Intimacy and Hope's Mountain

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Last night, I met with one of my Sponsees after a CoDA meeting. On the phone, she’d said she has some questions about step eight, and from her tone I gathered that she was struggling with something.

We settled into the old-but-comfortable couch in a back room of the Alano Club where we our meetings are held. I noted the furrowed lines between her eyebrows.

She talked a little about the work she’d been doing as she produced a small stack of papers. On the top sheet was a list of names. Some were highlighted. One name - that of her ex-husband - had a big question mark next to it.

She drummed her index finger on the question mark and said, "I can’t do this. I’ve been anguishing over it for weeks."

I said, “This step is not supposed to be painful. It can be scary, but if it's bringing up this kind of intensity, there’s a good reason."

We talked about her ex. He's an alcoholic. He was emotionally abusive, extremely controlling, and sometimes shaming during their long marriage. He’d cheated on her. He had a history of saying things to their children (who are now all adults) in order to sway them away from her.

And, she'd made some mistakes. She was trying to come to terms with them. "I'm really over him. I mean, what I really ought to do is thank him because if he hadn't been who he was and done what he did, I never would have become who I am, today."

"That's great. I think gratitude is the opposite of anger. Progressing that far is a big deal."

"But... do I have to make amends to him?"

"You don't have to do anything. This is your program."

"Yes... but I feel like... I don't know. I should do something. I can't just let this go."

She can't let it go. That seemed to be the important part. That's what I felt we needed to work on.

"Okay... let's remember to take this one step at a time. Right now, that means working on step eight. This step only asks us to make a list of everyone we've harmed and become willing to make amends to them all. You don't have to be willing when you put the name on the page. Becoming willing is part of the process."

There was still doubt on her face.

I went on. "In the next step, we're asked to 'make direct amends whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.' Whenever possible. That tells you that sometimes it isn't possible."

The tight line of her mouth began to relax. "How do you know if it's not possible or if you're just avoiding what you should do?"

"Well, it says not to make amends if it would be harmful to anyone. YOU are included in 'anyone'. If it is going to be harmful to you to make direct amends to your ex-husband, than it is not what you should do."

She looked right in my eyes, as if searching.

I made a conscious effort to hold her gaze, feeling a connection. This kind of connection still intimidates me, a little bit. In the past, I was terrified in moments of closeness because of my own history. Just in the last year, a door has been opening within me. Intimacy – elusive, longed-for and feared – is slowly coming into my life. Eye contact is a piece of that. I’ve been testing it out in my sessions with C, sometimes daring to make eye-contact even in very emotional moments. It can feel very intense, but I'm learning that intensity is not always a bad thing.

I said, “Sometimes we feel bad about our part in things, even when the other person has hurt us more than we’ve hurt them. Some of the people on your list may stay for a long time. Some may stay there forever. We can only do what we can do. We work towards becoming willing, but when it isn't possible to make direct amends, we can make them indirectly."

Her relief was palpable.

"So, in this instance, how might you make indirect amends?"

“Well, admitting it to myself is a start. Admitting it to God? Letting it go? Making sure I don't do it again?”

I smiled. “You’ve just summed up steps four through seven."

As I've come to understand them, the steps are all about ownership. Throught the steps, we come to own what’s ours. We own our pasts as we write our fourth step. In step five, we share what we’ve written with another person, which brings it all home in a new way. It’s much harder to pretend the past doesn’t exist when someone else knows.

From there, we move into owning our faults with God – first just by admitting them, and then by turning them over, and finally in asking for help as we move forward so we won’t make the same mistakes again in steps six and seven.

Steps eight and nine are the final stage of ownership. We own our mistakes with those people who were directly affected by them - with those we’ve harmed. It can be the scariest part of owning our humanness. It is also the most rewarding and entirely necessary if we want to be all we can be.

It’s only in removing all the debris of our pasts that we can be ready to move into the last few steps, which are (in my opinion) about intimacy with ourselves and with God. Like any other relationship, it isn’t possible to have true intimacy without complete honesty.

I said, “Sometimes what we need is a ritual of some kind to help signify the transition from one state to another. For instance, I have a friend to whom I feel I owe amends, but she passed away twenty years ago. Logically, I know that is a long time to hold on to my guilt. It's obviously not hurting her, anymore. Like resentments, the guilt we hold onto only hurts us. It doesn't affect the other person. That's why making amends is really about us and not about the people to whom we make them. If we are making them for other people, we really aren't getting the most out of it."

She nodded.

"As far as this friend of mine goes, I’ve written out what I feel bad about, I’ve shared it, I’ve meditated on it, but it’s still there. I can't completely let it go. I need to do something. I've been thinking about how to make indirect amends to her for more than a year and I've finally decided to plant a tree in her honor. It’s something she would love, and I believe it would symbolically help me move out of the past. It's like walking through a door. The tree would remind me that I've let it go and am now on the other side.”

She made a note next to the question mark, and then folded the pages. As she thanked me and hugged me, I felt a great sense of gratitude.

It was very helpful to crystallize my understanding of this step by sharing it with someone else. It's also wonderful to feel as if I had the right words to help her find her way through. The connections I've made with her and others who attend my CoDA meetings have enriched my life in ways that were totally unexpected and are too numerous to count.

One other thing we talked about, last night, was how different it is coming to meetings now than it was in the beginning. At first, every meeting seems to hold an abundance of growth. After a while, it's harder to see progress.

I think this is because we come into the program with a deep hole. Gradually, we fill it in with shovels full of strength and experience. Over time, it becomes a mound. I'm still climbing up onto the progress of each shovel I empty, it's just harder to notice them from up here on this mountain.

The view is spectacular.

Being: Part One

For some time, I’ve been trying to gain a deeper understanding of the concept of “Being, not doing”. When I started writing about it, this morning, I realized I have more thoughts on this topic than one post can hold. So, without knowing exactly what part two will look like, I decided to call this part one.

At my CoDA meeting last night, we read Mary R’s story in the Blue Book. Mary R is apparently one of the founders of the CoDA organization. While the concept of codependency had been around for a few years, she and her husband were instrumental in turning the idea into a twelve-step program.

After we read the story, the floor was open for sharing. Before anyone could begin, a fairly new member said, “I have a question. What does she mean by ‘needlessness’?”

In the story, Mary R wrote that needlessness was one of her character defects. She said that this is what prevented her from sincerely asking God to help her with her seventh step.

I looked around the room, and no one seemed ready to answer the newcomer's question, so I gave it a shot. “What I got out of it is, sometimes we deny that we have needs. I think she was saying that she was unable to acknowledge her needs and unwilling to ask for help meeting those needs. Because she thought she was supposed to be without needs, she didn’t even feel as if she could as God for help.”

I looked around, taking in the affirming nods, and felt good about my answer. Saying it aloud had the extra advantage of clarifying the concept in my own mind.

We all have needs. No one can meet all their needs. Yes, we are adults and we are supposed to be able to take care of ourselves, but that doesn’t mean we never need any help.

My father is an excellent example of someone who struggles with needlessness. He is an old man, closer to ninety than eighty. He had a bad fall a year or so ago which has left him with chronic pain and a great deal of instability when he’s on his feet. One need he has, which he refuses to recognize, is the need for help when he’s walking. He will not use a cane, and often refuses the offer of a steadying hand. He is so certain that he is not supposed to need anything  that he would risk another fall rather than accept help.  

Maybe you're thinking, Sure, he needs help. He's an old man. But not me...

Consider what you would do if you were suddenly stricken with an appendicitis. I’m fairly certain you would have to accept the help of a good surgeon as well as nurses, orderlies, and other hospital staff. There's proof that you sometimes have needs.

But what about when there's no crises? Shouldn’t I be able to meet my own needs, then?

I believe the anser to that question is no. We are able to take care of ourselves in many ways, but refusing to consider asking for help in meeting our needs is unhealthy and self-defeating. We are not alone on this planet and there's no reason to behave as if we are.

Then why do we do it? Why is is such a common thing in our society to think we have to do everything ourselves?

Denying our needs is something we were taught. If you were told not to cry or chastised for expressing anger, you were being taught to deny your need to feel and process emotions. If you were forced to do things you didn’t want to do, you were being taught to deny your need for autonomy. If good eating and sleeping habits were not modeled by your parents, you were taught to deny your own most basic needs. If positive attention and touch were replaced by neglect or abuse, you were taught to deny your need for affection, physical contact, praise, and affirmation.

Thinking about this, last night, I realized that I carry needlessness to an extreme. I have a tendency to look at even basic needs like exercise, food and sleep as optional. They're not! Is there anything more absurd? I don't even allow ME to meet my needs. 

I have to remind myself constantly that it’s okay to take time for myself, that hunger and fatigue are not feelings I should ignore, that pain is neither a reason to panic nor to dissociate from my life. Physical and mental discomfort are clues that I have a need waiting to be met. It’s an opportunity for self-care and sometimes self-care includes reaching out to God or other people for help.

But, we don't want to completely rely on others, right? When is it okay to ask for help?

My therapist has a “three strike rule”. This means when I suddenly discover an obstacle in my path –  an emotional block, an upcoming event, an unexpected twist in my life-path – I am to make three attempts to solve the problem myself. I may try to walk around it, push it out of the way, and step over it. If none of those things work, it’s time to determine what kind of help I need. Is it something I can let go, and allow God to handle? Or, do I need to call a therapist, sponsor, or friend?

Acknowledging my needs is an important step in learning to BE. Ignoring my needs leads to dissociating from my life. Instead, I choose to move forward consciously, taking time for myself as needed, happily offering a hand to others when they ask, and accepting support of all kinds,  when that's what I need.

Where is Hell?

How could Hell be an actual, physcial place if it is only occupied by Spiritual beings? If Hell is "in" the elusive Spiritual world, it exists beyond the physical universe. In that case, much the way one can say, "God is everywhere," Hell could be anywhere and everywhere.

So, I personally believe it is possible to “be in Hell” at any time or place. I believe many people find themselves “in Hell” right now, as they walk the Earth.

I don't mean people who have, say, lost a child or are suffering great physical pain through cancer or are right now dodging fire in the front lines of a war. While it may feel desperate to be in this world, dealing with physical and emotional pain,to me that isn’t Hell. It's awful, horrible, sickening, excrutiatin, but even in the worst pain imaginable, we can still have something which does not exist in Hell.

Hope.

At my darkest moments, it was the loss of hope that most terrified me, and what I most was afraid of losing was not my life or health or that of another - it was connection.

Even with nourishment and shelter, a child will fail to thrive without a sense of connection. It is a fundamental need. When that sense of connection is threatened, panic drives people to desperate acts. Some people spend their entire lives in that desperation, searching for the connection they desperately need.

Imagine a man who has flirted with the very edge of this desperation all his life. As a young child, his mother threatened to take her love away over the smallest disruptions as a way of controlling his behavior. He was a sickly child, one who required surgery when he was only three months old, to save his life. He died on the operating table, but was revived. Later, he was told he had almost died because he hadn't been a good boy.

• He learned that he had to work very hard, to be good so he wouldn't die. 
• He learned that his own behavior was what controlled whether he lived or died AND whether he was loved or not.
• What he wanted more than anything was connection, and he learned that the way to get what he wanted was through force and manipulation.

As this man went through life, the fear of the loss of connection was his obsession. Even when he thought he was in control, this obsession ruled him. He spent every moment devising ways to manipulate the world into a place which would feed his overwhelming hunger.

Of course, he was unaware of why he behaved as he did. If you were to ask him, he would tell you that he didn't need anyone. He was fine on his own. He couldn't admit, even to himself, that he needed this connection because it was unbearable to face the possibility that he might never have it.

He married young, searching for that connection in a way that society expected, but his fears and mistrust prevented him from finding what he needed most in that relationship. When the marriage ended, the church he’d grown up in told him he could never marry again. This felt like a rejection from not only the institution of the Catholic Church, but also from God.

The man said he didn't care. “Religion is fake and God doesn't exist!” he proclaimed, thus cutting himself off completely from an already tenuous Spiritual connection, as well.

He took his next wife hostage. He carefully chose one who had already been abandoned. She feared the loss of connection as much as he did.

He played the game very carefully, charming and thus convincing her that he was the answer to her great need to feel loved. When he had her firmly within his grasp, he began to use a ploy he’d learned very early on – he threatened to take his love away if she didn't do everything he wanted.

For decades, these two lived in this way, one completely engulfed in the shadow of the other. Despite the anniversaries ticking away, beyond the silver, beyond the gold, they both still felt a desperate need for connection because their relationship was felt as empty as a child suckling a stone.

They tried to pull others into the vacuum of their lives, but anyone who could break free did so, and ran as far as they could. The more people ran from them, the harder they tried to hold on and the more desperate they became.

And still, even today, this man is just a frightened little boy, sitting on the edge of hopelessness. His life is waning away, minute by minute. In his complete denial of any power greater than himself – a denial he feels he must keep up in a warped attempt at self-protection – he can’t acknowledge even the possibility of a life beyond the one he knows. He lives in the hell of disconnection with no hope of redemption; a hell of his own making.

The man is my father.

It may be that his being gone for the first year of my life allowed my mother to form a deep connection with me, when I was an infant. It may be this connection that drove him to hurt me. Not only was he jealous of my connection with my mother – something he still craved with a vengeance – but also I was threatening his hold on her. If she had me, possibly she wouldn't need him.

He did everything in his power to isolate me, and when that didn't work, he tried to own me. He told me there was no God and that anyone who thought there was, was a foolish sheep, following liars and in denial of the truth – that we would all die and that was the end of it. He told me, many times, that when people found out what I was really like, they would turn against me. He told me I couldn't trust anyone, and then he proved it to me, in ugly and hurtful ways.

Was that hell?

Not for me. It was terribly painful and at times it seemed unbearable, but somehow there was some glimmer of hope that there would be a way out. I just had to make it through… and I'm finding my way.

Hell is where my father lives, and where he has been for as long as I've known him and for a long time before. He is terrified of death, which he still portrays as the end of everything, but I feel that it is only in death that he will be released from Hell.

We can’t know what comes next. We are physical beings and can only understand what our physical brains can comprehend. However, when we die, I believe the Spirit within is freed of this body and all its limitations. Even though I can’t know “where” we go after that, I am convinced that when we get “there”, the connection we all seek is going to be as limitless and constant as the universe… and that is Heaven.

*****

Oranges at the Hardware Store?

Last week, I had such a taste for oranges. I decided to buy some, so I drove to a hardware store. It appeared to be a well-stocked shop. All the shelves were full, but I looked all over the store and couldn't find any oranges.

Finally, I asked the man at the counter where they kept the oranges. You wouldn’t believe the look he gave me. It was like I was crazy, or something! I walked out of there feeling angry as well as pretty disappointed that I still didn't have any oranges.

A few days later, I was thinking some fresh squeezed orange juice would be a wonderful way to start my day. I decided to try again. I left my house with confidence that this time I would get what I needed.

When I walked into the hardware store, the man behind the counter gave me a tight-lipped look. He watched me suspiciously as I perused the aisles. I ignored him and continued to search for those oranges. Can you believe it? I could not find one orange anywhere in that store!

I was feeling nearly furious at this point. I went to the man to give him a piece of my mind but he just stared at me blankly as if he had no idea what I was talking about.

All that day and the next I wandered around my kitchen, turning up my nose at everything in the pantry and fridge. I opened a yogurt but I sure didn't enjoy it. All I really wanted was an orange. I stormed inwardly at the stupid man behind the counter, calling him every name I could think of. What was his problem, anyway? Why was he looking at me like I was crazy?

Then, yesterday, I went back to the hardware store again. I glanced around, seeing pliers, plumbers’ helpers, and every size nail one could imagine, but still no oranges. In a fit of rage I started tearing the place apart. I raged and rightfully so! All I wanted was one stinking orange and this guy wouldn’t give me even a segment!

As the policed pulled up, it finally dawned on me… This guy doesn’t have any oranges to sell. This kind of store simply does not carry oranges. It doesn’t mean it’s a shitty hardware store, only that they don’t carry oranges.

 

*****

For over fifty years, I’ve been going to my mom in search of things she doesn’t have to give. There are other places I can go to get these needs met, so I think I'll stop going to the hardware store for oranges.

Anything After No...

At a CoDA meeting last night, someone said something that is worth sharing. (No surprise there... nearly every meeting is seasoned with insight and inspiration.) The phrase she used was new to me, although it had the sound and feel of an old saying. Perhaps you've heard it before.

In AA, it's pretty easy to determine when a relapse is occuring. It's a bit harder to identify a CoDA relapse. Rarely do people seem aware they are about to plunge off the interdependent wagon until they hit the ground.

Last night, a woman was speaking about a relationship she recently ended. She was obviously frustrated with her recent slip. After describing in some detail why she had ended the relationship, she said, "I can't believe how stupid I was. It isn't like I didn't know that anything after no is abuse."

Anything after no is abuse.

I heard that and thought, That is exactly the kind of identifier I could use.

In CoDA we're taught that if we feel angry, isolated,fearful, frustrated, confused, hurt, resentful or a barrage of other difficult sensations, it is an indication that a codependent issue is at hand. These could be a great indicators that one should step back and take a moment before proceding.

The problem is all of the emotions listed above tend to push people into reactive behavior. We are anxious to make the uncomfortable feelings go away and so we are quick to react, doing whatever is easiest in the moment to ease the current stress. Then, an hour, a day, sometimes a year later, we wake up and realize that we've done it again. Once more we are caught in the CoDA web and it's very tricky to pry ourselves loose.

But the phrase she used, Anything after no is abuse, seems like the kind of sign I can put out on my path. I believe I could train myself to notice when I've said no and that is not the end of it. I believe that kind of red flag might be enough to remind me to step back before I even feel angry, hurt, or afraid.

So there's my wisdom of the day. If I say no, it means no, every time. If someone argues, procedes regardless of my stated no, uses hurt or anger to try to sway me or in any other way does not accept no as no, that is a sign that a big swell in the road is coming up. When I see that red flag, I'm going to try to remember to stop the action before my wagon hits the bump and throws me off again.

Wise Words

Why is it so much easier to believe other people are worthy of love and respect than it is to believe it of myself? So often it seems I know the exact thing to say to someone else but can’t see how the words that come from me could be applied to me.

After a CoDA meeting, on Friday evening, a friend (who I will call V) approached me to ask my advice. She said she was thinking of talking about her loneliness to her adult daughter. She wanted to tell her daughter that she felt alone and needed support and to ask if they could plan to get together every other week. She said that while this felt like expressing her feelings and asking for what she wanted, something kept nagging at her about it… it just didn’t feel right to her.

I knew what to say right away. The problem with her request lit up like a neon sign in my head – so much so that I had to slow myself down to be able to express what I was thinking in a calm way.

I told V, it’s good to express your feelings. Telling your daughter you feel lonely and want to see her more is fine. Saying how you feel right now and asking if she is free this weekend, for instance, is fine. However, locking her in to getting together on a specific schedule seems like controlling.

She nodded and smiled. "Yes, you're right."

I said, “you never know… it may get to the point where having a rigid schedule with your daughter would feel confining to you.”

She laughed at that, but nodded as she thought about it.

Another friend (Gail at the "Know Your Its" blog) posted a post in which she sometimes talks about her heart-wrenching experiences watching her mother deal with old age and poor health. In a recent post she was especially discouraged and wrote about her anger at God. She seemed defiant in her anger, as if she was afraid someone was going to call her on it and say she should not have such feelings where God is concerned.

This is part of what I wrote to her:

It's heartbreaking, Gail. You paint the picture so well I feel as if I was there with you...
Anger is real. It is human. It is part of God's creation and God can take it... It's okay to be angry. It's okay to say, WHY? and to cry and to scream and to tell God you are angry.

Being angry does not mean you don't love... just like all the bad things that happen in the world don't mean God doesn't love.

When I read that last sentence I was really surprised at what I’d said. What a profound thought! It had come from my fingers to my keyboard before I hardly knew what I was thinking.

Shadow Work

I found a link to this video on another site, and it stemmed a conversation that brought me to some clarity on a few things. The video is about "Shadow Work". To me, it seems like another name for "Inner Child Work." I think some people have a hard time with accepting the concept of the inner child and so they need to have things presented in a different way and Debbie Ford, the woman in the video, does seem to have another viable way to get to the root of an issue many abuse survivors are dealing with.

This video is only a sample exercise - one of many from what I gather. First, Ms. Ford asks, what do you like most about yourself? What one quality do you hold above all others? About five minutes or so into the seven minute video, Ms Ford asks what the opposite of that quality is. Then she goes on to talk about how this opposite quality is the one that is going to turn up in relationship after relationship.

The woman who posted the video link on the other site said she did not understand why this is so. I believe I do understand it, now, but a few years ago, I might not have.

Before I put up my explanation, I want to post portions of what someone else responded. This response comes from a friend of mine, someone I truly admire, a woman named Ilene Wolf. She is an activist, working to help victims of abuse. She is the founder "HEAL" (Healing Emotionally Abused Lives),  

"The is the dynamic of polarity. Pretty much, everything exists on a spectrum. Either end of the spectrum is generally less stable than the middle of the spectrum. Picture a see-saw, and you'll understand that the middle, of course, is the balance point. Either end of the see-saw flies up and down. If you're seated on the balance point, you stay in one place, while the riders seated on either end are getting a verticle ride from the ground to the sky."

This is a great visual. Think about this. If you are on one end of a sea-saw, the person on the other end holds your fate in their hands. Where is your focus going to be?

"... whatever we focus on, whatever we invest our energy on will materialize and increase. If we invest our energy on something we fear, then that point of focus will materialize and increase."

This is really the crux of the matter, and she says it very well. If you want to see the rest of this post, you can find it at Ilene's website at CareCircle.

I wrote most of the following on that other post, and then realized I really wanted to put it up here, too:

I believe my entire adult life, before I began therapy, was spent on one end of the spectrum. My father made my life miserable. To the child I was, this meant everything about him is bad. Black/white thinking is common in abused children.

My mother would sometimes tell me, "you're just like your father." She did this because she was frustrated with my behavior - not because I really was like him - but I didn't know that at the time. I had no power and could not be like he was, as a child, but this increased the intensity of my desire to not be like him.

It became my biggest fear - that I might be like my father - so I did my best to do everything exactly opposite of how he would do it. This means at least two things that I didn't understand going in:

1) In order to do the opposite of what my father is likely to do, I had to know what he would do. The only way to do that was to study him, constantly. While I wanted to stay clear of him and avoid him as much as I could, I was also obsessed with knowing what he would or wouldn't do because it seemed like the most important thing in the world not to be like him. For most of my life I knew him better than I knew myself - and possibly that is still true. I've had half-a-century of study on the subject of "him".

So the first thing this scenario brings is a kind of obsession with the abuser.
The very things that I did not like about him were keeping me connected to him.

2) My only motivation in most of the decisions I made was to do the opposite of what he would do - therefore I never asked myself "what do I want?" I truly had no idea what I wanted, other than not to be like him. Every choice I made was based on my father because all I wanted to do was not what he did - so even though I did a great job of not being like him, I still was not being myself.

Again, this is keeping me connected to him. For many abused children this connection goes on throughout their lives, even after the death of the abuser!

Another thing that comes out of abuse by a parent is the child’s needs not being met - and so there is a constant craving for the attention and love that is not being given. (I believe this part of the abuse dynamic is the focus of a lot of Inner Child work - and it has been the most helpful part of my work, I believe. Even so, the other dynamic - which I really began to understand through CoDA - is also important.) While I continued to hate and fear my father in many ways, I also needed him, and this set up a very difficult dynamic for a child to be in. I was pulled towards him by need and by this obsession and that made it impossible to see the world in any way except as he would - almost through his eyes.

There were times when I did things that I knew would make him happy - not on purpose, but because they seemed to just present themselves in my life. For instance, the man I married was “a good catch” in my father’s opinion. Inside I have always had this angry child jumping up and down whenever my father would say something nice about my husband. In fact, my father has always liked my husband more than me. That is not a childish outburst, it is a fact. It hurt so much that there are times when I have taken it out on my husband – and then another part of me reacts painfully to that, knowing I am really reacting to my father, which makes me furious!

So, even when I have been the “good girl”, it has made me miserable.

Through therapy and CoDA, I have come to a place where I know myself better than I ever have in the past. When I truly know I am doing something because I want to, I get a giddy feeling inside that is very child-like and wonderful.

So - I was not surprised to hear that the opposite quality from the one we most admire is likely to be the biggest influence in life, in the video. I understand that has been my driving force.

People often speak of life lessons. The idea is that we are here to learn certain lessons and that the lesson will be presented again and again until we get it.

I take that a step further in my own beliefs. I think the awful things that happen to us are necessary to show us what that lesson is. The kind of obsession I spoke of above comes from the abuse, so without it I would never have been aware as I am now. The "lesson" could have been thrown at me a hundred times as an adult and I might never have noticed it if I wasn't already so sensitive to it because of my past.

The middle ground Ilene speaks of is exactly what I've been aiming for. In this place I would no longer react to people who I felt were not giving me what I needed because I would have what I needed, inside me. I would be able to look at both ends of the spectrum and find that center - and the center is ME. In that place, I could tell someone when I’m angry or hurt without being abusive or aggressive, and I could enjoy everything that is truly me without worrying if it is making me like someone else.

And - in this place my focus would no longer be at the other end of the sea-saw. It’s a hard place to find, but to me it’s worth the search.

*****

Featured Link: Dissociated Identity as a Coping Mechanism

*****

What Makes Me Worthwhile?

I frequent a site called “Inner Bonding”. It is put together by psychologists who have developed their own approach to healing. I get updates in my email about new articles and workshops. I haven’t attended any workshops, but have found some of the articles to be very helpful and insightful.

My inbox contained such an email, this morning. The subject line of today’s post was, “Healing Emotional Dependency”.

I love it when someone breaks something down for me. This part of the article did just that:

There are two major decisions you need to make to heal from emotional dependency:

1. You need to decide to learn how to take full 100% responsibility for your own feelings - your happiness and pain, your inner sense of safety, and your sense of worth.

2. You need to decide to define your worth - not by what others think of you or by your looks or by how much money you have, but by how well you love and what you contribute.

(Click here to read the entire article.)

So, first I have to take responsibility for my own feelings. That is a phrase I have heard before. I think it is a lot more complicated than it looks in that one sentence description. Before I could begin to take responsibility for my feelings, I had to:

1. Admit I had feelings. (CoDA would say, “Not deny them.”)
2. Learn to identify what these were (CoDA would say, “Not alter them.”)
3. Stop judging my feelings (feelings are not good or bad, they are just feelings.)
I think I have actually gone through steps one and two, here, but step three is still elusive.

Secondly, I have to reevaluate what makes me worthwhile. Talk about complicated! This is almost too much to get my head around. I want to believe that the ten pounds I’ve gained do not make me a bad person, but when I get dressed in the morning I have a hard time not thinking about how people will see me. I want to believe that I am just as valuable as my husband, who makes a great deal of money (that still never seems to be enough) even though I made only about $250 writing last year. I would like to believe that my life is as meaningful now as it was when I was a young mother with the responsibilities of little ones who needed me to take care of and guide them, but that role has defined me for decades.

Articles like this make me think about what is important, and I believe that is important in itself. I have to keep reminding myself that I am a work in progress. One way I am trying to define myself as “worthy” is through my belief that trying hard, working with true integrity towards bettering myself in ways that seem right, is significant – perhaps essential – in being “worthy”. The trying is all I can do right now, so I’m going with that.

More Images

I constantly question whether or not I'm right about my past.

Maybe I'm the one who doesn't remember?  

Maybe I'm wrong?

These are reasons sent to me by my therapist as to why I should trust my own feelings about my parents:

Your children have trouble being around them.

Your husband sees their dysfunction.

Your siblings are not running to spend lots of time with them.......

And that is only as your parents are older and less capable of creating harm.

This drawing is meant to represent the boundary between me and my father. The little child is the wounded part of me that doesn't feel safe around him. In the center are my DNMS Resources - the adult parts of me. There is also a "me" watching from the side, to make sure everything is going okay. She is the one that will determine if something is not the way it should be and take action. The child can trust her to set a boundary when she begins to feel overwhelmed and reactive.

Looking at Codependency

The more I beat myself up, the more uncomfortable I am.
The more uncomfortable I am, the less I am able to connect with others.
The less I connect with others, the more isolated I feel.
The more isolated I feel, the more I beat myself up.

I thought I was the only one who lived within that cycle. Because of my codependency, I would assess what people around me expected me to be, and become that person. This was not too difficult to achieve if I was with one other person, or even in a group of people that I usually saw together. However, when two of these people or groups came together, it was impossible to be what I perceived was expected of me by both parties. This brought on anxiety that was overwhelming, and so I avoided situations that might put me in the midst of other people.

Yet it never occurred to me that how I behaved should not be determined by what others expected or wanted.

Off the Shelf

Off the Shelf

When I woke up this morning I wasn't myself.
I found what I used to be up on the shelf.

It was crumpled and brown, a naked persona.
I had stripped it away like a pealed banana.

For a moment I thought I should wear it again;
I thought of my loved ones, my family and friends;

But I turned my back to it, and outside I flew,
Seeing the old world as somebody new.

As strange as this was, it was more odd to see
That nobody noticed. They thought I was me.

Did nobody know her -- That girl on the shelf?

I suppose that they didn't, not even myself.

River of Life

You find yourself in a river. You don’t know how you got there. The river is racing rapidly, bubbling around bends, at its own pace. This river will bring you everywhere you need to be, for your entire life.

But you don’t know this.

You swim fiercely, frantically, against the current, towards destinations you think are important. You grab sticks and rocks that pop up along the way and hang on for dear life. You drag your feet and fight currents that swirl all around you... when all you have to do is let go.

Let the river carry you. Float, and enjoy the feeling of the water as it takes you where you need to be.
Life doesn't have to be so hard.

Realizing I Couldn't Do It Alone

In the past, it often seemed Mother's Day should be called "Grandmother's Day". I have four children, but it was a rare moment when the spotlight shone on me. The why of that is something I've gradually come to understand, but in 2007, I had no idea.

I have three siblings, and one lives quite close, but I always felt holidays were my responsibility. My children gave me cards and wished me a happy day, and I was and am grateful for all of them. Still, I spent Mother's Day and the days leading up to it cleaning, worrying, and waiting for it to be over. I made reservations for brunch, and invited my parents, mother-in-law and my brother's family to my house, afterwards. I had snacks and dessert. I had a nice, mushy card for my mom, as well as a small gift.

My parents like to play cards. It's not my favorite activity, but that's what we did because it's what my parents expect and it was Mom's day, after all. My father was cranky because he prefers to choose which game we play, and my parents rarely agree on one. But Mom picked and we went through the day on a decades-old script that none of us knew how to stray from.

Except, my kids don’t follow a script. Between card games, my fourteen-year-old son announced that he was thinking about getting a summer job. He was looking for input as to what kind of job he could get and how he would get back and forth.

My mother looked to me and asked, "Isn't he too young to get a job?"
I said, "I had a job when I was fourteen."
Dismissively, my mother said, "Oh, you had babysitting jobs."
I started babysitting when I was eleven, but at fourteen I found a "real" job, working at a low-budget department store.

"Oh you did not. I don't think it's even legal for children that young to work."

I said, "Well, I had one. I worked in the summer, and also after school and weekends all through high school."

We went on to play more cards. When they were heading out the door I hugged my mom and told her Happy Mother's Day again. After everyone left, I cleaned up the kitchen, got my youngest to bed, and finally began to relax a little myself.

The next morning, after I took the kids to school, I checked my email. I found one from my mom, and opened it, assuming it would be some kind of thank you. In all honesty, I probably rolled my eyes because I felt resentful that I "had no choice" in what I did for holiday.

But this email had not been sent to thank me. Instead, the short and angry note informed me that I had "ruined" her Mother's Day. It took several back-and-forth emails and phone calls to discover that she was angry because, by saying I had a job at fourteen, I had implied that they were bad parents. That rather insignificant conversation was the only thing Mom remembered from a day spent in her honor.

How strange that of all the things that have happened in my life, this is the event that pushed me to finally look around and see if anyone else had answers I didn't. I'd been running in circles to do everything my parents wanted me to do for more than forty years, and it was simply not working. I constantly felt pressured and unhappy, and I was much too focused on finding the correct answer, the one action or response that would make my parents love me, and consequently, make me feel whole.


It took a couple of days to get the nerve to tell my husband that I was going to seek professional help. I was afraid he'd be angry, or disappointed, or would reject me. This is unjustified because my husband has always been my biggest cheerleader, but I projected my own anxiety and my parents' attitudes onto him.

His response surprised me.
He cried.
I am still not sure, why. At first I thought it was because I was failing. It felt like failure to me. After all, I was supposed to come up with the answers myself, right?

The next day, I started looking for a therapist. I had no idea what to look for. I researched online for hours, but ended up randomly picking one and emailing him to ask for an appointment. The following week, the world began to unfold in new and unexpected ways.