In early May Sharon lend me her copy of “I Don’t Want to be Alone: For Men and Women Who Want to Heal Addictive Relationships” by John Lee. She had found the book to very helpful. I read some of it and put it down. At the time it was because I was tired and needed to try and get some sleep, but over the next few weeks seeing the book sitting on the shelf started to nag at me. I told myself that I was too busy to pick it up and last week I gave the book back.
Now that the book is gone, I understand why it was nagging me. I stopped reading it because it was making me uncomfortable. I had been approaching the book from Sharon’s perspective, trying to see and understand how and why the book resonated with her. You get no insight when you read that way because you’ve already made a judgment that taints your ability to experience the lessons yourself. But, as is the way with thought fragments, enough of what was being read made it in and started to make me feel uncomfortable.
And I remember thinking when I was reading it that I could see myself in each of the characters to some degree. Unfortunately, I wasn’t reading the book backwards so any identification with the characters meant that I was relating to them as they were before they uncovered and solved their problems. Oh oh! Better put that book down Pat, if you don’t you’re soon going to find out that you don’t want to be alone; and frankly, are terrified of it. Fortunately Sharon had finished the book and was able to coach me towards having the experiences I needed in order to see this fact.
I fall in love quickly and completely. It is a poets love, consuming, passionate, intense and, sadly, codependent. And as a poet in love, I write and I broadcast out the state of being in love because that’s helps me to feel things. Some of the stuff is great, some of it is good, but most of it is just words typed out to allow me to experience a happy emotion that I think I should share with someone. If these efforts are liked, I do them more until they stop being liked and then become annoying. But I perceive the change in receptiveness as someone checking-out and, since I’m terrified about the prospect of being alone, fear grows, taints my thoughts, and things breakdown rapidly. I’m not fighting for a relationship, I’m fighting for what I feel is my entire identity.
It isn’t a good way to live. Fortunately, Sharon saw it quickly and did what was needed for me to feel the rapid breakdown and identify why it was happening. Now the challenge, addressing the codependency issues that I have been unconsciously expressed for most of my adult life and to move my life to a point were I can want a partner in my life but not need them in order to function. That is my next journey, and I really do owe finally finding the path to Sharon. Thank you Sharon!