November 20, 2003

• Codependent Thursday Stuff

  
  

  I've been reading today, all about Codependency.  I'm ready for someting easy to understand like Immanuel Kant's General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals.  Kant is easy, he's all about figuring out the relationships we have as persons who have both rights and duties to other people.  Come to think of it, that's the same thing that figuring out Codependence is all about. 

  
  

  So are you wondering what I'm talking about yet?  Hang in there it gets worse.  You all know I've been in therapy in recent weeks and I'm blatantly using my blog today to organize some of the thoughts I've been trying to sort through.  It's messy folks. 

  
  

  Some of the nicest people you'll ever meet are codependent.  They always smile and never refuse to do a favor.  They understand other people and have the ability to make other people feel good.  People like them.  There are two clues in these sentences to why this is a problem, the words 'always' and 'never.'  In healthy relationships, partners go out of their way for each other.  They engage in give and take.  In codependent relationships the taking and giving are one-sided. 

  
  

  Instead of merely approving of themselves, codependent people meet their need for self-esteem by earning the approval of others.  They give more than they take because giving allows them to feel useful and justifies their existence.  Codependent people have an underdeveloped sense of entitlement.  They have difficulty accepting from others because one must first feel deserving and entitled in order to freely accept what is offered. 

  
  

  It takes a lot of work to be codependent.  A codependent person frequently struggles with low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and especially guilt as well as other painful thoughts and feelings.  They judge themselves using far stricter criteria for their own behavior than they use to measure the performance of others.  In fact, while they are brutally critical of their own misbehavior, they are very good at justifying and excusing the misbehavior of others.  "He didn't mean it."  "She didn't do it with malice."  "Its the best he can do."  "She had such a rotten childhood."  To their partners and friends they are understanding, patient, merciful, and kind.  With themselves they are nazi torture experts. 

  
  

  The central concept here is that the codependent person "takes it" and "understands" and "puts up with" and "forgives" despite feelings of hurt and anger which are rarely expressed or even acknowledged.  The codependent person waits for the build up of brownie points in heaven, or for a loved one to be magically healed through their persistent love and care-taking, they accept disrespect from others.  It does not occur to the codependent person that it is not ok to "take it" and "put up with" no matter what. 

  
  

  Codependent people frequently find themselves in abusive relationships because an unfortunate side effect of the codependent person's willingness to ignore, excuse, or otherwise allow abuse or disrespect is that the misbehavior directed at them continues and intensifies.  Implicit or explicit permission to misbehave is granted since the codependent person "understands."

  
  

  Control is the theme of the codependent life.  The codependent person controls self-esteem by catering to others.  He controls by being over-responsible taking up slack for others, she controls by advising others (which, by the way, is an excellent means of avoiding true intimacy.)  These people work very hard to control everyone and everything but they neglect the one person they truly have control over, themself.  (that looks funny - is themself a word?  isn't that paradoxical to put a plural with a singular?  I mean you wouldn't say "manyone" - some linguistic person might want to advise me on this one.)  Codependent people are also very good at clouding the subject with distraction and obfuscation.  

  
  

  Why would anyone do all this work, spend so much time and energy to control outcomes while actively neglecting the self?  How can they do this without realizing they are selling themselves short?  They don't know any other way, and they received very good training early in life.  Because I'm really talking about me today, I'll go ahead and skip through the various dysfunctional family scenarios that could produce a codependent person and zero in on the one that I know intimately.  When a parent is angry and controlling, the child learns to anticipate and please that parent in order to avoid humilation and punishment.  The child (me - this is all about me today - in spite of what I said about Kant) learns that love is conditional and that it must be earned. 

  
  

  You know I really am going to have to write a blog about Kant and his Higher Good.  It's so related to this whole problem of codependency and in fact, application of Kant's moral postulates may be my key to finding my way out of this mess.  See the first of Kant's postulates is that for the Higher Good, there must be freedom.  Free will, free choice, free french fries with your happy meal  Sorry, I couldn't resist .  Since codependency is about control, breaking that cycle has to be about release. 

  
  

  And completely unrelated to the above, I have a couple more pics of me and my friends to share ....

  
  

  Me and Natasha ....                                 Faith and Natasha

  
  

                                             

  • 4:59 pm
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