Insecure Attachment
The key to healthy relationships is turning insecure attachment styles into secure attachment styles. When you're insecure, something you need to survive becomes tied to the other person, or they may feel you have something they need to survive. In turn, they feel they owe you a relationship for getting that thing from you, or that they need to give you the relationship you want in order to get their survival need met. This builds resentment over time, until finally they rebel against you. They act out against you. There may be a parent/child dynamic at work because there was something the parent gave you or them that you or they don't know how to get themselves.
For instance, when Anthony ditched you on Christmas, he knew how important having a positive Christmas would be for you. But he resented you and wanted to lash out. You didn't do anything wrong, but he felt guilty and ashamed of himself for being inauthentic in order to get a need met. He was rebelling against himself as much as you. He spent months feeling that he owed you a relationship because of everything you did to help him. Either you gave him that impression subtlely, or he gave himself that impression. Either way, he had to delude himself into believing something that was impossible was possible because he desperately needed something from life that he thought he could get from you -- healing and resolution.
You provided him with healing, which was part of your life function, but you also pursued him for a relationship even after he said he didn't want a boyfriend. You were a pursuer, but you were also offering him healing that he needed. That cornered him into trying to convince himself he could be your boyfriend in order to get what he needed. You interpreted this as he really wanted to be with you, even though you knew you were also saving his life with your healing abilities. There was a conflict of interest. You both really needed something and therefore weren't seeing the reality of incompatibility on the romantic level.
You needed a loving relationship, no matter how deluded, to re-set your broken heart from so much disappointment. In the end, your heart got more broken, and you got sick from giving too much. You had to give him what he wanted - healing - in order for him to not ditch you. He felt he had to give you the relationship you wanted so you wouldn't ditch him. You were both operating on insecure attachment.
What compounded the problem further was the amount of euphoric drug use you two did together over the course of many months, creating artificial chemical bonds that weren't there. This reinforced the delusion that a real relationship was happening. The relationship probably would've crumbled a lot sooner without drug use. Recall your reluctance to do MDMA again, after you had abstained for over 2 years? You did it because he really wanted to and, in order to get what you needed from the relationship, you obliged. You were desperate to feel positive in life, to have fun and magical experiences, to be in love because life had been so intensely unloving and your self-esteem was so battered after what happened in Nelson, after your GI started collapsing in 2013, and after your sexual assault in April 2014. Speaking of Nelson... your attachment to Rhiannon was also co-dependent. When she left Vancouver your guts tore in half over trying to decide whether or not to chase after her. That's because you felt your survival was tied to her.
All of this is a reflection of old parent/child dynamics... what needs were and weren't fulfilled by your parents, and what they did or did not teach you about self-resiliency and providing for yourself in the world. How you get fed, on all levels, are values passed on to children. So is how you digest life. The extreme stress you have been experiencing about people coming and going from your life, and not being sure if life is really safe, are all because of your challenges with building a solid foundation for you, by you. Say hello to a big part of the reason why you have a GI condition. You haven't been feeding yourself, and in the process of trying to survive you have taken on toxic people and situations in order to get what you need, resulting in indigestible circumstances and absorbing other people's crap. You have taken on what isn't yours as an unintended consequence of feeling you needed to sift through another person's life in order to get fed. It doesn't have to be this way. Everything you need, you can get without entering into complex intertwined relationships. Life can be simple.
Having a need that you believe you can't fill or manifest by yourself, and that can only be found "out there" somewhere, in another person, in another travel location, in _____, is a belief that leaves you vulnerable. It makes you beholden to something outside of yourself to survive.
The key to solving this is to find out what you think it is you can't get for yourself, that you've been trying to get from your relationships, and work hard to build those skills and resolutions within you. For instance, Anthony offered a loving relationship, business strategies, he enjoyed traveling, he was an artist and very creative, and magical. You were attracted to all those things in him because you wanted to learn about how to make them part of your world. But how can you even be attracted to those things and recognize them in him, if you don't already have them within you? The lesson here, is learning to be rooted in yourself, in being able to provide for yourself, in knowing that you have the means to really do this, and if not the means then the ability to track down the means, or the knowledge, or the workshop -- whatever it is. You are worthy and capable.
Anything that you think you need from someone else in order to survive is something you need to work on acquiring under your own skill, determination, and fortitude. And if you don't know how, then ask for help, find out how, learn the skills. That's how you become 100% secure in yourself so that in your next relationship, nobody will be forcing themselves upon anyone. It will simply be a neutral meeting and a gradual coming together. And if life is really so hard right now that you can't seem to remember how to do these things or don't believe that it's possible, then either a limiting perspective needs to change, or a limiting situation needs to change. Regardless, the current configuration is not working. Ponder that. Take appropriate action.
One person can't be everything for you. Needs have to be met through various areas of life, in various activities and various people. Putting all that pressure on one person to be everything you need is how relationships fall apart. Puting survival needs on another person because you can't do it for yourself creates co-dependence and eventually resentment. The key is for both people to learn those missing skills and meet those survival needs outside of a relationship, before they ever enter one. Entering a relationship as two independent, self-reliant people is how healthy relationships flourish in their integrity. And even within the relationship, both people should have lives that are a balance between their separate realities and their time together. The opposite is when someone feels they owe someone something in the relationship.
When two people are joined at the hip constantly, it a sign of co-dependence because one or both people are reliant on the constant life line to get a need met. But the obvious problem is, physical boundaries prevent us from really absorbing these by merely being in another's presence. We can perhaps learn some things from them if we really want to, but ultimately we have to do the self-development in order to build those traits within ourselves.
Signs that a relationship is co-dependent and operating on insecure attachment:
1) Moves very fast, intense, and gets very deep very quickly.
2) One or both people don't seem to have a life outside of the relationship. Other friendships, hobbies and activities take a back seat.
3) Honesty and authenticity are overshadowed by fear of rejection because one or both people feel they have something to personally lose if they make a wrong move.
4) Personal responsibility and accountability are challenging in the areas where "feeding" is taking place for survival needs.
3) Anxiety or depression upon separation, or the suggestion of time apart for personal alone time.
4) Excessive giving or taking in specific areas. (These are the survival needs being sought after.)
5) One or both people feeling drained, exhausted and burned out. Usually one person more than the other, especially in narcissistic/empath dynamics, but sometimes it can be both.
6) The breakup is overly messy, devastating and confusing. The sense of personal loss is extreme and irreconcilable.
7) There is revolving door contact after the relationship ends, but without progression. (Those needs trying to be met.)
8) Long-term obsessive thoughts about the former partner. Difficulty returning to default reality as a single person. (Once you figure out how to provide those survival needs for yourself, you won't think of the ex-partner as much.)
One important thing to distinguish is that there are normal, healthy, human needs. It's normal to want a relationship. It's normal to have healthy relationship conflicts. It's normal to be sad and grieve when a relationship ends. Humans are social beings and most of us can't do everything for ourselves all the time. The difference is that with secure attachment, you have a default, stable, individualized reality for you to return to once the relationship ends. With insecure attachment, your life feels like it is in shambles without the other person there, and you feel like you won't survive without them in a really distressing, life-threatening way. Secure attachment is far more likely to lead to amicable separations based on mutuality. It tends to follow a more normal grieving period. The fallout from relationships based on insecure attachment can linger for years and require longer term recovery, even therapy.
When you develop skills to meet your own needs, the unhealthy cord will be broken.
For instance, when Anthony ditched you on Christmas, he knew how important having a positive Christmas would be for you. But he resented you and wanted to lash out. You didn't do anything wrong, but he felt guilty and ashamed of himself for being inauthentic in order to get a need met. He was rebelling against himself as much as you. He spent months feeling that he owed you a relationship because of everything you did to help him. Either you gave him that impression subtlely, or he gave himself that impression. Either way, he had to delude himself into believing something that was impossible was possible because he desperately needed something from life that he thought he could get from you -- healing and resolution.
You provided him with healing, which was part of your life function, but you also pursued him for a relationship even after he said he didn't want a boyfriend. You were a pursuer, but you were also offering him healing that he needed. That cornered him into trying to convince himself he could be your boyfriend in order to get what he needed. You interpreted this as he really wanted to be with you, even though you knew you were also saving his life with your healing abilities. There was a conflict of interest. You both really needed something and therefore weren't seeing the reality of incompatibility on the romantic level.
You needed a loving relationship, no matter how deluded, to re-set your broken heart from so much disappointment. In the end, your heart got more broken, and you got sick from giving too much. You had to give him what he wanted - healing - in order for him to not ditch you. He felt he had to give you the relationship you wanted so you wouldn't ditch him. You were both operating on insecure attachment.
What compounded the problem further was the amount of euphoric drug use you two did together over the course of many months, creating artificial chemical bonds that weren't there. This reinforced the delusion that a real relationship was happening. The relationship probably would've crumbled a lot sooner without drug use. Recall your reluctance to do MDMA again, after you had abstained for over 2 years? You did it because he really wanted to and, in order to get what you needed from the relationship, you obliged. You were desperate to feel positive in life, to have fun and magical experiences, to be in love because life had been so intensely unloving and your self-esteem was so battered after what happened in Nelson, after your GI started collapsing in 2013, and after your sexual assault in April 2014. Speaking of Nelson... your attachment to Rhiannon was also co-dependent. When she left Vancouver your guts tore in half over trying to decide whether or not to chase after her. That's because you felt your survival was tied to her.
All of this is a reflection of old parent/child dynamics... what needs were and weren't fulfilled by your parents, and what they did or did not teach you about self-resiliency and providing for yourself in the world. How you get fed, on all levels, are values passed on to children. So is how you digest life. The extreme stress you have been experiencing about people coming and going from your life, and not being sure if life is really safe, are all because of your challenges with building a solid foundation for you, by you. Say hello to a big part of the reason why you have a GI condition. You haven't been feeding yourself, and in the process of trying to survive you have taken on toxic people and situations in order to get what you need, resulting in indigestible circumstances and absorbing other people's crap. You have taken on what isn't yours as an unintended consequence of feeling you needed to sift through another person's life in order to get fed. It doesn't have to be this way. Everything you need, you can get without entering into complex intertwined relationships. Life can be simple.
Having a need that you believe you can't fill or manifest by yourself, and that can only be found "out there" somewhere, in another person, in another travel location, in _____, is a belief that leaves you vulnerable. It makes you beholden to something outside of yourself to survive.
The key to solving this is to find out what you think it is you can't get for yourself, that you've been trying to get from your relationships, and work hard to build those skills and resolutions within you. For instance, Anthony offered a loving relationship, business strategies, he enjoyed traveling, he was an artist and very creative, and magical. You were attracted to all those things in him because you wanted to learn about how to make them part of your world. But how can you even be attracted to those things and recognize them in him, if you don't already have them within you? The lesson here, is learning to be rooted in yourself, in being able to provide for yourself, in knowing that you have the means to really do this, and if not the means then the ability to track down the means, or the knowledge, or the workshop -- whatever it is. You are worthy and capable.
Anything that you think you need from someone else in order to survive is something you need to work on acquiring under your own skill, determination, and fortitude. And if you don't know how, then ask for help, find out how, learn the skills. That's how you become 100% secure in yourself so that in your next relationship, nobody will be forcing themselves upon anyone. It will simply be a neutral meeting and a gradual coming together. And if life is really so hard right now that you can't seem to remember how to do these things or don't believe that it's possible, then either a limiting perspective needs to change, or a limiting situation needs to change. Regardless, the current configuration is not working. Ponder that. Take appropriate action.
One person can't be everything for you. Needs have to be met through various areas of life, in various activities and various people. Putting all that pressure on one person to be everything you need is how relationships fall apart. Puting survival needs on another person because you can't do it for yourself creates co-dependence and eventually resentment. The key is for both people to learn those missing skills and meet those survival needs outside of a relationship, before they ever enter one. Entering a relationship as two independent, self-reliant people is how healthy relationships flourish in their integrity. And even within the relationship, both people should have lives that are a balance between their separate realities and their time together. The opposite is when someone feels they owe someone something in the relationship.
When two people are joined at the hip constantly, it a sign of co-dependence because one or both people are reliant on the constant life line to get a need met. But the obvious problem is, physical boundaries prevent us from really absorbing these by merely being in another's presence. We can perhaps learn some things from them if we really want to, but ultimately we have to do the self-development in order to build those traits within ourselves.
Signs that a relationship is co-dependent and operating on insecure attachment:
1) Moves very fast, intense, and gets very deep very quickly.
2) One or both people don't seem to have a life outside of the relationship. Other friendships, hobbies and activities take a back seat.
3) Honesty and authenticity are overshadowed by fear of rejection because one or both people feel they have something to personally lose if they make a wrong move.
4) Personal responsibility and accountability are challenging in the areas where "feeding" is taking place for survival needs.
3) Anxiety or depression upon separation, or the suggestion of time apart for personal alone time.
4) Excessive giving or taking in specific areas. (These are the survival needs being sought after.)
5) One or both people feeling drained, exhausted and burned out. Usually one person more than the other, especially in narcissistic/empath dynamics, but sometimes it can be both.
6) The breakup is overly messy, devastating and confusing. The sense of personal loss is extreme and irreconcilable.
7) There is revolving door contact after the relationship ends, but without progression. (Those needs trying to be met.)
8) Long-term obsessive thoughts about the former partner. Difficulty returning to default reality as a single person. (Once you figure out how to provide those survival needs for yourself, you won't think of the ex-partner as much.)
One important thing to distinguish is that there are normal, healthy, human needs. It's normal to want a relationship. It's normal to have healthy relationship conflicts. It's normal to be sad and grieve when a relationship ends. Humans are social beings and most of us can't do everything for ourselves all the time. The difference is that with secure attachment, you have a default, stable, individualized reality for you to return to once the relationship ends. With insecure attachment, your life feels like it is in shambles without the other person there, and you feel like you won't survive without them in a really distressing, life-threatening way. Secure attachment is far more likely to lead to amicable separations based on mutuality. It tends to follow a more normal grieving period. The fallout from relationships based on insecure attachment can linger for years and require longer term recovery, even therapy.
When you develop skills to meet your own needs, the unhealthy cord will be broken.