My Ego Dilemma

This conclusion has been months in the working. Nine months ago was when Steven and I broke up and I feel no more healed from the damage to my self than I did nine months ago. For the last half of our relationship he started remaking me. He told me flat out that I was heavily flawed, but he thought he saw some potential in me, so he was going to stick it out and make me what I should be. I was a disappointment to him. I was less intelligent than him. I was less talented than him. I was less emotionally supportive than him. I was inferior. Every time we had an argument he had to be right. There was never any agreeing to disagree. There was Steven's opinion, and there was wrong. That's all that he knew to exist in the world. I didn't believe that I was so incredibly...wrong...at first. But he made any disagreement something that we needed to break up over unless I could manage to "see the light". I thought it would be a complete idiotic waste of good companionship to break up over the stupid shit that he wanted to break up over, so I always just told him that he was right and that I was wrong and that I was sorry and that I didn't know how to change my opinions. That made me a project for him. I was something that malfunctioned and he was going to fix it.

I became terrified of talking in front of him. I couldn't contribute to a conversation unless he already knew the information that I was going to contribute, because if I said something that made him look wrong in front of other people then I was rude and mean for embarrassing him like that.

I couldn't do or say or want anything that wasn't preemptively Steven approved. I became very dependent on him. He got annoyed at how much I asked him to make decisions with me. But I was incapable of making the right ones on my own.

Nine months after I finally told him that I had to be me, I don't know who me is anymore. When he and I were dating I stopped listening to my music, or all music for that matter. My music sucked and he didn't like me for appreciating 'unartistic' music. I stopped blogging because he said I needed to work on my short stories more and make something out of them. I stopped doing puzzles because he thought it was a useless pastime. I stopped watching tv because that was useless too. I stopped reading because Steven didn't like reading for long periods of time and the fact that I did like it annoyed him. I stopped doing anything. He wanted me to learn soccer, guitar, and skateboarding. I was to take those hobbies seriously and become skillful at them. All three of those things were something I liked doing, but at my own pace. He made them into work for me because he wanted me to be skilled at them, when I was a noobie at them and just wanted to have fun with them.

The final conclusion: I have no functioning ego. The things I enjoy these days are eating and other such primal needs. I am very lazy and selfish. This is from my id. I feel guilty about never calling or visiting my mom, about putting off my homework, about being too lazy to cook most of the time. This sense of what I should be doing and the guilt that comes from not doing so are from my superego. But I have no part of me that makes me do the things I feel I should do, which would be my ego. The part of me that drives me to make conscious decisions to take care of business is stunted. I blow off my mom all the time even though I feel bad about it because my id just doesn't want to deal with her. Or with homework. Or cooking. Or exercising. And I feel like a bad an irresponsible person for not doing all of those things. But I don't want to, and I don't. I don't know what I like doing, and I don't do what I don't like doing.

I'm only perpetuating this with my attachment to my new boyfriend now too. In no way does he treat me that way that Steven did. But he doesn't need to. I just stay with him as often as possible so that he can effectively choose what I do and don't do. I get anxious and nervous when I know that I'll be spending my spare time without him. I don't know how to be me anymore.

I think the only place I can start is by spending more time alone. I hate the idea of it. But I've lost me. And I won't find me in anybody else but me.