I found this quote from Reviving Ophelia, and it was such a perfect description of the descent into codependence that I had to share it with you all:

“The story of Ophelia, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, shows the destructive forces that affect young women. As a girl, Ophelia is happy and free, but with adolescence she loses herself. When she falls in love with Hamlet, she lives only for his approval. She has no inner direction; rather she struggles to meet the demands of Hamlet and her father. Her value is determined utterly by their approval. Ophelia is torn apart by her efforts to please. When Hamlet spurns her because she is an obedient daughter, she goes mad with grief. Dressed in elegant clothes that weigh her down, she drowns in a stream filled with flowers.”

I read the book years ago on the recommendation of one of my first therapists when I was dealing with my own battle with substance abuse and depression, and revisiting that excerpt from the introduction makes me want to go find my old copy and read it again. It’s written in vignettes, recounting the stories of several young women who explain the critical incidents that made them lose themselves. I am trying to remember what made me lose myself.

Or I’m not trying to remember…in many ways, the story of my life has been trying to forget. I’ve been distracting myself from the painful truths of my childhood: sexual abuse, physical abuse, and verbal abuse. I gave up using drugs as a means of numbing out the stories, the scenes, the images that float back up in the foreground, and I thought that cutting off the self-destructive behavior would fix me. It didn’t work, though…I’ve joked at my Nar-Anon meetings before that once I stopped doing drugs, I started doing addicts. Even though I’m clean now, I perpetually involve myself with the madness that accompanies addiction through relationships, and it has continued to serve the same purpose in my life…if I keep the focus on whoever is self-destructing in my presence, I don’t have to put the focus back on me. I don’t have to talk about the things that hurt. I don’ t have to do the hard work of excavating myself from the wreck.

I’m learning, though, that although it’s hard, hard, hard work to get to the other side of these experiences, it’s worth it. I’m getting close enough now to see my own self waving at me on the other shore…