It is still a process for me, integrating all the lessons, some not yet learned, some partially learned, some learned...

One of the hardest things I learned in life was to say NO. Learning to say no is a good boundary. I am grateful to myself for saying NO to a relationship which was causing me such deep emotional pain. Letting go is a lesson I have learned somewhat in the past, and am still learning from this last relationship. Sometimes saying no means letting go, too. Luckily I am not the center of the universe, and letting go of someone is not depriving them of Life and Love. It is just moving on when I could not help them, and they could not help me.

I had a narcissistic and abusive lover in my past that I lived with for three years. I didn't have a label for it at the time, but looking back I believe that would be a good assessment. Anyhow, as painful as that relationship was, I loved him so much, and it was SO hard to leave him and let go. I remember my last days living with him, giving myself a constant mantra to repeat as I made my plans to exit, "I am not helping him; he is not helping me. I am not helping him; he is not helping me; I am not helping him; he is not helping me." It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life, if not the hardest. I grieved for months, feeling deep feelings of regret and failure -- failure, somehow, as a person. And yet time finally healed me, and I still look back to those days, now decades in my past, and see it as one of the biggest favors I ever did for myself.

I think one reason this last relationship, with a co-dependent, was so painful to me was because I saw myself -- my past self -- so very much in him. And yet I was helpless to pull him out of it. Helpless to even get him to come out of total denial of his co-dependency.

It still hurts and it is hard to have closure while my heart still bleeds. I know it will take some time, some healing and with it the silver lining of learning, and once again experiencing that what does not kill me will make me, somehow, make me stronger.

Hugs,
Michele