Aeryn

I was always a bit confused on the codependency front because I wasn't super controlling in the traditional ways: I didn't monitor the XAH's drinking, I didn't pour out bottles, I didn't manage his job, I didn't try to manage meals, and I wasn't much of an advice giver to him unless he asked directly. He never hid bottles from me when I lived there because I didn't care I guess - or I didn't say much.

My controlling was always a bit more subtle - I tried to manage *me* - so to keep *me* afloat financially and keep *my* image I would do things like pay all the bills (just had him write checks from his account) and make sure the house was spotless if people were coming by. So for a long time I thought that was my control issue.

What I realized was my control issue is something far more subtle than what I mentioned above but just as big of an issue. I control by putting up walls and not showing people any of my vulnerabilities or my true self. So no one really knows me - because I withhold any information or feelings I think they could possibly twist and use against me or use to look down on me with. So I control by withholding my true self - if no one has any information they can't hurt me...or that was my thinking.

To top that I realized why I had the above control issue (it's all about the inner child's unresolved issues) - it's because I grew up with an untreated Alanon, emotionally abusive mother who controlled every aspect of my life . She would call my friends parents and tell them bad things about me, she would call my teachers and tell them I was crazy and to "watch" me, she would invade my privacy to the extent that I had to keep any diaries or anything personal on my being at all times. She followed me everywhere and invaded every aspect of my life - then once she did get information she used it to belittle me. My therapist says she is a narcissist (those personalities tend to be emotionally abusive as well but not always as severe as my mom was). As a child my only solution was to withhold all information and feelings about myself, to repress myself - never to say what I thought or felt and to keep that not only hidden but buried and out of reach. And as a child that worked - as an adult, well it no longer works - OBVIOUSLY, it's very hard to have a real relationship when you don't expose your true self or any vulnerabilities...plus I sort of lost my true self by burying it.

I even realized one of the reasons I stayed with the XAH so long was because he wasn't controlling AT ALL - he was too busy drinking to do any of those invasive things I was so scared of...so staying with him was easy and it enabled me to continue to bury my feelings, thoughts and vulnerabilities with no worry of being exposed and embarrassed (like I was in childhood).

Now that I've made these realizations (through a great therapist) I can actually start working through them and working on moving MY life forward. I could NEVER have done this staying with my XAH because by staying with him I could live in his drama and not face my own.

I just thought I'd share this step forward in my recovery - also I wondered if this type of "isolation control" by building walls to protect myself from others was just me or if others did it too.