Reading the above book upon recommendation from a good friend. The following excerpt is me, to a T. It's freaky.

"I barely had an adolescence before I had my first boyfriend, and I have consistently had a boy or a man (sometimes both) in my life ever since I was 15 years old. That was--oh, let's see--about 19 years ago, now. That's almost two solid decades I have been entwined in some kind of drama with some kind of guy. Each overlapping the next, with never so much as a week's breather in between. And I can't help but think that's been something of a liability on my path to maturity. Moreover, I have boundary issues with men. Or maybe that's not fair to say. To have issues with boundaries, one must have the boundaries in the first place, right? But I disappear into the person I love. I am the permeable membrane. If I love you, you can have everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family, my dog, my dog's money, my dog's time--everything. If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain. I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated yourslef and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all of this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else. I do not relay these facts about myself with pride, but this is how it's always been. "

--Elizabeth Gilbert


The question is, how to escape this cycle. How to for once, live for me.