Detox

I was talking to a friend the other day, explaining my maniacal laughing episode, and he gave me an idea that I like very much to describe what I'm going through:

I'm detoxing.

Once, the ex tried to get off his cocktail of medications cold turkey and I spent three days with him in the hospital as his body detoxed off of all the chemicals. He had cold sweats, stomach cramps, pain everywhere. It was the longest three days of both our lives up to that point. That is what is happening to me. I am emotionally detoxing. It hurts and I'm having reactions, but defining it as detoxing puts things in perspective. I understand it better.

For the last ten years, I have been an addict. I have been emotionally addicted to my drug of choice: him. He controlled my everything, what I did, where I went, how I lived my life and who I was. I gave him this power willingly. He was my husband. He was my other half. He was my everything and I wanted him to be happy so I could be happy, but that only works in healthy relationships. We were toxic. We fed each other's unhealthy. Even when I tried to be independent, I always had a plan B. If he was supposed to care for the kids or fulfill a responsibility, I always had a plan B. Nine times out of ten, I used my plan B. He behaved the way I expected him to behave and I lived to his expectations in doing and being everything for both of us.

I really don't resent him. He truly doesn't want to be that person, but doesn't know how to be anyone else. The couple of times he has realized what he is and does, it has rocked him to his core and he has worked so hard to change. He is not a bad man with bad intentions, just a sick man who refuses to acknowledge the depth of his disease. He was and is as addicted to me as I was to him. We danced a poisonous dance of codependency for so long, trying to match the others' steps, never managing to be on the same beat, and all the while just dragging each other farther and farther down into hell.

That was melodramatic.

Looking back, that's what it looks like, though. We both fought so hard to make it work, to heal, to rescue each other, but were both so unhealthy it only got worse and worse and worse. Now we are both free to truly heal. He does not see this yet, but he will if he chooses. That is not my responsibility, however. I will work to understand and heal me and assist our children in their understanding and healing.

Eventually, the poison will leave me forever, and all will be well. I know this, because I know me, and if there's one thing I am terrible at, it's giving up.