You might hear me say these words at a 12 step meeting. What they mean is that I have problems in the way I relate to others, other than just those you might expect from reading the other pages at this site.
Codependency is where one seeks validation through others, in relationships and so on. Sex and Love Addiction is where one seeks validation through sex. It was so easy for me in the past to keep the focus off myself by thinking "if only I'm in a relationship I'll be OK" or "if only I have sexual intercourse I'll be OK". Neither was true, but both became obsessions to me at various times of my life.
I had some serious problems when I was young. Firstly I was epileptic. I didn't know how to deal with this. In hindsight it's easy to see that this is merely a physical handicap and one that shouldn't have much effect on me, but it did. I felt I was a monster, really different from the other kids in some very basic and horrifying way. The second problem was one of being gender dysphoric. This meant that though I am male, my gender was/is that of a girl/woman.
For a child, these are pretty tough things to have together, as they really separate and isolate oneself from other people. I guess I couldn't cope too well. I had any number of illnesses when I was young, and was rather solitary. When I was 11 my parents sent me to a psychiatrist after finding me talking to myself on the front patio (I was trying to sort something out). I was just so totally scared that I just wasn't honest with them at all. I told the psych what I thought they wanted to hear. I was afraid that if I showed too much individuality or deviance that I'd get either doped up (like I had for epilepsy) or put away in some mental institute.
So I didn't face the issues I needed to back then, wasn't honest with other people or myself about all the important stuff, because it seemed too terrible to face. I was just so obsessed with "proving" myself, being "normal", and being "OK", without really knowing what either meant. I didn't lose my virginity until I was 26 and then I had a nervous breakdown afterwards when it became obvious that it didn't make me a better person, and that it still didn't make me a man.
I'd been obsessed with sex and so totally afraid of it too. I was afraid of intimacy because for me it could be hugely devastating if things went "wrong".
Off to a psych again. This time I was still no more honest with them either. Why should I be -- I'd been sent there by work. After six months I stopped going, but did return to work. It wasn't until I was 30 that I left home. Within the space of a month I had a new job, a new home, and a girlfriend. I thought all my christmases had come at once!
Finally I thought, with a girlfriend, I could prove that I was OK, that I was a man. But it proved neither, only that I was OK. The thing was that because I couldn't share this stuff with anybody else, it just couldn't get resolved. So I tried to please my partner as best I could, be the person I thought my family expected me to be, and get on with it.
Only it didn't work, because I was hurting bad inside, hurting over issues that I was in denial about and which I couldn't face but still felt. We broke up after a while. I gained another girlfriend on the way. This one was transsexual as well. I was still fronting as a man at the time. Apart from anything else, she provided me with a relationship to hide in, and way of exploring my gender issues without personally doing anything about it.
Eventually that relationship failed too, after I'd financed her operation and it failed. The stress was immense, and she went into psyche wards several times. And I collapsed once again, because I couldn't rescue or save her, couldn't be there for her at all. Then one night we had an argument. She came out to being lesbian, and me to being transsexual. There was nothing left in the relationship and so we broke up.
Since then I haven't been in any sort of permanent relationship with anyone. I have however been involved in various 12 step programs, and this has helped me in my life. I'm "OK" if I make myself OK, not through the medium of other people. This means building up a relationship with myself before having one with another person. One reason I'm currently single. It's a clearer way of being for me.
And sex? Well in one way or another I've been obsessed about this. When however I got it straight (without any romantic or emotional framework) I couldn't cope with it, so I'm celibate too, for my own good. This is easy to do at the moment, when my sex drive at the lowest it's ever been.
Serenity Prayer
(Sheridan)
God, give me the strength
to endure the things I cannot
change,
the courage to change the things I
can,
and the wisdom to know the
difference.