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Friday, November 21, 2008
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Learned Behaviour: Codependency
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A common thread in all the therapeutic information I have been absorbing lately, is learned behaviour from childhood:
A woman in an article on abuse noted: "I heard my parents fight when I was a kid, I thought she [Mom] had it coming because she was pretty hard to take. When I encountered it years later, I assumed that I had it coming. If I thought she deserved it, then I did, too."
When I see that I have to believe, if it had been a man growing up in that situation, he too would grow up believing Dad was acting as he should and Mom was taking what she deserved. A man would learn the equally destructive behavior patterns.
It takes two.
Anne Wilson Schaef believes the whole society is addicted; the object of addiction isn't the important issue, but rather that the environment sets us up to be addicted to something, i.e. food, sex, drugs, power, etc. If that is true, then all of us are either addicts or codependents.
A "codependent" is loosely defined as someone who exhibits too much, and often inappropriate, caring for persons who depend on him or her.
A "codependent" is one side of a relationship between mutually needy people.
The dependent, or obviously needy party(s) may have mental, emotional, physical, financial difficulties, or addictions they seemingly are unable to surmount.
The "codependent" party exhibits behaviour which controls, makes excuses for, pities, and takes other actions to perpetuate the obviously needy party's condition, because of their desire to be needed and fear of doing anything that would change the relationship.
I hate to admit, I have all too often found myself as a codependent in my relationships. I suppose my "need" to feel useful and helpful and take care of things becomes something quite attractive to "dependent" people. My strength and caring in that matter become a downfall to my friendships and love relationships.
I know every healthy relationship requires balance, and that it is the trickiest part to achieve. Codependents always feel that they are acting in another person's best interest, making it difficult for them to see the controlling nature of their own behavior.
I don't like feeling used, I don't like feeling unappreciated, and most importantly I won't stand for feeling manipulated or used. Yet somehow I always seem to feel like I am "acting in another person's best interest" when more often I am being used or unknowingly being allowed to control another person. Most of this usually occurs in a financial way.
I have struggled very hard to be the person I am now, and I am always evolving.
Someone said to me, "People don't change."
I replied, "No, but they CAN constantly evolve."
I suppose that is the point. I am not ever going to be 100% the person I hope to be, but I CAN evolve toward that goal. My strength and my will to MAKE my life better, to OWN my life and be responsible for it, that makes it very possible to continue to evolve toward being the better version of me I hope to be.
My mother is a codependent. I learned that behavior from her. She even apologized to me for it a couple of summers ago. Although I would classify her as one still. I think she gave up.
I never want to give up.
I did that once, and found myself in a very bad place. I spent years and years of my life (up to 2006) wasting my time, losing all my possessions and savings, losing my dignity and self-respect to that relationship... simply because I gave up. I somehow thought that was the treatment I deserved. I somehow thought, that was the best I could have and gave up trying to be anything better. I was broken. Until I finally realized at Christmas 2005, that I had the power to EVOLVE away from the bad situation I had allowed to fester too long. By April 2006 I had crawled out of that pit of self-despair, with a little help from my family.
Another large part of co-dependency is addiction. Alcoholism was something I grew up a witness too, as I previous wrote about [Drink One, Drink four, Hell, Drink More]. Alcoholism can form part of codependent relationships.
Often the codependent covers up for the alcoholism. An example would be a wife making excuses for her husband's excessive drinking and perhaps defending him by calling in sick for him when he is hung over. Such behaviors, which may well lessen conflict and ease tension within the family in the short term, are counterproductive in the long term, since, in this case, the wife is actually supporting ("enabling") the husband's drinking behavior.
The typical "Do as I say not as I do" excuse used by parents to their children does not work.
At the ages of 11-15ish my mother's live-in boyfriend, lived in the rec room in the basement. He was an alcoholic, and never really worked. The rec room became "their" zone and us kids we not allowed in there any more. It was once my/our play area. Instead it became his area, and they put a lock on the door and she disappeared down there with him, abandoning her kids to be with a drunk. One day I came home from school and found an armchair in the carport, smoldering heavily. When I went inside I found him passed out on the floor in the doorway to the rec room. I called my mother at work and explained the situation. She asked me to pour out the vodka and refill it with water, and to make sure the chair was not going to burn. He was allowed to lay there, I was not to attempt to wake him up. I don't honestly recall what happened later that day. I just did what I was told to band-aid the problem. On another occasion, my mother and I removed parts from his car so he couldn't drive.
I learned to enable, I learned to cover up.
I never want to "cover up" issues. Our society some what "encourages" us to hide the truth from the world, yet punishes us for the lies. People judge us for our mental health issues, when really they should access their own mental health. We have a "damned if you do damned if you don't" dichotomy happening in the world when it comes to such topics of alcoholism, abuse, addiction, mental health... all the things we SHOULD be talking about openly and acceptably, we instead shun and cringe away from discussing. Society falsely believes one should only bring forth a part of their person to the world, through work or friends, and hide the other side (the addictions, and mental conditions) as private and separate.
However, a person divided is not a whole person, and to truly be useful to the collective of humanity (society) we need whole people. Therefore we need to embrace the "private" truths of our humanity, and heal them collectively.
Why?
If "bad" learned behaviour can be openly discussed, positively dealt with and afflicted people can be healed, then future generations will LEARN "good" behaviour from it.
Notes:
wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependence
allaboutcounseling.com/codependency
codependents.org/foundation-docs-patterns
Labels: health |
pre-written & posted by Barbara Doduk & scheduled to publish @
2:22 PM
 
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another great write up by bb queen...so many things i could quote and relate to so well...but im feeling lazy and just want to say "great post...again".
j.
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The Love Blog by Vancouver Blogger Barbara Doduk
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A personal view of the world from a hopeful human being longing for a world of love, for an earth called Unity. Barbara Doduk was born in and resides in Vancouver British Columbia Canada and writes about her life, her city and her views on the world.
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another great write up by bb queen...so many things i could quote and relate to so well...but im feeling lazy and just want to say "great post...again".
j.