Nonbinary and codependent

[Trinity]

How do you cope with being nb/T and codependency?

Me....not very well...

[Trinity]

Well that one didn't go anywhere lol

[koiandras]

Personally, I couldn't have a co-dependent relationship. I like my space way too much and prefer to have companionable independence with a partner, where we work as a team and enjoy quality time with each other, but follow our own pursuits and dreams. Admittedly, that does mean co-ordinating if there's an impact on the other.

[Trinity]

Nov 4, 2021 16:42:19 GMT 8 koiandras said:

Personally, I couldn't have a co-dependent relationship. I like my space way too much and prefer to have companionable independence with a partner, where we work as a team and enjoy quality time with each other, but follow our own pursuits and dreams. Admittedly, that does mean co-ordinating if there's an impact on the other.

I become attached and enmeshed with those I love, and also have difficulties with people pleasing and coping mechs that have long outlived their usefulness.

This probably came about having an alcoholic family in the 60's and 70's, and because you could not tell if I was boy or girl when I was young, born nonbinary visually, I evolved these acts and presentations to survive the extreme bullying.

So, it became a problem, and integrated into my gender coping skills and presentations.  It was extremely destructive and still can be if I am not on my game.

[Leena]

I've never really been in a committed relationship. I didn't really like the boyfriend role, and couldn't imagine myself being a husband. I'm still exploring just what I'm looking for now, but a co-dependent relationship isn't it.

[koiandras]

Nov 4, 2021 19:52:12 GMT 8 Trinity said:

I become attached and enmeshed with those I love, and also have difficulties with people pleasing and coping mechs that have long outlived their usefulness.

I get that. I grew up with a father who was disabled and in a lot of pain. So, he had anger management issues too. I ended up constantly being watchful for the signs he was going to lose his temper and avoided doing anything to set him off. It took me going to uni at the other end of the country before I started to gain some sense of independence, making choices for myself. It took him getting counselling to get past his anger and for us to work through things together.

It helped that my ex (who I was with from age 19 to 31) is a very independent person who won't do anything he doesn't want to do and won't tell you what he thinks you should do if he thinks you're relying on him to make the decision for you. If it's for advice/input, no problem. I think having that kind of person in my life was just what I needed to help me extricate myself from this habit of worrying about approval from my father. I think that it's a good insight to have that we develop these coping mechanisms that cease to be useful. Of course, the hard part is uprooting them!

[Ativan Prescribed]

I've had several intense relationships, but never at a level of codependence, the serious one was very demanding and that ruined it, demand shit from me and good luck getting it.
I grew up in a large family as one of the middles, parents to intent on keeping the older ones out of trouble socially and too intent on keeping the younger ones safe, so really just so long as I wasn't in too much trouble and relatively safe, I was good to go.
I mean it was at the point that when I was 15 yrs old I just didn't come home or call or contact the family for 4 days and nights, just hung out at friends houses, not a problem, came home and asked my mom if she even cared and she said she did but trusted me.
I pretty much was always in the mix of causing trouble and yet took care of it myself most of the time, even talked my way out of jail, and watched others getting caught for pulling crap and learned how to not get caught, so...
When I was 20 yrs old I took a job in central america doing nefarious things, but because I had the ability to fly commercial and use the military transport system for free by just using my ID, DOJ issued, I was back and forth and nobody knew what I was up to.
This was mainly because I had several circles of friends and I was away from each of them hanging with the others so nobody really said anything if I wasn't around for even months at a time, I just hung out and it was pretty much as if I had always been hanging out.
It was a life changing few years of roaming the countryside, being involved in drug interdiction, trying to take care of earthquake victims and defying the local govts as much as possible, lots of hell raising stuff and lots of death and horrors of living in countries run by dictators.
I had a transgender girl friend who was a university student and came from money enough to support her tranness, it was like a perfect fit for us, both totally independent and neither of us interfered with each others lives, but being together was certainly special times for us.
Coming bacj up here I went to college and majored in a couple things, got into R&D tech stuff, developed some pretty wild for the times stuff, inadvertently involved with DARPA development that totally soured me on doing the tech stuff for a few years, so became a sound engineer for roving bands.
That was having to be totally independent because I really knew nobody and had to rely on my wits and experiences to cope with all the sex drugs and rock and roll, some serious stories.
But the fun never ends, some hair raising things here and there, death defying stunts because I could and still lots of friends but nobody could pin me down, there was good money and lots of things to do, like living as a mountain man in a teepee doing the blackpowder thing for 5-6 months.
Hanging off a 3/8" steel cable with another person recovering a motorcycle that had gone over the cliff, a west turn on HWY 1 near the Bixby Bridge in CA, hanging about a hundred feet down and still a couple hundred feet above the waves crashing on the boulders below, good times.
That was during the living in silicon valley before it was called that, up the hill from Moffet airport where the dirigible hangers are, awesome buildings, look them up, tons of people have used them for some weird stuff, even the Eagles used them for recording some stuff and a good place to practice in.
Life is meant to be lived and not just watched, I'm done recovering from titanium plate and screws holding my arm back together after a wild spill longboarding at 64 yrs old, a little too fast and a little too steep and trying out a new setting for the trucks on it.
Wobble, like total out from under me wobble.
I have survived several times of certain death, declared dead a couple times, and yes getting paddled hurts, and thinking this is the time, looking to my left at my constant companion death and asking if this is it and not getting an answer, I take that as a going to make it, and life is what you make it, you can let life happen to you or you can make a life yourself, you decide and thats what not being codependent is, live for yourself and let everyone else live for themselves, help when you can and just keep on going, don't have a life that has no stories to tell.
Pay attention to the path in front of you and make your own decisions on where to step forward, but by all means do it, make mistakes and fuck it up, but keep stepping forward because the bullshit is gaining on you, stay a step or two ahead of death and be happy, regardless.

[Ativan Prescribed]

Everyone needs to own a motorcycle at least once, go skydiving at least once, see just how fast your car can really go at least once, go cliff climbing at least once, but really if you want to be happy, take it to the limit as much as you can, and go past the limit when the time is right.
There are more possible things you can do than you can imagine, so look for the possibilities and take them.

[Trinity]

Childhood stuff can really mess you up, it messed me up and in some ways it still does.

The codependency in me is deep rooted, sometimes I overcome it and sometimes I don't. When I do its good.

The one time my wife chased me with a rolling pin was when I came home in the minivan with a racekart in the back. That was a lot of fun though, and I did race the kart a year on the pro level, and I've raced my street now vintage camaro on the high banked oval, one was a 3/8 mile and one a 1/2 mile, melted all four tires on two races.

Had a bike, loved it and I'd get one again if I could, family hates it, I love it, if I got ornery enough I'd go get one again.

Had the guts to do the dreams, transition, theater in NY, went far with it, been through crazy stuff too, stalkings, kids in psyche wards due to the stalker and one other guy that probably is in hell now, molester that we didn't know about until the kids were adults but he wound up with a stroke and in bed in diapers, things can catch up to people and should.

So I"ve done a lot of big time things, but the hardest thing for me has to do with love, and the fear of losing that, and the childhood stuff plays into that, the intense bullying and the faggot calling every day. I got stronger but I went over the edge in a sense long ago.

Too much traumatic stuff, crap I had to take the wife and kids and hide in an attic, a certain group went after us, my wife is west indian and some people think they have the right to come after you if you are in a mixed race marriage.

So gunshots over the house and we left in the middle of the night and holed up in an attic in NY, had to sell the house, driven out of two of them.

And forget about the stuff with trans and all the bs there.

But living it all out in NY and pursuiing the dream was worth it, and I grew from it, I was up there to help with my grandson, bad situation and was there to help and did, but living sh'e and up for the starring roles on broadway and working with the stars, I got to live the dream for a while.

Its harder when you are older and the wife isn't well, hard when there are anxiety disorders in the home, staying untangled and all that, finding the balance.

I keep learning. Its better than it was but I needed help and am in recovery in a twelve step program for this sort of thing.

Been on the ropes the last few years from just hard luck stuff and business, hurricane Irma nailed us and we never actually financially recovered from that.

But its been good.

I love racing. Just glad to have had all the fun, and I have enough toys in the house to play music the rest of my life, read the library I have for the rest of my life too, just an abundance of things, and my kids are close by too.

Plus helping raise the grandson and not hiding that I am trans, its just the normal for him.

Seeing through the dependencies and the enabling is the trick of it for me, awareness is how it begins, not giving away peices of who you are to please someone else is big, I did that, I regret it.