"What do YOU like or want?" A question that exposes damage...

I have stated before that I have had many THOUSANDS of hours of therapy over the last 23 years.
I was quite disappointed to learn that, while I HAVE made some strides...the core issue remains.... or PERHAPS the more accurate statement is that any strides I had made in this area have been obliterated.

23 years ago, my first real therapist asked me several questions...

"If you could travel any place in the world, where would you go?"
"If you could do anything that you wanted, what would it be?"
"What do you enjoy?"
"What do you consider fun?"

I sat looking at her without any answers. I could answer those questions about OTHERS. I knew what others (family members, my husband)  enjoyed. I knew their dreams and hopes. Looking inside, however, I could not tell her anything about ME.

I am not saying I NEVER enjoyed anything...I did, occasionally, enjoy an activity or a task. This enjoyment was always "accidental". For example, about 10 years ago, I discovered that I was very good at party planning. On several occasions I planned, catered and hosted several large scale parties in my home.

The thing is, I always did this for another reason. Because I was ASKED to by my, then, husband....or for business contacts..etc etc. Never once did I just decide that I wanted to throw a party and then do so.

I will state that this is NOT a problem that began in my abusive marriage...and I do NOT believe it is an issue of "Depression". I have EXPERIENCED major depression and I believe I know the difference. Medications did help me when I was actually "depressed"...but medications cannot cure some things.

Medication cannot cure the fact that, in many ways, I do not exist at all. For whatever reason, even as a child, I was so concerned with focusing on OTHERS that I never allowed myself to do anything else. I became a caretaker...a codependent. I had started to work on this when I came upon the ultimate "project"...the EK. For 18 years I lived FOR HIM and THROUGH him and (if I HAD started to build a "self") all progress on "me" was blown away.

At FIRST, his HAPPINESS was my only goal and concern. Over the years it evolved into a, much less pleasant, "his satisfaction was my only goal and concern" and then, over the last years, it became a nightmare of "keeping him from being angry was my only goal and concern".

Unlike the times of my childhood, when I simply wanted to please other people...when I was trying to gain their love and approval (which I did not FEEL I had but that I likely already had most of the time)...
In those last years it was no longer trying to please, it was a matter of PROTECTION from the consequences of NOT pleasing him. Consequences paid by my children and myself continually over many years.  NOTHING pleased him but not because I did not try.

So, now, I have been asked the question again "What do you want?""What do you enjoy?""What do you do that is fun?"

Rather than being closer to an answer than I was 23 years ago...I am even further in the dark.
When I was asked that 23 years ago, I TRULY felt that there MUST be someone inside me with dreams and hopes...with desires and preferences...and that I WOULD find her.

Now, after living the way I have lived for so VERY LONG I have come to doubt that. The behavior that the young me used in an effort to secure acceptance and approval has now become much more malignant.

It has become my defense and my protection against abuse, It seems that I am truly incapable of doing ANYTHING without a REASON.

I have been away from the EK for 3 years. I no longer live for him. But I still function only for a reason.

I function, I work, I go through daily life, I BREATHE, for my children. While this may seem altruistic,  it is truly not. Perhaps, at one time, I thought it was. I see now that it isn't. I love them dearly but in many ways, they are my "life support". Their NEED for me keeps me functional and alive.

Soon, they will be grown up and gone. I WANT that for them. I WANT them to be happy and have a wonderful life. I am not disturbed enough (unlike others I know) to try to keep them tied to me forever so that I will have a reason to go on. THAT I will never allow myself to do.

Still, I wonder, what REASON I will find to function when they no longer need me. What is going to happen when I truly have "No reason to get up in the morning"

That is not their problem and I never intend to make it their problem. This problem is within me. At this point, I am unsure that it can be changed.

I find the phrase "I just have to make it until they are adults" coming up in my mind and in my conversation very frequently.

Why? Because in my world, this is like the "Mayan Calendar Countdown". The day on which my reason for existence will come to an end...when I am no longer "essential" and I become "useless". I am very aware that they love me and that this will not end when they reach adulthood...but THAT is not the issue.

Because even in the midst of that terrible time when my main function was simply to PROTECT them from as much psychological abuse as possible...it gave me a function and a reason to go through daily life. A GOAL to try to help them NOT become what he was OR what I was. Neither a machine designed only to TAKE... OR a machine designed only to GIVE.

Because that is what I see myself as. A machine that functions only because I am NEEDED...only when I have a reason to...only as long as someone is there to function FOR.

THAT is not altruism...it is not martyrdom...it is not self-sacrifice or devotion or love.

It is emptiness. It is lack of self-purpose. It is a life lived out of self guilt. It is a life where personal desires, personal preferences, enjoyment and pleasure are immaterial and have never been considered or explored. THIS is not "sacrifice for the people I love" but rather "living only to meet a need"

It is an emptiness that has NEVER been any different than it is right now. This is not new.

I am not suicidal and that would never be an option or a consideration for me.

Because that IS the case, I do not know what will happen when the day comes that I wake up and realize that I no longer have an "excuse" to function. If I have no reason to live and no desire to die... what will remain?

When I was diagnosed with cancer a while back I truly thought that this was the answer I had been given. I would survive and continue until my "assigned function" was complete and then I would cease to exist. That is not a decision for me to make.

Whether that can be changed for me, after over a half-century of living this way, I do not know.

I guess that remains to be seen. I am trying to change it but how do you change something so ingrained?

and, meanwhile, the countdown continues....