When in a friendship that has grown too strong, when in a relationship that you're heavily invested in, when in parenthood that's revolving around the kids too much and when in a working atmosphere that's too demanding to be thinking about yourself - you tend to lose touch with your individuality; or even worse, you create false individuality. You tend to become someone you are not, or never envisioned to be.
We all have been there where it seems impossible to chalk out what kind of people we'd want to be; and where to go from here.
There are many signs that your body, mind and conscience will give that will be screaming how necessary it is now to get away from the 'codependency'.
Codependency* is the state of mind and relationship you have with someone, where you are absolutely dependent on their validation, their moods, their approval, their plans and their affection. Anything that's 'yours' alone goes for a toss. I have been there more than once in life and I know precisely when the body and mind need you to pull the plug and focus on yourself.
When I say pull the plug, it's not to mean that you have to detach yourself from them and cut them off. It simply means you have to force yourself to be first and them to be probably third. You'd have to separate them out of you, and vice versa in almost all the spheres of life. That could be tough.
Let's just talk about when it's time for you to pull the plug, and how to identify them:
"I am just disappointed in myself that I acted that way"
The first time I said that, I was really disappointed because that's not how I usually react or talk or behave. The second time I caught myself saying that, I felt it was weird because it's not my second nature to be like that. It caused me great discomfort in knowing that I did not hold control on my own behaviour. The third time I caught myself saying that, I was really frustrated and angry at myself. It became a pattern that I caught myself saying this way too many times. It's because I was masking my identity with false identity to win over the approval of the other person. It's because I genuinely lost sight of my true 'identity'*.
A feeling of constant anger, helplessness and frustration
When I am not happy with myself and the way I have been living my life out, my body is going to be in a constant state of restlessness. There will be pent up anger, there will be triggers* and there will be a sense of helplessness as I think I am losing control over life as a whole. Though that's not true, I'm going to be way miserable than I'd imagine or be prepared for, because there is no direction of my own as of now.
You have no mood of your own own
Apart from being in a state of restlessness, I am completely driven by someone else's mood and state of mind. I am happy because they are happy. I am sad because they are sad. I am anxious because they have suddenly withdrawn. I am excited because they have something exciting coming up in their life. There's nothing of my own when it comes to mood and state of mind.
Waxing and waning my priorities according to their availability
The moment I recognise this happening, my heart genuinely skips a beat. It's worse because you are now not only not prioritising the important tasks, you are prioritising someone else's tasks over you. I'm not saying it's always bad, I am just saying I have a life of my own and I have chosen (sometimes unwillingly) to put that aside based on someone else's calendar availability. We sometimes call it 'compromise', but I think when compromising because unwilling, uncontrollable and way too often - it might mean you've created your identity over someone else's identity.
I am my true self when they are away (or when I am alone)
I am someone who likes my alone-time a lot. I crave to be alone a lot more than an average woman probably. But having said that, if I am looking forward to my 'me time' just so that I could unmask myself and be my true self, it's a red signal right there. It's a 'STOP' signal. Of course nobody should be living that way, but more so - nobody should be choosing to not do anything about it! If you notice yourself wanting everyone else around you to vanish just so that you can be your unfiltered self - this means you are living a life that's on a false pretext.
Physical health has deteriorated even though my lifestyle isn't that bad now
Lifestyles change all the time and we keep switching our priorities every now and then, that's pretty much understood. But if you have the same or similar lifestyle as before, yet you end up thinking you were better off then than now, it's a signal that you need to carve out your individuality with compassion and love, so that you end up loving yourself a little more than now.
There's a thin line between 'valuing others' and 'devaluing ourselves'. Often, we blur the lines and end up devaluing ourselves even when that's not the intention.
Something that I tell myself a lot these days, is "There's one life and if I am on the deathbed tomorrow, I don't want to regret it living on other's terms".
*: There are some terms with asterisks over them. They are deep and heavy words that shouldn't and can't be just used anywhere and everywhere, in my honest opinion. In a separate post, I intend on writing about these terms as well, as to what I think about them and why they matter so much in my dictionary.
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