on codependence and intervention

My dreams are hazed in shadows and shades of darkness. It’s inevitable. I’ve seen her lose herself so many times. And I can never do anything about it. Sometimes I try to beg and plead. Sometimes I’m angry enough to try to kill her, because by some twisted, horrible logic I seem to think it’s merciful. Sometimes I have the balls to chew her out for it. Sometimes I never talk to her again.

Sometimes she says she does it all for me. But does she really? Does she really know what’s best for me, especially when she’s slipped away near completely? Sometimes she pretends everything is normal, and pretends that I don’t know. But she knows better, she knows I’m upset, she knows it’s hard to look at her. Sometimes it was just inevitable either way, whether by fate or by the wills of some outside force, and all I can do about it is try to call her back. But I never can.

And sometimes she’s too far gone to care. I’m left there, alone, to deal with it without anyone because she’s the only one I’ve got, in those dreams. Where am I then? Back to being a scared little kid who can’t handle everything on my own. Back to contemplating suicide because when that happens, I have no one. If I’m lucky, I have Jackdaw to turn to. Or at least one friend, or someone. Some kind of buffer. Someone to talk to, someone to help me through, help me be independent of her.

But what happens when they’re not there? Despair. Anger. The shell of some codependent cunt who wasn’t even able to cope on her own. When I wake up from these dreams I feel absolutely worthless. The fates who take her and drag her through the blackness forget that I’m shackled to her wrist and that they swallowed the key long ago. Or maybe they just don’t care. Or maybe I was the key the whole time and I’m too weak to break the bond. Or maybe by breaking that bond, it’ll just make her worse.

No one should ever think I’m not aware of this. I know how broken I am. I know how dependent they are on her. Just because I’ve learned how to live here, doesn’t mean I have there. I do still love her. I would be devastated if I lost her that way, or any way. But sometimes it feels like our stories clash in a way that only wounds the both of us. Hers is a story of darkness and trying to do what she thinks is right for the world at large and seeking immortality, no matter what the cost. And mine is a story of a mentally ill piece of shit who tries to keep together what she knows and fails.

I wish I could tell them it’s okay to let her work things out on her own. I wish I could say that it’s fine to step back and let her burn out or succeed without desperately trying to interfere. I wish I could tell them it’ll get better. But I’m here, and they’re all out there across the yawning void. And frankly, I know myself. I know that in most of these cases, my rational thought has ceased for one reason or another. Psychotic breaks, depression, mind control, you name it. It doesn’t stop me wanting to try. I think this version of me is probably the best suited to it.

Maybe someday these visions of myself will learn to let it be. I know enough here to not worry, to leave it alone unless she’s in grave danger, or about to do something that’s going to get her permanently and inevitably destroyed. I wish I could share that with them. But that’s not something I have the ability to do.

I think maybe I’ll just lay here instead.