Learning not to enable others is so difficult when you grew up thinking enabling meant love. That sticking by someone, no matter how drunk, or mean, or cruel, that was how you showed love. Devoting yourself. Despite the bruises, the holes in the walls, the sore throats from screaming or strangling, the blood spilled or hair pulled or the vicious name calling that sometimes hurt more than any of it. Forgiving them, even when you know they'll do it again. Forgiving them even though they never said sorry.
You never fully let go of the feeling that you're being cruel. Even if you only said no. Even if you know saying no is the kinder thing. No, you can't have my pills. No, I can't give you a ride because you wrecked your car again. No, I won't listen to you about your horrible relationships anymore. No, I can't fix your life again, just for you to turn around and hate me for it.
Saying no, because no matter how much love you gave them, they still don't love themselves, and none of it mattered. Even though it's hard, you have to say no regardless.
I've learned on my own that not giving every ounce of myself away is okay. That is just what normal people do. And to do so, to give myself away, is part of the dysfunction. That doing so fed my own ego, which is a hard pill to swallow. But abusers simply cannot exist without enablers, and that is a fatal truth.
Taking responsibility for my part in things allowed me to better myself, to exit the cycle permanently. To finally find peace in life. I was only a victim if I allowed myself to be. I no longer put up with cheating boyfriends, or mean 'friends', or addicts. Undoing two decades' worth of conditioning is never an easy task, and I'm still doing it. But I'm on my way, every day since. For over ten years now, I've been slowly healing.
It takes saying, "I've had enough." I've had enough of being sad, of being hurt, of being mistreated, of saving people. And standing on that.
There are people who will truly love you instead. Who won't take advantage. Choose them. And choose you.
