The dogs
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The dogs
I grew up in a house always with dogs since I was a child. I now have a dog of my own and raised her since she was just a puppy, going on 12 years now. The love I have for her is immense and unconditional, not unlike most dog owners. Recently I got to thinking about the dogs I grew up with, and how both wonderful and difficult it was. I was raised in an immigrant family, both parents of whom also had dogs growing up themselves but in their poor countries the dogs often ran around outside eating leftovers or whatever scraps were around. They certainly didn't grow up in places where large warehouses and stores were built specifically to house dog food, medicines, spas, and certainly not sweaters and little outfits and hair bows. They didn't have daycares or special parks dedicated to these animals either and well, who could blame them? They didn't have the basics available just for their own people much less the pets they owned. The dogs grew up with love and food and shelter, just the basics and all dogs really needed I would imagine.
Fast forward to my own childhood where our family had dogs just as other Americans did. It was what the kids wanted, so we had them. I still remember the pity I felt when I came home from school and the dog would be sleeping alone in our de-tached garage, coming back into shelter from his tie to the tree where he could be outside, but not wander too far. I would ask my parents why the dog couldn't just live with us. My dad explained that this would be impossible with my mother's asthma. I was too young to understand much of anything, but in my heart I felt I was abandoning the dog because we weren't allowed to have him in the house.
As we went through other dogs, and eventually moved into a new house with a basement, the dogs we would have would be allowed to live down there. The basement was unfinished. It was certainly temperate and my father always took them out in the yard and brought them food, but they were mostly down there alone. Eventually one of them died from old age, and I imagine a health that was deteriorating but that no one had really noticed (granted, he passed at 17, but I still remember seeing him limp upstairs as though it were a surprise to me he was ill), - the other that remained I had developed a special relationship with. I took him out for long walks every day despite his muscular and strong body that would yank me up and down the block. People would see us out and joke that he was walking ME. I remember that I made him a nice house downstairs, but because he was not housebroken he usually would pee on everything so it was difficult to keep it clean and nice for him. But I did my best as a kid. I would try and sleep down there and make my own area so I could live with him, but given the nature of the space it wasn't exactly livable, nor did my parents welcome that - it was closer to a garage than basement (ie.spiders, dust, gravel, etc.). But I did all I could for him I recall while I was still living with my parents and under their rules.
Eventually the dog had passed away from old age and I watched him die as the veterinarian gave him his final injection. After 12 years now, I still have recurring dreams of dogs in the lonely darkened basement. The way they would look at me after I would go down there to visit them and start walking back up the stairs to the living area where my family was. How I would be leaving them when they needed me and I couldn't do anything about it. The way my eldest brother would yell and yank at my hair when I would try and sneak the dogs into my bed with me. How he would open the door to the basement and scream profanities at the them for crying because they wanted to be with us.
Sometimes I wonder if part of that experience as a child hasn't helped to shape my codependency. Of course you can't have a codependent relationship with an animal, but those same themes were present even then (how do I save something I have no control over? the answer was that I couldn't, precisely because I had no control over it, but I keep asking anyway). Because dreams of these dogs still appear to me as frequently and vividly as they do even so many years later, I think about it often as I deal with my relationship to the alcoholic and the futile effort I work to fix it.
It's odd but it was only today that I thought about those dreams I have of the dogs. I sometimes wonder if I look at my qualifier like one of these dogs. Perhaps I never forgave myself.... Just something that crossed my mind today. I can't wait to tell my therapist who has now decided that my Abf might actually be my son from a past life since she can't seem to make logical sense of the enmeshment after all of this!
Fast forward to my own childhood where our family had dogs just as other Americans did. It was what the kids wanted, so we had them. I still remember the pity I felt when I came home from school and the dog would be sleeping alone in our de-tached garage, coming back into shelter from his tie to the tree where he could be outside, but not wander too far. I would ask my parents why the dog couldn't just live with us. My dad explained that this would be impossible with my mother's asthma. I was too young to understand much of anything, but in my heart I felt I was abandoning the dog because we weren't allowed to have him in the house.
As we went through other dogs, and eventually moved into a new house with a basement, the dogs we would have would be allowed to live down there. The basement was unfinished. It was certainly temperate and my father always took them out in the yard and brought them food, but they were mostly down there alone. Eventually one of them died from old age, and I imagine a health that was deteriorating but that no one had really noticed (granted, he passed at 17, but I still remember seeing him limp upstairs as though it were a surprise to me he was ill), - the other that remained I had developed a special relationship with. I took him out for long walks every day despite his muscular and strong body that would yank me up and down the block. People would see us out and joke that he was walking ME. I remember that I made him a nice house downstairs, but because he was not housebroken he usually would pee on everything so it was difficult to keep it clean and nice for him. But I did my best as a kid. I would try and sleep down there and make my own area so I could live with him, but given the nature of the space it wasn't exactly livable, nor did my parents welcome that - it was closer to a garage than basement (ie.spiders, dust, gravel, etc.). But I did all I could for him I recall while I was still living with my parents and under their rules.
Eventually the dog had passed away from old age and I watched him die as the veterinarian gave him his final injection. After 12 years now, I still have recurring dreams of dogs in the lonely darkened basement. The way they would look at me after I would go down there to visit them and start walking back up the stairs to the living area where my family was. How I would be leaving them when they needed me and I couldn't do anything about it. The way my eldest brother would yell and yank at my hair when I would try and sneak the dogs into my bed with me. How he would open the door to the basement and scream profanities at the them for crying because they wanted to be with us.
Sometimes I wonder if part of that experience as a child hasn't helped to shape my codependency. Of course you can't have a codependent relationship with an animal, but those same themes were present even then (how do I save something I have no control over? the answer was that I couldn't, precisely because I had no control over it, but I keep asking anyway). Because dreams of these dogs still appear to me as frequently and vividly as they do even so many years later, I think about it often as I deal with my relationship to the alcoholic and the futile effort I work to fix it.
It's odd but it was only today that I thought about those dreams I have of the dogs. I sometimes wonder if I look at my qualifier like one of these dogs. Perhaps I never forgave myself.... Just something that crossed my mind today. I can't wait to tell my therapist who has now decided that my Abf might actually be my son from a past life since she can't seem to make logical sense of the enmeshment after all of this!
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Bingo.
So many of us desperately try to change the past by destroying our present and our future.
I said the other day your qualifier wasn't a shelter puppy...but maybe he is?
It now starts to make sense, to the extent it ever can.
He is not a puppy. He is not helpless. He can open the basement door and walk out any time...but as long as you're protecting him from reality and consequences, why would he?
So many of us desperately try to change the past by destroying our present and our future.
I said the other day your qualifier wasn't a shelter puppy...but maybe he is?
It now starts to make sense, to the extent it ever can.
He is not a puppy. He is not helpless. He can open the basement door and walk out any time...but as long as you're protecting him from reality and consequences, why would he?
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Posts: 16,246
Smarie....you were a compassionate child...and, a compassionate person. Having compassion for animals as a child does not cause a person to be co-dependent.
You are fortunate to be a person with empathy and compassion--because those without it are called sociopaths...and worse.
What I do suspect, though, is that you, yourself have felt abandoned and controlled and, maybe neglected or even abused, in some ways...so you identify, strongly with anyone else...fur covered or otherwise....
I don't necessarily, think that is a bad thing, in itself, either.
My favorite definition of co-dependency is this one----"Co-dependency is not so much about the relationship with another, as it is with a lack of enough relationship with the self".
I must tell you, that I am a big animal lover, myself...and, I can't get to the remote control fast enough when they show those animal rescue ads, late at night....they just pull on my heart strings, too much. And, I can remember, that at a young child...about 7yrs. old...I would worry and cry at night, if there was a heavy storm outside, and wonder if there were any kittens left outside, in the rain, somewhere....
As for the past life regression stuff....I have to recuse myself, as that is too far above my pay grade...lol...
You are fortunate to be a person with empathy and compassion--because those without it are called sociopaths...and worse.
What I do suspect, though, is that you, yourself have felt abandoned and controlled and, maybe neglected or even abused, in some ways...so you identify, strongly with anyone else...fur covered or otherwise....
I don't necessarily, think that is a bad thing, in itself, either.
My favorite definition of co-dependency is this one----"Co-dependency is not so much about the relationship with another, as it is with a lack of enough relationship with the self".
I must tell you, that I am a big animal lover, myself...and, I can't get to the remote control fast enough when they show those animal rescue ads, late at night....they just pull on my heart strings, too much. And, I can remember, that at a young child...about 7yrs. old...I would worry and cry at night, if there was a heavy storm outside, and wonder if there were any kittens left outside, in the rain, somewhere....
As for the past life regression stuff....I have to recuse myself, as that is too far above my pay grade...lol...
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Join Date: Sep 2016
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Originally Posted by Ariesagain 
Bingo.
So many of us desperately try to change the past by destroying our present and our future.
I said the other day your qualifier wasn't a shelter puppy...but maybe he is?
It now starts to make sense, to the extent it ever can.
He is not a puppy. He is not helpless. He can open the basement door and walk out any time...but as long as you're protecting him from reality and consequences, why would he?
So many of us desperately try to change the past by destroying our present and our future.
I said the other day your qualifier wasn't a shelter puppy...but maybe he is?
It now starts to make sense, to the extent it ever can.
He is not a puppy. He is not helpless. He can open the basement door and walk out any time...but as long as you're protecting him from reality and consequences, why would he?
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2016
Location: Anywhere, USA
Posts: 869
Originally Posted by dandylion
Smarie....you were a compassionate child...and, a compassionate person. Having compassion for animals as a child does not cause a person to be co-dependent.
You are fortunate to be a person with empathy and compassion--because those without it are called sociopaths...and worse.
What I do suspect, though, is that you, yourself have felt abandoned and controlled and, maybe neglected or even abused, in some ways...so you identify, strongly with anyone else...fur covered or otherwise....
I don't necessarily, think that is a bad thing, in itself, either.
My favorite definition of co-dependency is this one----"Co-dependency is not so much about the relationship with another, as it is with a lack of enough relationship with the self".
I must tell you, that I am a big animal lover, myself...and, I can't get to the remote control fast enough when they show those animal rescue ads, late at night....they just pull on my heart strings, too much. And, I can remember, that at a young child...about 7yrs. old...I would worry and cry at night, if there was a heavy storm outside, and wonder if there were any kittens left outside, in the rain, somewhere....
As for the past life regression stuff....I have to recuse myself, as that is too far above my pay grade...lol...
You are fortunate to be a person with empathy and compassion--because those without it are called sociopaths...and worse.
What I do suspect, though, is that you, yourself have felt abandoned and controlled and, maybe neglected or even abused, in some ways...so you identify, strongly with anyone else...fur covered or otherwise....
I don't necessarily, think that is a bad thing, in itself, either.
My favorite definition of co-dependency is this one----"Co-dependency is not so much about the relationship with another, as it is with a lack of enough relationship with the self".
I must tell you, that I am a big animal lover, myself...and, I can't get to the remote control fast enough when they show those animal rescue ads, late at night....they just pull on my heart strings, too much. And, I can remember, that at a young child...about 7yrs. old...I would worry and cry at night, if there was a heavy storm outside, and wonder if there were any kittens left outside, in the rain, somewhere....
As for the past life regression stuff....I have to recuse myself, as that is too far above my pay grade...lol...
You gave me a chuckle with the past life comment! Whenever she goes there I get a huge smile on my face doing my best to keep from giggling. I think she is so perplexed to why I stay that she has to go somewhere extraordinary to believe it 😉
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Originally Posted by Smarie78
I can't wait to tell my therapist who has now decided that my Abf might actually be my son from a past life since she can't seem to make logical sense of the enmeshment after all of this!
Differences between your ABF and a dog:
1. Dogs don't hurt their owners.
2. Dogs live as healthy a life as they can.
3. Dogs are always grateful for what you can do for them.
4. Dogs are wonderful companions.
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