "catch and release" thing that she's doing with all of us. So I do not feel anger towards the other girls involved, except that her recent ex treated me poorly, as well, so I don't feel anything positive towards her, either. But I sympathize with my rugby teammate. I was present in March when my teammate was talking about wanting to prove to her ex that she was "independent" enough now (I hadn't known for sure that the ex that she was referring to was my most recent OOMA, although I knew they had dated and thus was one of her exes) which made me feel sad for her. That's the sort of thing I used to do for girls - try to change in whatever way they wanted me to in order to be with them - but now I understand that was part of my illness, my love addiction. I feel sorry that my teammate felt like there was something wrong with her just as she is, the way I used to feel and sometimes still do when I'm rejected.
You see, love addiction is much more prevalent in the general population than most people know. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most people don't even know what it is or that they think it's a joke. Obviously, to me, it's no fucking joke. It's hurt me badly and has caused me to experience deep loneliness throughout most of my adult life so far. It's why I have not been able to maintain a stable, healthy romantic relationship in my adulthood. It's also what led to my arrest in 2002. Love addicts are typically attracted to "love avoidants", a term coined by Pia Mellody. Love avoidants are just as sick with codependency issues as love addicts, but they deal with them in complementary ways, so the two tend to get together in a co-addicted relationship.
I'm tired of being attracted to love avoidants - as tired as I am of being a love addict! So I've been looking back and trying to see where the first clues were that I overlooked. I'm pretty sure I spotted it early on, but, again, due to my fantasies being triggered and not recognizing them as fantasy, I fell for it again. This is what I believe happened:
Whereas I am in a constant state of re-evaluation and personal assessment (more so than usual over this past year), she is without integrity, without true self-reflection, thus, without the ability to truly grow from her mistakes because, of course, she does not recognize them or claim them. Ok, then, I have figured her out - finally. I have gotten the resolution that I needed.
Since I started this post, I have found out more information. Since it's from the source (her), which is unreliable, I take it with a grain of salt - I have no idea how true or false it is, but must consider it as part of the pool of limited information that I have received. So she may not have actually cheated on her girlfriend - or, rather, ex-girlfriend - because they broke up at some point since I last knew her as a friend. When I found out this new tidbit of information, I immediately went back into a state of confusion - trying to reconcile it with other information I have that I know to be solid and true. Then I realized something. It's not the particular pieces of information that are the revelation here - it's the fact that she controls what information I am able to have (my therapist suggested that she probably does this with everyone, not just me - that, really, this is not a personal affront to me because this is her M.O.), she withholds information or blatantly lies to me, and then when I try to confront her about anything that may or may not have happened in the past, she claims something different from what I have known and understood to be true. This, I have come to see, is her trying to warp my reality - similar to the way a heavy object warps spacetime, creating the force of gravity. My sickness in it is that I haven't been able to see that she warps my reality (she and other girls like her - other "love avoidants"), and I fight to keep my sanity within this warped perception. It's this warping of my reality that angers me the most. How dare she try to control what reality I experience!
So it doesn't matter if she cheated or didn't cheat on her ex-girlfriend. What I felt above was a validation that our falling out wasn't all my fault - that this is a pattern of hers. She had to have at least been "intriguing" (a term used in SLAA to describe the flirtation stage of a relationship, before sexual consummation) with this other girl (who also happens to be the ex-girlfriend of hers prior to her most recent ex and is also on my rugby team) while she was still in a relationship with her ex. The other part is that I saw her about three weeks ago at that music festival (by shear "coincidence") and she was with her ex, holding hands, in fact, so it would appear that they were still together then. But, even if she never technically cheated - as defined by having a sexual interaction with someone other than their partner to whom they have made a monogamous commitment - it is that same type of "catch and release" thing that she's doing with all of us. So I do not feel anger towards the other girls involved, except that her recent ex treated me poorly, as well, so I don't feel anything positive towards her, either. But I sympathize with my rugby teammate. I was present in March when my teammate was talking about wanting to prove to her ex that she was "independent" enough now (I hadn't known for sure that the ex that she was referring to was my most recent OOMA, although I knew they had dated and thus was one of her exes) which made me feel sad for her. That's the sort of thing I used to do for girls - try to change in whatever way they wanted me to in order to be with them - but now I understand that was part of my illness, my love addiction. I feel sorry that my teammate felt like there was something wrong with her just as she is, the way I used to feel and sometimes still do when I'm rejected.
You see, love addiction is much more prevalent in the general population than most people know. In fact, I'm pretty sure that most people don't even know what it is or that they think it's a joke. Obviously, to me, it's no fucking joke. It's hurt me badly and has caused me to experience deep loneliness throughout most of my adult life so far. It's why I have not been able to maintain a stable, healthy romantic relationship in my adulthood. It's also what led to my arrest in 2002. Love addicts are typically attracted to "love avoidants", a term coined by Pia Mellody. Love avoidants are just as sick with codependency issues as love addicts, but they deal with them in complementary ways, so the two tend to get together in a co-addicted relationship.
I'm tired of being attracted to love avoidants - as tired as I am of being a love addict! So I've been looking back and trying to see where the first clues were that I overlooked. I'm pretty sure I spotted it early on, but, again, due to my fantasies being triggered and not recognizing them as fantasy, I fell for it again. This is what I believe happened:
- About a year ago I started facing my codependency and love addiction issues head-on.
- Towards the end of July last year, I started going to CoDA meetings (Codependents' Anonymous).
- I started working "the steps" of codependency recovery through Pia Mellody's very detailed and difficult workbook based on her book, Facing Codependence. [I got to step 3 when my therapist at the time basically told me I couldn't move on until I completely gave my desire to be in a relationship up to my 'higher power', something I said I really didn't know if I could ever do completely. Seriously, can you? Maybe you can if/because you're already in a relationship. I don't believe anyone that says otherwise. Everyone I know wants to find that "one true", loving, partner to build their life with - whether or not they want a family, they definitely want a partner with whom to share the joys and sadnesses of their life. I think it's only natural. In any case, so I got stuck on Step 3. And haven't continued because I don't want to be false. But I'm feeling like it's time to resume...]
- Then a friend of mine suggested I return to playing rugby with our old team, so I said ok. I re-joined the team at the end of August. She got pregnant and didn't rejoin the team, afterall. It was fine, though, because I'm a big girl and can make friends on my own. I thought and still think it was a good idea of me to do that - rejoin rugby - because it gives me both a new social outlet (like an instantaneous family, actually, which I already kinda had but hadn't been hanging out with), and another outlet for pent-up energy (a seriously effective outlet).
- At rugby, I was very open and vocal about how I just started recovery on my codependency and love addiction issues, making it clear that I'm not dating (I was in a 6 month, actively no-dating period at that time). It was, in part, for the benefit of letting people know not to pursue me in that way, but also, in part, for the benefit of letting people know about codependency and love addiction - and give anyone who may be having similar issues the opportunity to see someone else dealing with them head-on, and maybe, if they wanted/needed, they could talk to me about it.
- Two different women on the team showed a slightly personalized interest in getting to know me - in being my "friend". They both kept saying "we should hang out". Both innocuous, in and of themselves, but the timing of it and the level of personal interest seemed a little out-of-place for me, despite the fact that I absolutely loved the feeling of attention and that they were into me before even getting to know me that well. [Right here, this is the feeling I need to remember - the feeling I had when they each kept offering to hang out and be my "friend" - both the feeling of unease as well as the slight 'high' I felt from feeling wanted, desired, as if they could see how great I am just from the small snipits of information they had.] The thing is - it triggered fantasy for me, as you may recognize in what I just wrote - that last clause: "as if they could see how great I am just from the small snipits of information they had."
Reality check: it had nothing to do with how great I am - they couldn't see that. And...ironically, they never will in this type of co-addicted interaction.
Truth: my understanding of the dynamic is that they saw my vulnerability in my announcement that I'm not dating - and didn't think further about why I'm not dating. They saw a fish that was saying, 'you can't catch me'. Of course, I was also saying 'not right now while I'm just beginning to deal with issues that make this part of my life unhealthy and painful'. But..those things didn't register to them because all they saw was a challenge that, for their sense of self-worth, they felt they needed to conquer. [I know, this seems harsh, but I'm just applying Pia Mellody's theory, which seems to fit to an astonishing degree!]
- I was turned off almost immediately by one of the two girls because I heard she was in an open-relationship, something I have had experience with and it rarely works out well. I didn't want to get involved in that sort of thing again. Plus, to be honest, she wasn't really my "type"; she has dark hair and also has a doctorate. Turns out, I like blondes who have had "a lot of life" (read: trauma) to go through (and I almost always assume that it's allowed them to grow immensely and build character) and who are not as highly, traditionally educated like me but are clearly very intelligent, nonetheless. The reasons why I'm attracted to that is also very likely mired in sickness - my mom's blonde (and society claims blondes as objectively more beautiful than darker-haired women), I have a lot of guilt about my privileged placement in this life, and I like to think I find the "diamond in the rough" or that I'm some sort of "rescuer" or "savior". [I know this is really unhealthy! Now the harshness is directed back at me.]
- Obviously, I fell for the other girl, the one that fit my “type” quite a bit better – she has naturally blonde hair, she had a rough childhood, which basically caused her to raise herself and her baby brother, and she is very intelligent despite not having a formal higher education like I did. As I got to know her, I discovered that she fit even better into what I have always admired in others: she’s passionate about making the world a better place, she’s at least superficially compassionate about others (she gets people to “sponsor” starving children in third world countries as her job - [she got me to!]), she’s strong-willed, opinionated, appears to be very emotionally stable, and seems to have a very high sense of self-worth. Then, even later, I discovered that she is a burlesque dancer and former erotic/exotic dancer/stripper – as in, she’s very sexually seductive, which is something I have often needed to spark my own sexual interest. All of these things built upon each other like a gathering ocean wave, which eventually grew into a tidal wave and then... tsunami. But…it just began as a wave of intrigue from her. That was the beginning. The rest is history (and pretty well documented in posts on my blog as well as summated in this one).
According to Pia Mellody and the
literature on Love Addiction, these OOMAs or ‘love avoidants” were attracted to
me because I presented myself in a very vulnerable position. They saw an
opportunity to control me by getting me to fall for them, which they knew would
be easy. They used their power of seduction, which has always worked for them,
something they learned early on in their lives as a method to get their needs
met (it was a survival mechanism as a child, now it is a maladaptive/unhealthy
behavior as an adult), which appears to me, the love addict, as them being
attracted to me – showing me some form of love, which I so desire/crave, and of course get hooked on. Love avoidants
have a conscious fear of intimacy, the kind that is enmeshing, due to being
enmeshed as a child by their adult caregiver – maybe because they were
basically made to be the caregiver of their adult caregiver, as a type of
abusive role-reversal. This is all in the literature – I am merely
paraphrasing. I suppose I could just reference people to it. The uncanny thing
is how well it fits for my situation. I mean, yes, there are some differences
in the details and probably no one has all of the characteristics or backgrounds described for either love addict or love
avoidant, and many people have characteristics of both which can come out in
different situations or interactions. [I think I was a love avoidant in many
aspects with my most recent ex, which was an interesting flip of an experience for me. The
thing that got me about it was how much I knew I didn’t want to be with her,
but how hard it was for me to sever the relationship (love avoidants tend to stay in these unhealthy, co-addicted relationships out of guilt or a sense of duty). That relationship for me was most definitely a mixture of love addiction and love avoidance.]
In the end, as I have written, I
am truly grateful for this experience as a necessary learning experience in my
recovery from love addiction. I have come a long way in that I can see what is
happening, almost in real time, while it’s happening. I haven’t quite made it
to the point where I can always stop myself from participating, though. I realized over
this past weekend that one major obstacle that keeps getting in the way for me
being able to stop my maladaptive behaviors is drinking and smoking marijuana.
Therefore, I have made the decision and begun my journey to get sober from
alcohol and marijuana in order to help me maintain sobriety in love addiction.
I do not take any of this lightly and will surely be writing more about that
later. However, I felt a need to get this story out now. I am thankful that
this explosion did not consume me this time. I'd like to think that sharing my experience may help others to come to terms and understanding with their own, similar experiences. I now know that this kind of sharing is critical to our recoveries.
I look forward to the new life that I am at the beginning of creating for myself!
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