The Most Difficult Break-Up of All-Time
Dear Codependency,
I never asked you to be there for me. You just showed up and became a part of me.
I thought you wanted to be there for me. And it felt good. You were my therapy. You were the missing piece that I was searching for.
I believed the lie that I couldn’t live without you. After all, you completed me.
Something was wrong, though. I started losing the edges of myself. Everything started getting muddy. I couldn’t see anymore. I started feeling suffocated but I thought I was supposed to ride it out, stick with it. How could something that felt “right” be wrong?
You did such a good job of appearing beautiful and real.
I believed you were perfect and I desperately wanted your approval. You never asked me to prove myself to you to gain your approval, but I betrayed myself to try to earn it. I thought I wasn’t good without you. If you approved of me, that meant that I was worthy of belonging.
I was addicted to you. I was willing to do anything just to get the next fix.
I lied to myself. I lied to you. I’m sorry.
You were always right. I was always wrong. I simply wasn’t as good as you. Maybe you thought it was “love” to fix me and save me while I just felt controlled and judged.
It was never your job to fix me. I never asked you to.
It wasn’t my job to give you a voice. But I signed my own voice away to try to give you yours. It wasn’t my job to help you show your true colors or help you be your best self. It wasn’t my job to cushion your reality. It wasn’t my job to complete you.
No matter what I did, I always missed the mark anyway.
The day I finally let go of you, I found my freedom. It felt like chewing my own leg off to get free. I didn’t want to let go without taking back everything I had sacrificed, but it was already gone.
It turns out that I’d rather be crippled for life than be caged in. I’d rather be the villain of the story than sell my soul for a counterfeit existence.
You must have realized by now that this is goodbye. We can’t be together anymore.
