Codependency

[Perspective]

Hello.

I recently discovered that there is a name to what I've been dealing with for most of my life.  I am interested to know if anyone here has dealt or is dealing with codependency issues and what you find helpful in your journey of healing.

Sincerely,
Perspective

[gratitude28]

Hi Perspective,
I don't have insight into your situation (could you give a few more details?) but I wanted to say welcome and this is a great place to vent and ask questions.
Love, Beth

[WRITE]

welcome Perspective.

Don't have much to add except codependency is inevitable and something we all have to work on at some point.

[penelope]

hi perspective,

I don't know a lot about codependency, just what I've learned from my therapist.  I believe it was originally a term to describe one who was enabling an alcoholic.  Someone who aided in that person's survival, whilst giving up their own needs. 

Nowadays, of course, it is applied to lots more than those struggling with and enmeshed with or enabling an addict.  It could just as easily be applied to any of us who've been ensnared by an N at some point in our lives. 

One certain outcome of codependency would be voicelessness.

Please share more if you're able and you think it might help you.

hugs,
bean

[Hopalong]

Hi Perspective,
If you're female, Women Who Love Too Much addresses a lot of how and why "girls being good girls" can add up to codependency...and there are the Melody Beattie classics, though I'm ambivalent about her they did help a lot when I first grasped the concept.

I think overall I'd say the most important thing is not to focus on the CoD label, but on specific behaviors you can see in yourself that may have added up to you believing you aren't worthy of feeling:

calm
safe
interested in your own life
excited about your own growth and creativity (apart from anyone else)
healthy, well rested
engaged with friends you like and respect and who like and respect you
deserving of your own space and time, as much as you need to nourish yourself
balanced

Ask yourself, what choices do I make (reacting to, planning your life around, focusing on, thinking about someone else--other than parenting) -- that add up to me seeing myself as CoD?

Think about individual just-in-this-moment choices. Start observing yourself like a fly on the wall.

That's my off-the-top-of-my-head advice, which I hope doesn't fall too flat because I truly don't know enough about you to be helpful yet...but I hope there may be a crumb or two.

And welcome!

Hopalong

[Portia]

I liked the description below in Jac’s reply.

as an adult we keep reacting to the programming of our childhood and do not get our needs met - our emotional, mental, Spiritual, or physical needs.  Codependence allows us to survive physically but causes us to feel empty and dead inside.  Codependence is a defense system that causes us to wound ourselves.

The programming of some of my childhood was thus:

The messages I received were that: I was not wanted, I was tolerated. I felt like an intruder in the family, ignored some of the time, tolerated at other times. I was too questioning (this was bad and hurtful to others). I was responsible for other people’s feelings.

In retrospect, I was actually lied to by my caregivers, manipulated for their needs. One of them was quite controlling and paranoid; I developed similar ‘coping’ mechanisms.

I survived but emerged with a view that: the world would ignore or tolerate me, nothing more. To survive I must try and control my environment and those around me to a certain extent, and I must be constantly on my guard for others will be watching me, waiting for me to be ‘bad’. 

What have I found helpful?

Acting these things out here and being criticised for it! I’ve attempted to be controlling here, and I’ve been quite paranoid about the interactions here. What has helped me has been staying here and riding the roller-coaster of emotions that have come up.

I wouldn’t call it healing, I’d call it getting to know myself and accepting that I have behaved and thought in ways that aren’t healthy, or realistic. I’ve re-wired my thinking and feeling processes. Thoughts sometimes lead feelings: change thoughts and you change feelings.

Lots of times here I’ve thought: I was wrong. And that was good because suddenly I saw another way of looking at a situation, an interaction. I saw another’s point of view and realised that my view was skewed. I learned to laugh at my tangled brain-wiring. I looked carefully at how I got from A + B = C and found that the way I saw cause and effect was way off the normal scale (and not close to what happens in reality).

I learned that I make unrealistic or incorrect assumptions all the time. I assume other people’s motivations without checking with them, without asking. I’ve learned to ask questions and that it’s okay to question things (which was not allowed to me in childhood).

I learned I am not responsible for other people’s feelings. What freedom.

I learned to be interested in other people and in doing that, I found I wasn’t afraid of them any more. It’s taken a long time and lots of emotion and hard work, dedication to that work.


That may not be the description of co-dependency you were thinking of Perspective?

[Perspective]

Thanks for all your inputs.  Much appreciated.

The description that I once came across which I most can agree with is that it states codependency is the dysfunctional relationship with the self.  I could see how that is true in my life.

Here are some of the thinking patterns of CoD:
 
-I assume responsibility for others feelings and behaviors
-I feel guilty about others feelings ansd behaviors.
-I have difficulty identifying what I am feeling.
-I am afraid of my anger, yet sometimes erupt in a rage
-I worry how others may resond to my feelings, opinions, and behavior.
-I have difficulty making decisions.
-I am afraid of being hurt and/or rejected by others.
-I minimize, alter or deny how I truly feel.
-I am very sensitive to how others are feeling and feel the same.
-I am afraid to express differing opinions or feelings.
-I value others opinions and feelings more than my own.
-I put other people's needs and desires before mine.
-I am embarrassed to receive recogniyon and praise, or gifts.
-I judge everything I think, say or do harshly, as never "good enough".
-I am perfectionistic.
-I am extremely loyal, remainig in harmful situations too long.
-I do not ask others to meet my needs or desires.
-I do not perceive myself as a loveable and worthwhile person.
-I compromise my own values and integrity to avoid rejection or others anger.

THE TEN TRAITS OF A CODEPENDENT:

1.  The codependent is driven by one or more compulsions.
2.  The codependent is bound and often tormented by the way things were in the dysfunctional family of origin.
3.  The codependent's sefl-esteem (and, frequently, maturity) is very low.
4.  A codependent is certain his or her happiness hinges on others.
5.  conversely, a codenpendent feels inordinately responsible for others.
6.  The codependent's relationship with a spouse or significant other persn is marred by a damaging, ustable lack of balance between dependence and independence.
7.  the codependent is a master of denial and repression.
8.  the codepedent worries about things he or she can't change and may well try to change them.
9.  A codepedent's life is puctuated by extremes.
10.  A codependent is constantly looking for the something that is missing or lacking in life.

[pennyplant]

Wow, Perspective, I am about 95% of these.  Or at least have been most of my life.  It takes awhile to chip away at it.  It's amazing how many ways these same characteristics can express themselves in different people and in different situations.  I wonder if I know anybody at all who is less susceptible to co-dependency.  Maybe a very few people.  I think I'm from a co-dependent town!

Pennyplant

[Hopalong]

Portia,
I am blown away by your learning.
No WONDER you're so quizzical. I love your rat-a-tat questions and now feel I understand even better why you sometimes express your connecting that way. When I imagine a little Portia, trotting around with her excellent brain and peppering adults with question after question, I feel delight. In reality, I feel so sad (and pissed) that they weren't wise enough to appreciate what a treasure of a bright and open mind was in their midst.

I think you're powerfully honest and open and just...amazing.

Perspective,
What a huge start. I think one of the hard things is to feeling staggered by how well one "fits" it. And like PP, I think we all live in CoD towns. A big part of that, imo, is how the culture trains women to be nurturing, and when nurturing gets out of control without a balancing respect for the self, it all gets twisted into dysfunction, such as CoD. During the first feminist rebellion, there was a pendulum reaction (Open the door for me and I'll smack you, you chauvinist!). That's the natural way social change starts, in fury and "eruption". Then it evolves. One of the joys of my 40s and 50s has been to reclaim my basic love of nurturing others but to elevate myself to equal importance--not in each moment, but in the overall curve of my life. (Well, lots of folks might debate whether I really got that earlier since I moved in with a very demanding mother...but I think I've got it now!) Other than the vulnerable (young, old, frail) -- I think it's good to care for another, especially a mate, out of a sense of voluntary delight. As in, this delights me (if not in the short term, then because I see it as building a way of relating that I believe in) ... to care for you.

Hops

[movinon]

Welcome Perspective -

I love what's been shared so far.

THere is a wonderful 12-step organization that deals specifically with codependancy called CODA.

http://www.codependents.org/

The two most well-known authors on the topic are Pia Mellody (Facing Co-dependancy) and Mellody Beattie (Codependent no more).

Both books are excellent, but I found being amongst others with the same issues made the healing go faster and gave me increased understanding.

Good luck!

Movinon

[movinon]

S & S

I would agree about using caution in diagnosing codepence, BUT it is suggested that a person attend at least SIX meeting before making a decision if it fits for them.  My first meeting in a 12-step program didn't fit, but the next one did.

I would have to respectfully disagree with you on some of the other points - in particular, saying that "most of the people in the U.S...", or "we are taught as a culture..."

I try not to compare my insides to others' outside - that's crazy-making behavior.

I assume responsibility for others feelings and behaviors

Have you ever done or seen someone say that they were sorry for so-and-so's behavior or know someone who apologizes incessantly?

I feel guilty about others feelings and behaviors.

Taking on someone else's guilt IS codependent behavior.  Feeling guilty b/c someone else is, feeling guilty that THEY made a fool out of themselves and they are somehow related to you...

I have difficulty identifying what I am feeling.

Again here, saying that we were not taught better or "that's just how our society is" is addictive and victim thinking and serves as a defense mechanism around fixing OUR STUFF.

I am afraid of my anger, yet sometimes erupt in a rage

I ADAMENTLY disagree here.   RAGE IS NOT APPROPRIATE - feeling are.  What you do with those feelings or how you process them is the focus here.  Screaming in someone's face, breaking or throwing things is NOT APPROPRIATE OR NORMAL - regardless of what TV tells us.


I could go on and on, but I won't.  I never really had a dead-on sense that any label fit me but I knew what wasn't working in my life and took the resposibilty to work on it.  My addict (inside of me) will use any of those justifications for why I am "fine" the way I am - ESPECIALLY "everyone else does it"  THen I am also in my child.

One more thing I might mention is the idea of enmeshment - where the line is blurry from where another person ends and you begin - where your values differ from theirs.  If you've ever been in an abusive (especially emotional) relationship, there has undoubtedly been varying levels of enmeshment.

[Perspective]

S+Safe,

I can see your point to be cautious of labeling oneself as such and such from generalities found in human nature.  What you expressed in writing makes sense to me and I agree.  For me, It is important to identify myself in some fashion in order to give me a baseline of my understanding of me.  At the same time, I can see how categorizing oneself can become self-limiting and a form of pigeon-holing.  I am not a codependent person, but I do have codependent tendencies.  I'm not labeling who I am, rather I am labeling my thinking patterns and behavioral tendencies.  I'm sure the majority of us have codependent character traits, which are just part of human nature.  But I think what makes it codepedent is when one has those traits in the extreme and loses perspective in oneself in relation to others.  When associating one's self-worth hinges on receiving the exclusive approval or disapproval of others or at least the interpretation of it, that is what makes one codepedent, IMO.  In the same respect, what makes a person an alcoholic or merely a social drinker?  That is classification is determined by who is controlling whom?  My inability to disassociate my self-worth from the approval or lack thereof stifles my growth process on many levels.  It leaves me feelings frustrated and breeds a perpetual sense of personal failure and self-doubt.

I hope I make some kind of sense.   Many times, I feel my vision is distorted.  My hope is to gain a clearer perspective of life, people and myself. 

Thank you for your attention.

sincerely,
perspective

[Hopalong]

Hi Perspective,
I think you make a great deal of sense:

My inability to disassociate my self-worth from the approval or lack thereof stifles my growth process on many levels.  It leaves me feelings frustrated and breeds a perpetual sense of personal failure and self-doubt

I don't think you're confused, and if the CoD label and literature help you chisel some paths that lead toward feeling whole, in touch with both of your own feet planted where you put them, bravo.
As to feet, and paths, where you've been is useful simply to make where you're going that much more meaningful.

I feel quite certain you'll get there.

And S & S, thank you so much for talking about this culture, contemporary society, and the way they can interfere with our emotional sanity. Thank you, thank you. I believe we can do a LOT about mitigating those social/cultural/media effects, but not if we cannot see or name them.

Hops

[Portia]

((((((Hops))))) just...thank you. Little P would have loved to ask you questions!

Hi Movinon

Screaming in someone's face, breaking or throwing things is NOT APPROPRIATE OR NORMAL - regardless of what TV tells us.

Ummm it may not be normal or appropriate but I've done those three things in my time. Not in recent years but I've raged for sure. If you have rage within you, recognise it and let it out somehow safely (therapy?) before you physically hurt yourself or someone else. It depends on the type of rage I guess. Mine was somewhat physical because it related to physical ill-treatment when I was very young. Luckily I didn't hurt anyone, but I could have.

Just to say - these things happen and we have to recognise it and deal with it.

[penelope]

Phew, there's a lot here and some of it sounds like a thesis to me.   

I can only bite off this little bitty chunk:

-I do not perceive myself as a loveable and worthwhile person.

If this bothers you perspective, can I ask:  do you consider yourself to be a spiritual person?  (don't have to answer here, but if you'd like to, of course feel free).  I don't really have an agenda in asking, cause I'm not a very spiritual person myself.  But I do know that when I was younger, I had more of an innate sense of spirituality and I believed in a higher being.  I spontaneously felt things: like There is a God.  Life is wonderful.  Beauty is everywhere...  Throughout my childhood these thoughts/feelings were stripped or squashed from me by the adults in my life.  In essence, I was robbed of my spirituality or innate sense of worth - just being alive, being put on this earth - was for a reason, I believe(d).


The thought of little P asking questions is delightful, I agree!  That someone squashed that?  shame on them   

p bean