Hello, my name is Trevor and I’m an enabler and a co-dependent.

Like most inconvenient truths, it has taken me some time to realize this. I blame my mother. Not in a Maury Povich sort of way, mind you. The simple fact is she’s an enabler as well, and I’m my mother’s son. She’s married men who are not only addicts, but are utterly emotionally unavailable to her, and for this very reason I have avoided any serious attempts at dating for the past four years and counting. Because I’m the very same way.

My ex-boyfriend was a cocaine addict. I use the past tense only because he has been out of my life for nearly two years; even if he weren’t, I would have no way of verifying anything said to me. You see, he is also a narcissist — a self-addict. A house that lies built. And thus, he became my drug.

For this I can use present tense. Because pretty people who’ve grown up with wealth and readily available drugs seldom, if ever, change their stripes. Some even become president.

May of 2004 was a dark month for me. I turned my back on a full-tuition scholarship to the University of Colorado and an offer to TA the Music Theory Seminar because I was burned out and depressed; ironically, my decision to leave only exacerbated these feelings. To make matters worse, I was working in a third-tier bakery to make ends meet. At the same time, he was working as a server at the Olive Garden. I used to drive him to and from work nearly every day because he didn’t have a car, something I had done and would continue to do for many months. In fact, several of my students received their papers back with grease stains on more than one occasion since much of my grading was done alongside a bowl of pasta.

One day he told me he couldn’t make rent. So I went to the ATM and withdrew $700. Then it happened again the following month.

I am a food addict and a compulsive spender. These two addictions are lethal in combination, ever more when there is love in the mix. So we ate out. Every. Night. And every night I would pay. Even now I can’t fault him for this, because for years I have felt it necessary to buy the affection of my friends because my personal deficiencies were so overwhelming. I once spent $400 on my own birthday dinner for nine people, much to the genuine outrage of everyone in attendance who had been more than willing to pitch in, who hadn’t wished me to pay at all. So not only had I sunk myself further, it only succeeded in making everyone upset.

When I visited the ATM the second time, I was making $8 an hour and already $7000 in credit card debt. He said it was for rent, and I believed him. Again.

On the evening of June 2nd, 2004, he revealed to me that every penny I had given him for rent had gone up his nose — specifically, on the back of my toilet while I was in the other room. The reason why I know the exact date is because one of the three journal entries I wrote that year came directly after this announcement. So behold, an unbridged glimpse at the mind of a co-dependent:

“I feel lied to, but in reality that fact only increases my concern for him. Not pity. Never that. I simply feel as though he’s living his life like some damn contest, unable to meet his own goals, let alone the expectations of others, I know he’s in pain and I realize that no amount of breathy reassurances from me will do any good. I read somewhere that a silent witness is almost always more healing than words of advice, and I believe that. Two problems, though: I am anything but silent, and giving counsel is something I’m good at. Yet the truth remains — he has been through things I cannot even approximate, and any advice I may have would incite nothing but indignation. Here’s to hoping it is not arrogance to believe my presence is healing even in the slightest measure.”

There are a handful of moments in my life I regret, few more so than this one. I feel as though my life could have changed course the moment I kicked him out of my house and took him to court to get my money back. But I never did. I would continue to bankroll his addiction — on his word that he had quit — until nearly six months later when I found him on Pearl St. sky high on blow.

He refused to hold my hand in public. He refused to introduce me to his friends, let alone inform them of my very existence. He would lie about where he was headed and switch off his cell phone when he got there, then lie about that as well. And still I craved more, because neglect is like crack to us.

One day after I had paid his rent for the second month in a row, his grandmother sent him a check for $1000 to use on books and living expenses. He had me deposit it into my account and withdraw the money in cash “for tax reasons”, then proceeded to blow $300 of it at Ace Liquor. And I helped him shop.

I furnished his new apartment, the same one I had taken a day off work to clean as a surprise because it had gotten so messy. When he did come home, he left 10 minutes later because he had plans.

I broke up with him three times. And I took him back each time. Because I continued to believe him when he said he would kill to be with me. He would be awake for three days straight and still have the energy for me; he said it was because of me. And I believed it.

I no longer trust others, nor do I trust myself to be able to enter a healthy relationship. I do not feel positively toward my own gender, gay or otherwise. And to be fair, when I say it has been my decision not to pursue a relationship, it’s really more of the universe’s decision — I’ve just learned to make peace with it. Making peace is sort of the modus operandi of my life at the moment: with my career, with myself, but mainly with the parade of emotionally unavailable men that come into my life, then find someone they like more and disappear.

Filed by Trevor at 11:24 pm under Fightin' Words, Love