this is awesome, but i think includes a common misunderstanding around the term "co-dependency" which I think should be framed less around "needing someone else" and more around abandoning your own self, needs, boundaries, for another person's needs/comfort. There is such a thing as co-dependency that is truly toxic and I have soooo struggled with it. Its about insecurity, about needing to feel "needed" because you don't know unconditional love, its about control. My mantra that I have to always remind myself in my battle against co-dependency is: "Before I am your daughter, your sister, your aunt, niece, or cousin, I am my own person, and I will not set fire to myself to keep you warm.". That's what it feels like — sacrificing yourself and losing yourself in another person... not just needing them, but needing them to be ok/happy at your own expense.
oh, yes, i just meant that's how it's used in pop culture, but you're right, it's a very specific unhealthy relationship dynamic. thank you for sharing this, its very clarifying!
Wow. Wowowowowowow. Since I first moved out of my parents' house, I've had this negative conception of myself for not being able to take care of myself when I'm left alone. One day alone can be a heavenly recharge. Any more than that and I fall apart real quick. I'm 36 and I've never lived alone, nor wanted to. After college, I intentionally sought out a house with a co-op vibe where we all cooked together most nights, and since then have always lived with romantic partners - for a couple of months, I even lived with an ex as a roommate and moved a new partner in at the same time. I have also always fantasized about living multigenerationally. I would love to live with my dad and stepmom, but they seem to think I'm joking whenever I bring it up. Like they can't believe I could possibly want that.
It's wild now to have read this essay and realize that I thought of myself as sort of pitiful and incompetent for so strongly needing to live with others. I internally framed it as needing eyes on me all the time so that I wouldn't shame myself with my worst behavior.
And all of this despite the fact that I have a strong academic interest in economies of care! I was holding simultaneously the intellectual knowledge of the importance of care, and the emotional knowledge of being pathetic for needing it on a personal, daily level.
Thank you for this reframing. I'll be thinking about it for a long time.
this is THE best.. being able to depend on others is how we survive and it's fucked that we get caught up in the sigma grindset lol. every term with even a modicum of meaning gets watered down beyond recognition ('toxic' comes to mind) and with how easily available information is now, people have concinved themselves AND others that if you camt be independent, you're not strong. 0/10 would not recommend being alone tho !!
I really appreciate this sentiment and it feels so resonant right now. This is something that I have felt pretty consistent shame about as someone who hasn't been single for more than a few months since I was an adolescent, and who has been privy to my own flavors of U-Hauling along the way. While I sometimes flirt with a romanticized idea of living alone (i.e. going at it on my own, aggressively enjoying my own company, making the thousands of small daily decisions that people seem to like making on their own like what to eat or listen to or watch), I think it feels more imposed than internally desired - people who live alone get to be stronger, more self-sufficient, less reliant on the support (both given and received) of cohabitation.
I think there are conflicting narratives here, of course - it's also socially and economically rewarded to live with a partner, at least kind of, by some people (like my parents, when I was married and feigning some sort of false heterosexuality as a trans masculine person with a cis woman, following the model that my mom and dad had to follow as actual straight people with middle- and working-class religious parents of their own). But I feel timid sometimes telling other people in my own demographics that I spend most (as in, nearly all) of my nights at my partner's house, that I haven't taken this moment of major upheaval in my life to Eat Pray Love my independent way through. Don't get me wrong, I can recognize when I'm using things to distract myself from other things, and I know that relationships of any sort can do this covering up. I also know that all relationships are important and that it can be painful and isolating to enmesh with one other person intensively, and that tends to happen more noticeably with monogamous romantic relationships (side note, but, I wonder if I would feel like sense of timidness if instead of living with a partner, I was living with a close friend). But when I imagine living by myself, even with the most impressive motivation to reach out to friends and put myself out in the world, I see myself being pretty sick - maybe enjoying the highlight moments of leaving the house, while also struggling immensely to do so and folding into a pit of myself because of all of it - the social and the lack of social.
I know there are things I could learn about living alone, and at this point in my life, yes - I would most likely survive it, given what I have learned about myself and the skills I've gained around building community. But I'm driven to be around people I love - sharing tasks, getting to feel pride (and external validation) when I do something that I know another person will appreciate, not exhausting myself with all the decisions available (most of which I'm largely neutral about), physically co-regulating, learning about listening and conflict and interdependence in real time. When I'm living with a partner I eat more regularly, take better care of my space, doom scroll less, practice "talking things out" more consistently (which helps me in all of my other relationships too, as an "internal processor"), and get inspired by the cool shit that my partner does and says and reads. I remember that I do, say, and read cool shit too, and get to have that reflected back to me even while I'm laying in bed and feeling too phone-bloated to imagine texting anyone. The world gets realer, and I get to feel realer through it - as a mammal, who needs others to survive and has since birth.
So! Thank you! And thank you to all the commenters too - helpful things to think about re: codependency and the nuances that exist around that.
as much as the “i love you i want us both to eat well” part of tumblr has its flaws...it’s genuinely hard for me to eat when i’m only cooking for myself! so they may have been on to something there.
this is awesome, but i think includes a common misunderstanding around the term "co-dependency" which I think should be framed less around "needing someone else" and more around abandoning your own self, needs, boundaries, for another person's needs/comfort. There is such a thing as co-dependency that is truly toxic and I have soooo struggled with it. Its about insecurity, about needing to feel "needed" because you don't know unconditional love, its about control. My mantra that I have to always remind myself in my battle against co-dependency is: "Before I am your daughter, your sister, your aunt, niece, or cousin, I am my own person, and I will not set fire to myself to keep you warm.". That's what it feels like — sacrificing yourself and losing yourself in another person... not just needing them, but needing them to be ok/happy at your own expense.
oh, yes, i just meant that's how it's used in pop culture, but you're right, it's a very specific unhealthy relationship dynamic. thank you for sharing this, its very clarifying!
Wow. Wowowowowowow. Since I first moved out of my parents' house, I've had this negative conception of myself for not being able to take care of myself when I'm left alone. One day alone can be a heavenly recharge. Any more than that and I fall apart real quick. I'm 36 and I've never lived alone, nor wanted to. After college, I intentionally sought out a house with a co-op vibe where we all cooked together most nights, and since then have always lived with romantic partners - for a couple of months, I even lived with an ex as a roommate and moved a new partner in at the same time. I have also always fantasized about living multigenerationally. I would love to live with my dad and stepmom, but they seem to think I'm joking whenever I bring it up. Like they can't believe I could possibly want that.
It's wild now to have read this essay and realize that I thought of myself as sort of pitiful and incompetent for so strongly needing to live with others. I internally framed it as needing eyes on me all the time so that I wouldn't shame myself with my worst behavior.
And all of this despite the fact that I have a strong academic interest in economies of care! I was holding simultaneously the intellectual knowledge of the importance of care, and the emotional knowledge of being pathetic for needing it on a personal, daily level.
Thank you for this reframing. I'll be thinking about it for a long time.
this is THE best.. being able to depend on others is how we survive and it's fucked that we get caught up in the sigma grindset lol. every term with even a modicum of meaning gets watered down beyond recognition ('toxic' comes to mind) and with how easily available information is now, people have concinved themselves AND others that if you camt be independent, you're not strong. 0/10 would not recommend being alone tho !!
I really appreciate this sentiment and it feels so resonant right now. This is something that I have felt pretty consistent shame about as someone who hasn't been single for more than a few months since I was an adolescent, and who has been privy to my own flavors of U-Hauling along the way. While I sometimes flirt with a romanticized idea of living alone (i.e. going at it on my own, aggressively enjoying my own company, making the thousands of small daily decisions that people seem to like making on their own like what to eat or listen to or watch), I think it feels more imposed than internally desired - people who live alone get to be stronger, more self-sufficient, less reliant on the support (both given and received) of cohabitation.
I think there are conflicting narratives here, of course - it's also socially and economically rewarded to live with a partner, at least kind of, by some people (like my parents, when I was married and feigning some sort of false heterosexuality as a trans masculine person with a cis woman, following the model that my mom and dad had to follow as actual straight people with middle- and working-class religious parents of their own). But I feel timid sometimes telling other people in my own demographics that I spend most (as in, nearly all) of my nights at my partner's house, that I haven't taken this moment of major upheaval in my life to Eat Pray Love my independent way through. Don't get me wrong, I can recognize when I'm using things to distract myself from other things, and I know that relationships of any sort can do this covering up. I also know that all relationships are important and that it can be painful and isolating to enmesh with one other person intensively, and that tends to happen more noticeably with monogamous romantic relationships (side note, but, I wonder if I would feel like sense of timidness if instead of living with a partner, I was living with a close friend). But when I imagine living by myself, even with the most impressive motivation to reach out to friends and put myself out in the world, I see myself being pretty sick - maybe enjoying the highlight moments of leaving the house, while also struggling immensely to do so and folding into a pit of myself because of all of it - the social and the lack of social.
I know there are things I could learn about living alone, and at this point in my life, yes - I would most likely survive it, given what I have learned about myself and the skills I've gained around building community. But I'm driven to be around people I love - sharing tasks, getting to feel pride (and external validation) when I do something that I know another person will appreciate, not exhausting myself with all the decisions available (most of which I'm largely neutral about), physically co-regulating, learning about listening and conflict and interdependence in real time. When I'm living with a partner I eat more regularly, take better care of my space, doom scroll less, practice "talking things out" more consistently (which helps me in all of my other relationships too, as an "internal processor"), and get inspired by the cool shit that my partner does and says and reads. I remember that I do, say, and read cool shit too, and get to have that reflected back to me even while I'm laying in bed and feeling too phone-bloated to imagine texting anyone. The world gets realer, and I get to feel realer through it - as a mammal, who needs others to survive and has since birth.
So! Thank you! And thank you to all the commenters too - helpful things to think about re: codependency and the nuances that exist around that.
This really speaks to me today <3 And every day, truly
as much as the “i love you i want us both to eat well” part of tumblr has its flaws...it’s genuinely hard for me to eat when i’m only cooking for myself! so they may have been on to something there.
This is so validating! But also, brb sending this to a friend who got told she was co-dependent after escaping an abusive relationship.