How To Let Go Of Codependency
I just happened to find and read this while browsing through wellness articles. I found it to be helpful and insightful. It was not written specifically for people struggling with codependency in a relationship with an addict - but regardless, the advice applies 100%, at least to me. In a way, I think that made it more helpful, by highlighting that this is a pattern of MINE, outside of my relationship with my A. That relationship was just the catalyst to facing myself and seeking to improve.
Anyway, I got a lot out of it, and hope someone else here does!
If you care to read my thoughts on it... these parts really stuck out to me:
Most people who are acting in a codependent way are not aware that they are being manipulative. In fact, I think usually their intention is to be genuinely helpful and nice. But, when we take a second to look at the real motive of trying to make everyone else feel OK, we see that actually it's self-centered. It's about you—you want them to feel OK so you can feel OK! See what I mean? Not so helpful or nice.
^^ I am SO GUILTY of that.
"The truth is, no one else is in charge of how you feel. And that means, you are also not in charge of how anyone else feels. Feelings belong to the feeler. Period."
^^YES!!! Now, to remember that when I need to...
"When you are codependent, you make another person your higher power. Your sense of well-being (and lack thereof) is dependent on them."
^ Yikes is right. I have been in big denial of that one... saying that I depend first and foremost on God, etc... but he became another higher power for me. The easier, softer way of finding a sense of well being (when things were good, at least). When he started relapsing was when I had to start facing up to this... if I relied solely on God, and had total faith, it would not have devastated me the way it did. I needed my A to behave the way I felt he should, in order to feel like everything was OK; when he didn't, I felt anxious, scared, tense, out of control... I was so invested in him, in "us", when that reality changed, I lost my serenity. Then the behaviors started... all the normal codie stuff, and then some. I started experiencing old eating-disorder type thoughts about my body and the way I was eating. NOT GOOD! I think that some combination of a search for "something I could control", a manifestation of poor self-worth, an escape from looking at the bigger problems by focusing on something relatively inconsequential (which I had the power to change), and trying to make myself more "valuable" and "worthy" of him getting better or something. I was feeling "not good enough" and it started to manifest in unhealthy thoughts and behaviors, which just increased the problem between my ears.
What a waste of energy! Today I am trying to clear out the clutter in my soul, mind, and life, to make room for God, my true higher power. I am trying to deepen my relationship with him (which I have neglected in the past couple months while fixating on my A). I look back to my early recovery from addiction, and I know that if I do the work, God will fill me with his love and guide me in the direction he wants me to take.. so I'm trying to stay closer to doing that. Big words... but with one little action at a time, I'm trying to fulfill them.