By the end of my overly emotional phase with Camry, which, unlike with Joey lasted under a year , the only question I had was: “Why did I keep pursing an obvious dead end??? What about a dead-end relationship interested me so?”

It alarmed me that I became so anxious because I couldn’t control the situation, I couldn’t completely READ Camry because the script he sold me was filled with half-truths already. There was literally no way to “get” through to him. I had NO bread crumbs to follow. But my need for control, where did that defense come from? I’d grown up on movie sets where everything was definitely controlled, minute to minute. I knew how to gauge what was going to happen next. I enjoyed that security. So, this was one of the first times I’d been in a situation where I felt threatened by the lack of control and forced to be . . . VULNERABLE.

Though Camry had his own issues, he wasn’t like Joey, who fed into my ways in a codependent sense. Camry did not feed into my ways because he simply didn’t need me. The unhealthy hierarchy in my relationship with Joey made things easy. I never fully had to BE vulnerable because I ultimately was always in control. Camry was selfish but also totally clear on how much of himself he was willing to give, which made my anxiety and need for control more paramount. It was literally moment to moment with Camry, which I liked but also hated because it brought my weaknesses to the forefront. With Joey I learned I had a hero complex. I was compelled to make everything all right in his world. With Camry, I learned I’d been controlling all my past relationships. Even though Camry was telling me we were closer than his actions displayed, it was ultimately me who was sticking around for it. It was me who was allowing myself to only exist in this space. . . . Why did I need to know Camry’s every move? Why did I stay even though it was causing me such grief? Why was I choosing to take everything so personal with Camry when even I didn’t want a relationship? Was I taking this rejection because for once I was finding someone I couldn’t control with my bank account? Oh no. I wasn’t liking seeing that truth about myself. It really disappointed me.

Those realizations caused me to switch gears and focus on why I had such a need to control, learning how to let go of the need to always know what was next. I hated that I allowed Camry’s inconsistency to disrupt my sense of peace, so I promised to look deeper inside for the answer to why my peace was so easily disrupted. I also vowed to work on accepting every outcome while still being fearless in going after whatever it was my heart desired.

During my time on Broadway, I knew that there was something with me that needed to be addressed. My anxiety, why I had it, where the mechanism originated. . . . So many questions that at first I had no idea how to ask. While in New York I did a lot of personal work. I spent more time looking around me than in my phone, and I spent a lot of time reading about spiritual practices and other people’s peace-finding journeys. I spent more time with my mom, and I think those new memories healed a lot of past pain. My friendship with Jamie showed me how important and valuable a relationship with your mother can be. Jamie and her mom were very close. I admired that and invested time to develop that with my mother while in New York. Of course I didn’t change overnight, I think it’s good to be constantly under construction, but I will say I felt different by the end of my living there.

Once I came back from vacation after Broadway, I slowly started talking to Camry again. First it was platonic and then it was more romantic. This time it felt different. I found myself still feeling like I loved him, but I was not as fazed by his inconsistency. I hated that we developed this walking-on-eggshells type of vibe. I wanted him to know that I wasn’t trying to make him my boyfriend. I wasn’t caught up in trying to control my feelings with a label anymore. I finally saw beyond that.

I wanted Camry to know that who I was before in the relationship wasn’t me (the true me). It was the manifestation of the behaviors I was using to cope with other personal things. It was part of uncovering the layers of myself on the journey to finding myself, #IMNOTCRAZYIPROMISE, lol. I stopped judging myself because I knew that I wasn’t the “crazy girl” or “the girl who didn’t realize when a guy wasn’t into her.” But the fear of becoming those “things” and my need to control caused me to react in ways I didn’t like.

I didn’t make up his back-and-forth behavior or his inconsistencies, but I now understood that was his problem for not knowing what he wanted, just as much as it was my problem for not realizing that caring about people is always a risk. #ESPECIALLYIFTHEYARENTREADY.

I wasn’t a little girl anymore and the boyfriend and girlfriend stuff was a different ball game as an adult. I was a girl who was going through a lot: a girl who was afraid to look at herself, so she threw herself into anybody and everybody else’s problems so that she wouldn’t have to focus on her own.

It wasn’t my job to be aware of Camry’s flaws, but it was my job to be aware of mine. #BOTTOMLINE.

It was all about my growth, and in a lot of ways, I wanted to see if all of the self-work I’d done on myself during my time away on Broadway had helped. So I kinda tested it a bit.

Around this time, I’d just filmed the pilot for Scream Queens, and I decided to go to Camry’s house for the Super Bowl. When I got there, I noticed his ex-girlfriend was there. Now the old me probably would have left or acted out, but this time, I just chilled. I chose to watch the situation and see how it played out instead of reacting hastily.

All I did was enjoy the party and monitor my feelings, and what I noticed was that I didn’t really feel any sadness at all. I was content in accepting the situation as it was. Camry was my friend, not my boyfriend, and the ex was his ex not mine, which equals not my concern. I didn’t try to label my feelings or the situation, I just observed. I now knew I had the option to choose the way I wished to react, and I chose to not be affected by things that don’t concern me. My days of finding out just how cool I could keep it were just around the corner . . .

WE BRING OUR PAST INTO OUR RELATIONSHIPS

Though Camry and I continued to hang out, we still weren’t “together.” I needed more, I suppose, and more came along. While working in the studio I met Sammy. He is an amazing musician and writer and so dramatic, hahaha. I thought he was really weird-looking at first. He had that look of “I’m gonna kill everyone at my school” mixed with a Spanish pimp/rapper style. It sounds crazy but I felt it was bold and really unique.

He’s of mixed race, black and Thai. He had shaved sides with a man bun, about six-two, with a beginner’s beer belly and a bunch of tattoos and piercings. He had at least three piercings on his face, and I remember looking at him and thinking, Wow, you’re interesting! He had the look of someone trying to look scary to throw off onlookers, lol. Though they didn’t look anything alike, his wearing the mask of toughness reminded me of my dad, who once told me that he initially started drinking to see if it would toughen him up and not be such a pushover when it came to the ladies, lol.

I watched Sammy as he drank his third beer and thought: You intrigue me, but I don’t think I find you attractive. Hahaha!

You know how you do that sometimes when you see someone who is really different and ask yourself, Am I attracted to you? LOL. The first day we worked together, I thought Sammy was cool, but we didn’t get anything done. At the time, he had written one of the most popular pop records on the radio, and it was a song I really liked. The next day when I got to the studio, he waited outside while the producer played me what they’d recorded after I’d left the night before.

OMG!! I LOOOOOVED it! It was spunky and chill at the same time. I literally thought he was the coolest person ever. After that we started working together a lot. I could tell that he really liked me, but I felt that his defensive nature made him become very aggressive toward me in conversation at times. One night we got into a hot texting match and it was such a sign that we weren’t that compatible because we hadn’t even kissed yet, lmfao!

But there he was trying to force me to think the way he did, and I found it to be just really annoying and sexist and I let him know it. The next thing I knew, he was opening up to me about how hard he had had it, and how he’d been homeless because no one supported his dreams and how his success was ultimately scary to him. In so many words, he was trying to express WHY he was so difficult. As another human, I related to that so deeply and respected his vulnerability. He told me how hard it was for him to find happiness and to relate to others truly but that he felt something exciting with me. He felt a chemistry that was hard to find and that if I didn’t feel it too, then he’d leave me alone.

That triggered so many good and bad things in me—it was the hero complex. I felt a need to save him now (as if that’s something anyone is capable of, people change their lives when THEY want to). I had not yet created any boundaries on what I was responsible for and who I am responsible to.

CODEPENDENCY

Sammy had kept me up all night playing me like a violin, lol, and I felt so sympathetic toward him—but also like a drug fiend, except a codependent fiend, looking for an opportunity to over-help someone to the point of being a disservice to them. The next day I didn’t really want to see him, but I had to because we had a session. The whole day he was annoying me, he flirted kind of like a child and that often meant picking on me and trying to contradict me. Then during the session, he started texting me—telling me how special I made him feel. Again, he was pushing those buttons, the ones that speak to my old, draining relational habits. The ones that are uncomfortably comfortable only because they are FAMILIAR. I don’t think he was faking it. I honestly think he felt we had a connection, but that doesn’t mean he or I was capable of being in a relationship, or a romantic one at that.

Relationships take vulnerability, accountability, trust, honesty, etc. Neither of us were capable of that. I was just starting to hold myself accountable for my life and I was looking for the same in the people in it. That’s one reason my relationships didn’t last. None of us wanted to take that responsibility for the part we played in it.

Sammy, for example, had drinking problems. His father told me he had over five DUIs. He didn’t want to be held accountable for his drinking, which hurt our relationship. He didn’t want to take responsibility for anything, it seemed, and only he knows when, where, and why that started. Still, Sammy and I connected through music. It was a song he wrote the night after our big fight, when I had to go to the studio the next day, that sealed the deal for me.

“Oh, I’d . . . Break . . . Rules . . . For . . . You . . . ’Cause ooh, You’d. Em. Brace. This. Fool.”

It brought tears to my eyes because we shared the language of love through music. That was his way of speaking to me through our shared passion. It was a way we related that was different from others I’d dated. That night we drove all the way from the studio, which was in Malibu, to where I was living with my parents in Pasadena (long drive) and when we got there, we stood outside for a few seconds before we kissed for what seemed like an eternity. In that moment I felt I had the greatest spark with Sammy.

He was so gifted, which was truly something I admired! He was relentless in trying to get me to like him. When he pressured me into sex, it should’ve been a red flag, but he kept introducing my favorite distractions, so all the signs were going unnoticed, which I’m sure were his own favorite distractions. Having sex can be a surefire way to undercut the road to intimacy-ville.

Though still focused on my creative work, I allowed Sammy to distract me on my personal work. He wasn’t assisting me on my road to recovery. He didn’t even ask enough questions to know how to do that; all he did was enable me with more of the same vices.

I found him to be quite insensitive, and the moment I’d bring it up he’d be begging me to just forgive him or let it go.

I really didn’t want to give him a chance; he was obsessive, but at the same time my ego was saying, “Wow, I have never had a guy that into me before!” I thought: OMG this was the difference, the ATTENTION! This guy REALLY likes me because, unlike Joey and Camry, he actually is obsessed with me and that’s why he’s trying so hard. #DUH. #THISISGREATRIGHT. THIS is exactly what I need, this is how I’m supposed to be treated, as an object of ego gratification.

SHEDDING THE BLINDERS

My relationship with Sammy, though my emotions were true, was again about my desire to live out the habits/trauma I experienced at home that I never came to terms with. Sammy was one of the final pieces to the puzzle of me realizing my relationship problems were my personal problems. They were the problems I kept running from, and any time I tried to get close to anyone they would rear their ugly heads. Or they would blind me to being able to correctly choose the kind of characters that I wanted in my life.

I had been doing some soul searching after Camry and Joey and knew I wasn’t really looking for a boyfriend, but I also knew I needed to experience life to keep growing. I didn’t want to shut myself off. But I also knew I was blind to certain aspects of Sammy because I was still looking through rose-colored glasses.

Like Camry and Joey, Sammy was emotionally unavailable, but for different reasons and with one shining reason—his drinking. This problem made me revisit similar feelings I hadn’t dealt with. Sometimes we form relationships that force us to confront the past.

Sammy’s drinking didn’t bother me, at first, because my ideas on drinking were always skewed. It didn’t occur to me that the healthy relationship I desired could not include problems with alcohol. My dad came from a drinking family and he and his brothers had a habit of over drinking at times. Same for his dad and same for my mom’s dad.