2023 Week 9: Caffeine & Codependency

This week I have 3 things to report on: our upcoming trip, coffee deprivation experiment, and codependency.

UK trip updates

As you can see I am going through a sort of mania around the upcoming trip and have replaced all the regular books with UK-related books. This is a new thing for me. I've never bothered to do much planning (let alone history research!) around my previous holidays. But all of a sudden I find myself gripped by the idea of visiting the land of greats like David Hume and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

We have watched a zillion Rick Steves videos, which have given us a good idea of what we might like or dislike (example: Inverness and St Ives - DISLIKE) and have led to the following itinerary:

• 4 to 10 April - London
• 11 to 13 April - Settle-Carlisle railway
• 14 to 17 April - Lake District
• 18 to 21 April - Scottish Highlands (Fort William)
• 22 to 25 April - Edinburgh
• 26 to 27 April - Brighton (to see Stewart Lee)
• 28 April to 4 May - Cornwall!! (Truro & Penzance)
• 5 to 14 May - Southeast England (Kent)
• 15 to 22 May - Birmingham
• 23 to 24 May - Cardiff
• 25 to 31 May - London

We also got housesitters to stay here and take care of our pets!! So happy and relieved.

Having finished procuring my own gear, I have moved on to looking for clothes for Jon. While at my parents' place we found this ancient puffa jacket belonging to... no one.

Coffee deprivation experiment

I have been skipping my morning coffee for about a week+ (since Sat 25 Feb). The idea is to wean myself off coffee ahead of travelling. I had an awful time in the first half of our India trip because I couldn't get real coffee (and then a bad bout of heartburn when I caved into Starbucks and drank a litre of black). 

In the first 3 or 4 days the symptoms were mainly physical. It's more than sleepiness. It was like living life while on cold medication: I was shaky and unfocused, and words kept swimming in front of my eyes. I would not have felt comfortable operating heavy machinery!

Then we moved on to irritability. I don't think I'd snapped at Jon the way I did on day 5! Also noticed I get much more upset by annoying people at work. I did have coffee on 2 days this week and my mood on both days was fabulous. Don't think it's coincidental...

Am I codependent?

It's an embarrassing thing to publish, but I have long suspected I am codependent or have codependent tendencies. Meaning I get overly concerned with my partner's needs and feelings, and lose touch with my own.

It's not surprising given my family's dynamics. My dad, the parent I'm closest to, is very much the same. In times of marital distress, I've also had to play the mediator between my parents - a very damaging thing to do to a child. That first happened in maybe Primary 5 or 6. My average grade in school went from A to D and I spent most of the subsequent years hiding in my room listening to Nirvana.

The point isn't boo hoo intergenerational trauma but that I have to work to counter the instincts that I learned growing up. 

It's all too easy for me to revert to this "needs hierarchy" where I put Jon's above my own. Take something as simple as having eggs for breakfast. I have been claiming that I don't want any, thanks, when of course I do!!! but I feel less deserving of them. 

Like that saying, "an army marches on its stomach", feeding myself well seems the easiest way to make a difference to my morale. So I've been trying to do better on this front.