Irony

I was recently made aware that I probably had something akin to codependency buried closer to the root of all my issues-- one of the big signs of codependency being an extreme avoidance with showing certain emotions that could be perceived as weakness and covering up those emotions with things like anger, humor, or sarcasm. Which I find ironic and funny because that's me. Angry, sarcastic, and always trying to make a joke. I find it funny and ironic because I'm a psychology major who knows so many of the little ins and outs of the brain, the ways our neurotransmitters interact, the weird quirks and unreliabilities, and how fallible we all are. How broken we all are, holding ourselves up to these impossible standards. I'm usually able to spot my psychological problems a mile away-- except no, I'm not actually now that I think of it. I had a major depressive episode 4 years ago and I didn't even realize it until I slept through a midterm and had a panic attack because how could I sleep through a midterm this shouldn't be possible for me why don't i have any control over myself why is it that all i want to do is sleep.

Maybe it isn't ironic. I laughed, you know, when it was pointed out to me that I was probably codependent. I'm probably codependent because, hilariously, I'm very obviously codependent. I had a weird family situation growing up. I wouldn't say it was terrible. So many people have had it worse. I had food usually. I had love sort of. I literally lived in one of the safest neighborhoods in the nation (or, well, close to it at least). I had two parents who weren't always around for one reason or another and I had four younger siblings. Five kids is a lot for people to handle, especially when they aren't always around so I became parent number 3. Which was, frankly, a terrible idea because I was 4 years older than the next oldest child and 7 years older than the youngest so I wasn't exactly the picture of maturity when I was taking care of them. A lot of the time it was just the five of us in our house and in our lives so it was us against the world. Me, the fearless leader, and my lovable gaggle of goons. I love them. I love them so much, I would die for them. You hear that a lot, the whole "I'd die for you" schtick-- especially in music, but I don't think a lot of people really mean it when they say that. It's just a saying. I mean it quite literally, personally. Growing up, those kids were my responsibility and they were also my world. My friends would talk about fighting with their siblings and I'd struggle to imagine it. I'd watch sibling relationships on TV and I'd be completely baffled. So much hostility. How could you feel that way about your brothers and sisters? It just didn't make sense to me. Sure, my siblings and I fought but, it was never as cruel as other people seemed to be. I have this dream of having a steady income so I can afford a decent apartment to settle down in and be able to pamper a pet or two. Once I have this steady income and am settled, I can invite all my siblings, one at a time, to crash on my couch and live wherever I'm living for a little while. Let them experience the world outside of the safe, sprawling southern suburbia we grew up in. And then I'd get to watch them grow up again, find themselves, mature into young adults and we could go on stupid wacky, mundane adventures like some low budget sitcom on a streaming service. I can be this stepping stone for them to their next step in life so they can grow up happy.

I've struggled with mental health my whole life, although I didn't realize it until I left my home state to attend college two time zones and thousands of miles away. Even at my lowest, I've never contemplated self-harm, much less suicide. Because either of those things would render me unable to help my siblings if they needed me. Because they obviously would need me. They had to need me. How could I live if they didn't need me? I'm fairly certain the only time I'd ever need to be placed on suicide watch was if something happened to one of my siblings. 

I say all of this because this is so hilariously obvious. This is so obviously codependency and how did I miss this? I take graduate-level psychology courses for fun now because I finished all the degree requirements two years in. I'm so codependent I would literally die if anything happened to these kids-- my kids, who are rapidly becoming not-kids-anymore and that's terrifying to me-- and, like, no one noticed? I talk about them all the time. I literally pull out my google photos album of all of them every chance I get like an old man showing off the photos of his grandkids in his wallet at work so I can unload every little way that I love each of these dorks on people I've known for 45 minutes and just-- 

hahaha. It's so ironic how did I not notice? Did other people notice and just not say anything? 

I keep second-guessing myself. Do I actually know what codependency is? So what if I've taken classes about it and written essays on it? I should double-check the definition one more time. Maybe two more times. Actually, eight more times. Eight should be good. For now. There's this focus in the narrative of codependency about romantic relationships and, obviously, that isn't the problem for me. So maybe I'm not codependent and my relationship with my siblings is actually just fine and this huge burden of feeling like I'm constantly letting everyone down for not doing more, not being more is just

completely unrelated. 

The person who told me about my probably having codependency told me as much after I told him the only time I'd ever be worried about harming myself was if I did something to disappoint my siblings. I'd said something like, "I'd be emotionally devastated if I let down you. If I let down my mother or my aunt, I think I would curl up under a rock, crying, and be unresponsive for a couple months. My brothers, though? If something ever happened, well, that's when you'd need to place me on suicide watch." And then I laughed like it was a joke. Because it kind of was a joke, to me. One of those morbid ones that are funny because they're true. I can't remember whether or not he laughed.