"If the most degraded version of Rayya was a low-bottom opioid and cocaine addict who became very manipulative and abusive and quite terrifying for me to live with, the lowest version of myself what I would call a sort of relapse in my life is an enabler who has no boundaries, who will do absolutely anything to be loved, who will pay for everything, who will just constantly try to be pleasing, who will allow herself to be abused."
"I get so swept up in somebody that I actually kind of lose my brains and wake up similar to the way that a black-out alcoholic would wake up months later and be like, 'Oh my god, what just happened to my life?'"
"Both of us, it turns out, later we would find out, were secretly in love with each other and had slowly fallen in love with each over a decade and a half of friendship,"
Elizabeth Gilbert identifies as a "love addict" and a "blackout codependent," describing a pattern of losing herself in intense attachments. She developed a deep friendship with Rayya Elias that, over fifteen years, became mutual love after Elias received a terminal pancreatic and liver cancer diagnosis. Gilbert left her husband to be with Elias. Elias had a prior heroin and cocaine addiction and relapsed as her illness progressed. Gilbert became an enabler, paying and placating, which created a collision of their rock bottoms and revealed Gilbert's lack of boundaries and tolerance for abuse.
Read at www.npr.org
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