Hello, my name is Carmen and I am a co-dependent

In actuality, Carmen, is my pseudonym so that I can maintain personal anonymity and preserve the anonymity of those whose lives are intertwined with and intersect mine. For the purpose of this blog and for my process I am going to do my very best to not use any information that may identify any person in my life.

I am a forty-something woman with adult children and a young child at home. I live with my primary co-dependent qualifier and have been in a very long-term, toxically co-dependent relationship with him for over fifteen years. My co-dependency and this relationship have greatly impacted my adult children and contributed to strained and difficult relationships between them and myself.

There are many factors in my decision to continue the relationship. My reasons are my own and I am not here to rationalize, defend, justify, excuse, or explain this decision to anyone. I have decided that the issues that are present in this relationship will be present in any relationship I pursue with anyone, whether it is a platonic friendship or a romantic one, because the underlying patterns of thought, ingrained behavioral responses, and chaotic emotional reactions will go with me into any relationship I engage in.

Therefore, regardless of how challenging or difficult it is, I am committed to working through my recovery within the context of my existing relationship my my qualifier and other people in my life.

In addition to the co-dependency, I experience untreated mental and physical health conditions which have symptoms that play into and are exacerbated by the co-dependency. Again, these may be factors but are not the focus of this blog, so I will do my best to refrain from writing about them.

This is my effort to get and stay focused in a structured and disciplined way on the recovery process and not tell other people’s stories or allow myself to get bogged down in the details, to the point I just stay stuck in my muck.

Thank you for visiting and joining me on this journey of healing and recovery from co-dependence.