Top products from r/Codependency

\> I know they say you have to be okay on your own before you can be in a healthy relationship- but it seems like a tall order if you have no support. Just wondering if anyone else can relate.

I used to believe that you have to be okay on your own, but now I disagree with statement. Based off of my personal experience and information knowledge of trauma and attachment, I've revised my belief: Even if we don't need one (1) human to be our other half, we need the right social circle and the access to the right resources to have a solid foundation in order to have the skills, motivation, and support make progress toward their goals, feel secure, and be happy.


While I'm not a professional psychologist, what's working for me is trying to be vulnerable but being careful about who I do it with. There needs to be some thought about who I share it with, like what am I trying to do by sharing it with *this* specific person. Am I feeling some inner pain that I believe this person can ease? Am I sharing an experience that I think they will understand? If they don't understand, am I sharing this because I still trust them and I want to bond with them?

I believe healthy relationships is a balance of *relying* (as opposed to needing) on the *appropriate* people depending on the situation (as opposed to relying on the same person for every situation). Sometimes we will take risks and be let down. Over time by doing so, you refine your radar to know who is the best person for a feeling, situation, or experience.

Wishing the best in your healing.

Don't have a "story" (like this) to tell, but do know The Way Out (after 26 years in CoDA):

1. CoDA's Patterns & Characteristics;
   
   
2. The Five Stages of Recovery to see were one is in them;
   
   
3. Sternberg's nine types of love;
   
   
4. This article on an existential out-of-the-box view of romantic love;
   
   
5. CoDA meetings;
   
   
6. This article further quoting a young Krishnamurti on being alone vs. being lonely;
   
   
7. The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing so that one is able to continue to see what is going on and know what to do about it;
   
   
8. Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" CD or MP3, listening carefully while reading the lyrics;
   
   
9. Pia Mellody's Facing Love Addiction, especially with respect to the flip flop from addiction to avoidance;
   
   
10. Anne Wilson Schaef's Escape from Intimacy on the same topic;
    
    
11. Barry & Jane Weinhold's Flight from Intimacy on the same topic;
    
    
12. DBT's "FAST" boundary-setting skills group.
    
    To which I will add this article because most of the codependents I have know who went through situations similar to what you have described came from families that operate like small cults.

Then you can afford therapy, which was one of your concerns. Most therapists are willing to negotiate a lower fee if you are a college student, unemployed, or without insurance.

It is wise to be careful about which therapist to see. Finding a good therapist is hard. A big mistake that I kept making was going to the first therapist that was close to me and had an opening for an intake. Don't do this!! I wasted years doing this, because I ended up feeling guilty about leaving a therapist when things were not working out. My guilty response here was very codependent.

You want to research therapists online and find one that looks like a good match. You can google "codependency therapists" along with your local city to see which therapists are available. You can also use psychology today:

http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/prof_results.php?&city=New+York&state=NY&spec=503

Codependency is very common, and there are therapists that treat it in almost any major city. It might also be helpful to find a therapist who has treated BPD patients since you said your mom was BPD, like mine. These therapists would have a much better idea of what you have been through. Here is a book that helped me:

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Borderline-Mother-Unpredictable-Relationship/dp/0765703319

Good luck!

I kept repeating the same mistakes expecting different results. I kept going to the same old well and pulling up buckets full of the same old dirty water.

I went to my first CoDA meetings clear back in 1990, but 1) they didn't have the "big blue book yet, and 2) I was still way too far into my sex, romance and relationship addiction to be ready to move out of stage one, through stage two and into even stage three -- let aloine stage four -- of the five stages of therapeutic recovery.

But once I got into all the stuff in this earlier post, and used the first six of these 10 StEPs to get to stage three, using the rest of them to work through stage four was a cakewalk.

No; I do not expect most people to be able to see, hear and otherwise sense -- as well like -- what's in that earlier reddit post. I didn't, either. But once I wrapped my head around it all and did accept it, my life got better in a hurry. Because one will be attracted to other people, but flying blind in the very dense fog of "pink cloud" SR&R is a good way to crash the plane into a mountainside.

>sometimes it feels like codependency is like the inverted, or "shadow" form of narcissism

Yup, you've nailed it. This book https://www.amazon.com/Why-Always-About-You-Narcissism/dp/0743214285 agrees with you, talks about "healthy narcissism" and how we codependents are different from narcs.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Drama-Gifted-Child-Revised/dp/0465016901

its a quick easy amazing read

My take on it is that it can be very difficult to break codependency if one doesn't have something else to ground ones sense of safety in.

Being easygoing and submissive can be a strategy to gain accept, and belonging, instead of a dreaded abandonment and perhaps secretly being exposed as "no good".

One way to go about it is to practice expressing yourself with people you feel you can risk losing - and get references with your innate worth. Yontef is a Gestalt therapist that writes about this, how one needs to speak ones truth and let go of the outcome.

Another way to go about it is to contact a Coherence Therapy - practitioner. I will add a quote from one of their books:

Unlocking the emotional brain

Psychotherapy that regularly yields liberating, lasting change was, in the last century, a futuristic vision, but it has now become reality, thanks to a convergence of remarkable advances in clinical knowledge and brain science.. It allows new learning to erase, not just suppress, the deep, unconscious, intensely problematic emotional learnings that form during childhood or in later tribulations and generate most of the symptoms that bring people to therapy.

For me, The New Codependency by Melody Beattie was better than Codependent No More. I have been reading The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse and it has been really helpful.

This definitely speaks to me, I know the feeling you're talking about.

One thing I can suggest is trying to practice awareness. I can imagine right now when you're freaking out about him not texting you for 10 minutes, or whatever it is, you feel stupid or bad in addition to the anxiety you're feeling. You probably start beating yourself up for feeling the way you feel. Try not to do that. Rather, just allow yourself to feel what you feel, and observe it. Try to rest in it. "Hmmm, I'm incredibly anxious right now. Why am I anxious? I think it's because of my boyfriend not texting me (or whatever). Why is that causing me anxiety? I think I'm starting to imagine all kinds of dark scenarios like him cheating on me. I know that's probably not happening, and him not texting me is not a reasonable indication of that anyway. This anxiety is really about my own insecurities and need to control. Ok. Let's just let this go on for as long as it does, and observe it." That kind of thing.

Just remember that this particular behavior is only a symptom of your larger disfunction and unhealthy behavior towards relationships.

Are you religious, spiritual, or have a belief in any kind of higher power? If you have any sense of that, something that's really been helping me when I have reactions and unhealthy obsessions like this is to stop, recognize it, and then ask God (as I know Him) to come into that moment and feeling with me and to let me feel His love for me. I don't try to not feel it, I just accept it. I also don't beat myself up for feeling that way.

Some resources:

Codependents Anonymous website, a 12 step recovery program for people who want the ability to have healthy relationships with others.

Codependent No More, a great book.

Good luck!

Edit: don't know why that link isn't working...

I highly recommend this book: “Attached”:

https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139/ref=asc_df_1585429139/

And, remember that if you’re clingy and your partner is happy with you anyway, don’t over-worry. That’s not to say you don’t work on yourself - we all should. But also don’t let your fears ruin a good relationship.

Codpendent No More by Melody Beattie

The one and only book I've read. It was very helpful for me.

https://www.amazon.com/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339/ref=nodl_

The CoDA blue book is for men and women.

Freud died long ago. Mankind's understanding of the human psyche AND the human body have come way far from 'inheritable neuroticism'. That, no disrespect here, is the quackery –one the whole world's believed for far too long now.

​

This is not a cherry-picked study, and i encourage you please do some (any) research around this, origins, context, how it ties to LOTS of previous research and above all to the inevitable conclusions of 50 years of trauma research out of integrating results from multiple scientific disciplines; you'll find too many 'cherry-picked`' studies pointing in the same direction:

The Polyvagal Theory


And, most importantly, check it out against your own experience, your own body, mind, history.

I wish someone had told me all this a long time ago.

​

Pick up a copy of Codependent No More https://www.amazon.com/Codependent-No-More-Controlling-Yourself/dp/0894864025

It was a game changer for me and many others!

TLDR: Good for you!

Your post resonates with me, mostly because I’m that guy you described.

I’ve been married to a really great woman for the past 5 years (we were together another 5 before that), and I’ve been giving her a lot of hell ever since the beginning. Most of it has been emotional abuse (I have a short fuse, and it makes me say some very hurtful, if not damaging, things), to the point of almost constant unkindness and disrespect. On a regular basis, I tend to project onto her my negative state of mind (I’m unhappy about a lot of things in my life that I feel like I can’t change); if I had to guess, it’s probably a subconscious thing---if I can’t be happy, then maybe she shouldn’t be either. I shut her out, we don't talk, and are both very lonely and isolated. My wife has given up a lot of herself in unsuccessful attempts to make me happy and to put up with all of the shit (there is no other word, really) I give her, and I perpetuate and take advantage of it.

The thing is, I do recognize and have recognized that I’m an altogether horrible person to be around sometimes (most times?), though I've never been able to label things. Our relationship has been a debilitating (and exhausting) flip-flop between happy and miserable. Consequently, I’ve lost the trust that is so desperately needed in a long-term relationship.

I want to get better, but I’ve never taken any real steps to do so (pride? fear? denial?) until recently. In the research I’ve done to figure out what the hell my freaking problem is, I’ve uncovered a plot twist of sorts: I’m codependent.

I had a very unpleasant childhood that I recognize now as being codependent, which probably explains how I ended up in a codependent relationship with another woman for 4 years before meeting my wife. Both of these relationships I’ve repressed very much, but as I open up the memories, I realize how I gave up a lot, if not most, of myself for my immediate family as well as this woman.

What’s happened now, I think, is that I’ve somehow twisted things around so that my wife is now the codependent one with me (although, I see early on how I repeated codependent tendencies when I met her). It’s almost as if I’m trying to recover from what was taken from me before and so have become narcissistic and controlling in the process (e.g., I know what’s right for my wife, we only do the things I enjoy or go to the places I want to go, I keep her from having friends since I’m the only one who knows how to/who’s able to/who should care for and comfort her, we only talk about how my day went and not hers). Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to displace blame for my actions---I’m an ass---but it’s helpful for me to recognize, perhaps, what causes me to be an ass.

Sorry for the outpouring, as I don’t know that I really contributed anything other than to say that I understand what you’re going through and that I’m glad you’re taking the steps to do what’s right for you. As others have said, you’ve recognized what’s going on and are doing something about it, and IMO that’s huge.

Oh, I guess I will also add that there are some of us who are aware of the pain they’ve caused, don’t like it, and do genuinely want to get better. What’s troubling to me is all of the wasted time and unhealthiness in our relationship that was brought about by petty fights, usually caused by my selfishness or need to control situations, if not my wife. I do honestly love her, even though it's so easy for me to hurt her, and I don't want to be this way. I know I as an individual (perhaps we as a couple) need therapy and I’m willing to go (it’s a financial hardship as well); however, this was not an easy thing---at all---for me to finally admit. You, as the abuser, really have to want it. In the meantime, I’ve picked up a copy of Codpendent No More as well as The Language of Letting Go. Also looking into Why Is It Always About You? It’s not easy for me to write about these things, especially in a public forum, but I’m hoping it will be therapeutic to discuss this with others.

My wife and I have started talking about these things, and I’ll say that it’s helped tremendously, in particular knowing how she feels. I think in the past I was too involved in myself to care how she felt (that really sounds horrible to say, but it’s the unfortunate and scary truth).

Whether or not you can do the same likely depends on your SO and whether or not he’s able to recognize what he’s doing and, perhaps more importantly, whether or not he’s willing to get some help.

Good luck to you!