Emotional Availability Begins With Me
“I do not recognize the unavailability of those people to whom I am attracted.” Patterns and Characteristics of Codependence Manual For most of my life I was attracted to people who were completely unavailable—emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. I could walk into a room filled with people and make a beeline for the neediest person present. Somehow I was always attracted to the perpetual victim or martyr; to the person whose life was so messed-up, who had no hope of it getting better, and who—in truth—didn’t want their life to get better. All they wanted was someone to help them stay stuck in their misery: Me. Today I can look back and blame all of those perpetual victims I chose to rescue (quite unsuccessfully, by the way); or I can take responsibility for my own failed behavior—after all, none of those people begged me to fix them. I jumped in with both feet and took it upon myself to become their savior. And so today I choose to take personal responsibility for my o...