Susan's Story

I grew up in an unhappy household. My parents argued and fought angrily all the time. There were a couple of violent outbursts from my father who punched a hole in the wall rather thanpunch my mother. And a car door that was slammed shut on my sister's finger. I have few memories of my early years only the most painful. I remember crying myself to sleep praying my parents would get divorced but they never did.

My early adult life left me socially awkward and I was promiscuous in my twenties until I met the man I was to marry at age 27. We had an on again off again relationship for many years. There were problems I was always trying to fix. We did lots of therapy, I always thought I could fix things, make him man I wanted as the father for the child we were planning to have.

Of course I was never able to do that but I did go on to have that child. That baby became the catalyst for my recovery. The love from my child was so healing to my soul that I was able to do for her what I was unable to do for myself, leave my marriage. I recreated my unhappy childhood and understood if I didn’t get out of my marriage there was a pretty good chance she would do the same. That is what led me to CoDA.

My CoDA recovery began with one small task, to attend meetings without crying. For about three months all I did was cry. I cried buckets before I was able to speak to anyone or share my story. When the tears finally stopped and I was able to put the focus onto myself and positive change began. For a while I was just figuring out who I was because I lost myself to codependency. Unfortunately it was two steps forward and one step backward.

I resorted to old bad habits and used sex to feel good about myself. While I am not proud of what I did it was the beginning of the end of my marriage which was the best thing that ever happened.

It’s been a long road but I now have a well adjusted child who has a good chance at healthy relationships. I haven’t found anyone to share my life with but I remain hopeful one day I’ll meet that person.

That’s it, my story. Nothing too exciting to read but living it is different. The happiness I feel now as my own person was worth every moment of the journey and I thank my kid to whom I owe everything.

Susan 4/28/15

You can review previous 2015 readings here: http://codependents.org/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/connections/

And older readings here: http://connections.coda.org/index.cfm/categories/

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