Lilyflower

Hi everyone,

I haven't posted for a while. You may be aware from my previous posts that I have begun to reflect internally, and I am hoping to be a stronger less co dependant person and begin to heal. I wanted to share with you how this is going...

I had a very emotional weekend. Lately I have been feeling as if I was making some real progress. I have been keeping my cool, not turning a debate into an arguement. I have felt as though I was beginning to move away from my former bad habits of co dependency, growing within myself. How wrong I was!
Nothing particulary shocking happened this weekend, my abf and I were both out on Friday night. I went to my work christmas party and he went to a concert with his friend. The next day, my abf and I seemed to just rub the wrong way and the friction begun an arguement. Again, this wasn't over anything in particular. Just some silly little things that kept growing. After we argued, I was sitting by myself downstairs while abf was upstairs. We were both within our own space and this should've been fine. I couldn't let things lie. For some reason I had the need to go back to him and keep picking. Either asking him if he was going to stay mad at me for long, asking him if he wanted a cup of coffee etc. When my vain attempts at communication fell on deaf ears, I became more desperate and begun arguing with him again. On Sunday, I told him to get out, there and then, that i no longer wanted him around, when I knew inside this was the opposite of how I was feeling. I made matters worse. Sunday was literally a nightmare for me. I was hysterical. I had told abf to go, and then was completely crumbling because I really didn't want him to. My friend Jan came over to calm me, I had cried pretty much all weekend and was exhausted.

On Monday I reflected on the whole episode. I read up on my codependancy, inner bonding, manipulation, control, guilt, blame, fault everything. I realised after much thought that I had fell back to codependency, deeper still, that my codependency hadn't gone away, I had been burying it. I discovered a few things. I feel I need to control every aspect of my life. When I don't have control, I feel helpless, lost and afraid. I control my life by controlling people around me. When I feel insecure, afraid, lonely, fear, I instinctively begin to manipulate people to behave in a way that will make me feel safe and secure. If people don't treat me the way I have pictured in my mind, I reject them before they hurt me. I cannot accept reality in difficult situations and try to alter the situation to be more palatable to me. I realised this had been the case over the weekend with abf. I wanted him to change his behaviour because the reality of the difficulties we were having were uncomfortable to me. Understandably, my abf didn't see why he should change (we cannot change a person, only ourselves). When I met this resistance to behave the way I wanted him to I told him to go. This was my 'shock tactic', I wanted him to be afraid of my outburst, and repent his ways, become the person I wanted him to be. Basically I wanted to control his behaviour. When this didn't work in the way I wanted it to, I became very upset. I believed that he was being mean, it was his fault I was upset, he wouldn't do what I wanted him to do. My friend called it the 'Fault and blame game'. I was laying all the fault and blame at his feet.

I know now I was refusing to accept responsibility for my feelings. My codependency had not gone away because I was not working through my wounded self, I was supressing it. When I argue with abf, my wounded self from all my past relationships comes into play. I am not acting responsible, because I have not dealt with that wounded inner part of myself. Before, I could not see this and blamed all my feelings on abf, instead of accepting them and healing them as a part of me.

I have gone back to basics. I am taking responsibility for my emotions. I have begun the process of healing me.

Thank you for reading this, I know it has been long. I appreciate your patience
Lily xxxx

nowinsituation

Lilyflower -

Thank you for sharing this. As part of my healing process I am trying to be open to the possibility that I have co-dependency issues. Sharing your actions, emotions, and your analysis of them helps me to understand myself better.

denny57

(((lily))) There is tremendous growth in that post - congratulations! When I finally got it - that taking responsibility does not mean taking blame, many good things happened.

Keep coming back!

Pajarito

Lily- I see myself in you, and I wonder- HOW do we really change ourselves? Is the first step identifying our behavior like you have? Then what? I am no longer living with my AH, so I am not confronted with his bad behavior as you are with your abf. So- I see this kind of behavior in myself, but what can I do to change myself? I read, go to al-anon, talk to people about issues, but I am worried I won't change. Why do I feel that way? I don't want to make the same mistakes again- and I don't want to behave this way with my 10-yr-old daughter. I wonder if anyone else can tell us- HOW is change possible? Is what I am doing enough? It seems like such a long road- which I have really only begun to travel in the past 4 months. Thanks for posting this Lily. It's an eye-opener for me. I think it's great that you can be so clear about it. Maybe it is as simple as that- identifying it, working on it by being aware and reading, meetings, etc.
Take care. . .

CBrown

What a wonderful post! The term "codependent" I have never accepted for myself, however I can easily say that I am "controlling." It started for me with controlling parents as a child, a controlling husband, and then I broke free. And with my determination never to be controlled again, I went to the opposite end of the spectrum. I have the need to control my own life and others. Yet, I have learned to find balance with my daughter, and now am struggling releasing the XABF from my grips.

So you are right, it is a journey of self-discovery! Oftentimes we like to point the finger at the addict in our life, when we should be turning the finger back at ourselves. And we backslide like the As in our lives too. That's life, hmm?

Thanks again for the great post.

Kindeyes

Wow. Powerful post. Thank you for sharing. I could see many of my own behaviors in your words. Posts like this help us all in our self awareness.

Sometimes it seems I can be "self aware" for a while and then slip. I am getting better at recognizing those slips though. I don't beat myself up for it. I feel proud that I was able to recognize it because it really wasn't that long ago that I couldn't even do that.

Great post! Thanks again! and gentle hugs to you!

FormerDoormat

Absolutely!

Lilyflower

Thankyou, everyone, for responding so kindly to my post.

Denny, I really appreciate your encouragement, thank you!

Lilyflower

Pajarito, I feel this too. I am learning that as children we adapted certain ways of acting (manipulation, control, supression) to enable us to cope with life's troubles. As young people we did not have the ability to help ourselves in a healthy responsible way- we were only a child after all! At some point in my life, I began to feel unworthy. I have not yet learnt when this happened, and maybe I never will. I have been unable to let go of this view of myself as I have matured into an adult. There are many lies I told myself when I was young that I still believe now. They have become like a mantra in my mind. When I meet a certain type of situation that I cannot deal with as an adult, I revert back to what enabled me to 'survive' as a child. I ignore, run away, supress, push people away from me, become frustrated, angry. If a healthy adult watched me from a distance they would say I threw tantrums. I know I do, because as a child this gave me the attention or the object of my desires. I have never grown spiritually to learn a new and healthier way, and so now as an adult, I still throw a tantrum, but now it has grown from foot stamping into shouting, lashing out, name calling- all the traits we connect with codependency and control. Beginning to realise where these hurt feelings lie is just the beginning as you have said. It is vitally important to identify when we are 'acting out'. The way forward after this is to heal those wounds, correct those lies we tell ourselves.

You are doing great with all of your reading and attending al anon. For me, the eye opener came when I realised that all my 'learning' was in my head, I had yet to apply it in my heart.

Lilyflower

Hey Claudia,

I relate to this so much! I control evrything. At work it actually helps me get by because I am so thorough and follow a piece of work through the whole process to ensure it is done correctly and to a high standard. The trouble is I do this with my personal life too! I don't like anyone attempting to control me, because I feel my control slipping away. Heaven forbid that should happen! I fear my world. 'What if's?' plague my mind, I have to have a contingency plan for every variable. At times I am so exhausted carrying all that strain around that I can go a few months letting everything get out of control, and then beat myself up for allowing my life to get in such a mess. There is never a happy medium, and boy do I want one! I am not prepared to send myself to an early grave!

ICU

Lilyflower,

What a wonderful awareness you had! I remember feeling the way you described here too. What a lightbulb moment it was for me to come to similar recognitions. And then, I was able to change.

I think the reason why we 'slide back' is because we haven't fully learned, or haven't been fully 'ready' to understand certain aspects of our recovery. But it's not a failure. We've just been taking other steps to prepare ourselves for the realization!

Although I'm certain it was a painful process for you, I'm glad for you because you have mastered a very important step and can begin to move forward now! (I hope that came out right)!

Lilyflower

Thankyou so much ICU.

What you said is true, as I said to Pajarito, all the knowledge was in my head. I had yet to put it in action and place it at my heart. I hope now to do this. Perhaps in the future I will see my codependency before the event, and not after it! I spent Monday afternoon 'talking' to myself on paper. Then I went home and took the first step... I admitted to myself and to my boyfriend, that I have a problem. I cried again! This time though they were tears of recognition of my inner pain, and not tears of frustration.

Thanks everyone for your continued support. I know I'll have many relapses before I am healed!

Lily xxxxxx