Miss taking care of someone
 

I have been feeling selfish lately, always thinking about myself. I realized that I miss taking care of someone. Can a recovering codie take care of people in a healthy way?

Something doesn't feel right, I feel like I am slipping too far in the other direction, back to where I came from. It is scary and I fear axbf is going to pick up on this and try to get back into my life.

I have a couple parties this weekend that focus on other people so it'll be nice to not be the center of attention (in my own mind). Just remembered something... I had such a fear of being the center of attention that it was the biggest reason why I didn't want to get married (that and I didn't want to see my FOO). I didn't understand what marriage was back then anyway so I am glad I never tied the knot, but wow. I was so outer focused that having attention on my hypothetical wedding day made me uncomfortable. Woof.

Wow I could have written your post!

:lmaoExpanding .......if you want to take care of something, living.....I suggest that you try raising orchids.....and, join a club of orchid growers......

Orchids will give you something to worry over and to attend to.....something that will keep you awake some nights......You can, even, organize your life around them......

dandylion

Well when you put it that way... lol

I'd be happy to ship you a couple of cats. Very friendly.

(I just got new furniture and am trying to "train" them to stay off of it.) (Amusing thought, isn't it?)

Lexie, I had cat long ago who was not supposed to be on the counters, and he knew it. So, before he jumped up there, he would give me a few loud meows to let me know his intentions. I would just yell, "Don't even think about it!" and he would walk away and find something else to do.

Y'all are funny, especially Lexie!

I am not in CoDA (probably should be but that's for a secondary focus after AA!) but have been working on reestablishing old friendships and making new ones. I have slowly been reaching out to the good people in my life whom I let (or sometimes "encouraged") away while drinking. One thing I do, so an idea for you, is to jot down five or so people on my daily calendar (it is very detailed and how I keep myself straight) to contact in some way. I don't always get to all of them, but try to text or otherwise touch base; my list is largely people who come to mind several times, ones I want to make plans with in the next few weeks, ones I miss, that sort of thing. It has worked out well in planning one or two social things (lunch, dinner, whatever) a week and I am loving having more good people in the small circle I live in now that I am sober. For me, also, having to remember that friends are just that, and see the boundaries between their lives and mine, especially as far as time and the details of our lives go.

I am also a dog person- volunteering with them is a good idea (for me) and on my list to get into by Sep! I guess the point with our sugg of orchids and animals is to find something you enjoy, and can develop a positive, with boundaries focused relationship.

hahaha. If I try to go codie on my cats, they run.

There is a lesson there...

My first reaction to reading this is: Self-care is not Selfish. That was a VERY difficult distinction for me to make early on in this process.

It's hard to get used to not focusing on external validations to the point of NEEDING them to feel whole. Across the board, external focus was me avoiding the hard, internal work. Love the orchid idea!

It sounds like you are describing the discomfort that comes in early recovery when you are trying so hard to identify & break old patterns. It feels weird! We're used to being tightly anchored & instead we find ourselves untethered & free floating with the waves - there's no specific 1-2-3 direction with Codie Recovery & it's probably the thing we all struggle with the most.

Can you share an example of what makes you feels self-centered?

could it be ya miss taking care of someone because issues with YOU are coming up and you'd rather focus on someone else rather than face YOUR issues?

I was gonna say... Go get a dog.

I feel like I am constantly thinking about myself. Where is the line between self care and selfishness? Maybe that's what I'm trying to figure out. I like your analogy of being tightly anchored in the past and now floating free. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what a healthy dynamic is... is it two people who put themselves first? How does that make a good relationship? Where does the other person come in and how?

I know what my issues are, a few of them anyway, and I feel selfish always thinking about me and staying in my own head. I'm seeing a therapist at least once and sometimes twice a week, I'm so determined to get to the bottom of this. I'm feeling "useless". Like Ross Rosenberg has said I am acting like a human doing instead of a human being. It makes sense but I still feel like I need to do something for others. At the very least think about them... obsessively.

Logically I know that self care is not selfish, and for a while it didn't feel selfish, but after several months it now does

:lmao

YEah - this...this is what I found for myself anyway. I was so focused on getting back to couple-dome when I left XABF - finding someone new, finding someone healthy, finding "safety and comfort" in a mutual love dynamic again.

It takes a LOT to see our unhealthy patterns, and A LOT of work to change them.

Can you let go of this for a while? Completely let the thoughts as someone else as a factor in your life go - for a while?

Can you change the questions to:

Who am I, at my core while I am ALONE?
That do I want for my future when I am the only factor in it?
Are my days being filled with the things I want to be doing?
Am I taking care of myself mentally, physically and spiritually and is there anything I want to change to take better care of my needs?
Is my self talk positive, uplifting and non judgmental?
If not, why, and how can I heal that negative voice?

Take care of yourself - there will be good and bad days with all this.

Sometimes I feel like I have this recovery thing by the nards - like I get it, it's easy, and i'm fixed! Then, there are days its like Whoooah! Girl, you are a friggin trainwreck! Difference is, now I can see the trainwreck, separate the bits and pieces, and handle them one at a time until they are insignificant to me.

Hang tough, you're doing fine!

Lots of good stuff in this thread, and I'd particularly like to echo firebolt's post. In my case, I wasn't necessarily looking for someone new, but I was most assuredly terrified of being alone and thus hung on for a long time w/XAH out of nothing but fear of the void that I assumed awaited me if I was on my own.

And the rest of what she said? Yep, my experience too. Still working on it. Had a very bad weekend back in June after XAH and I had spent a fair amount of time together organizing and getting rid of old possessions. I cried on and off for a few days. I didn't feel like I was back at square one; I felt like I'd found a whole new level of awful to feel!

But I rummaged thru my recovery toolkit and tried the meditation wrench, the detachment hammer, the inspirational reading saw, the self-care nails, and lo and behold, w/a little help from the Universe, I built me a bridge over the Gulch of Sadness. It took some work, but when I set foot on it, it held me up until I got to the other side.

Just today this article showed up in my email (that Tiny Buddha site has an uncanny knack of featuring exactly the article that is needed!): Why We Put Ourselves Last & Why Self-Care Should Be a Priority

Hope it helps.

If you are truly a codie, thinking about yourself only and being "selfish" is probably the best thing that can happen to you. If you do have the urge to take care of something or somebody, I recommend pets, or get yourself busy in the community, volunteer, get out of the house and do something. I think that most of this urge comes from boredom and loneliness. When you are truly busy, you have no time for this type of thinking.

My gosh I feel like you completely understand me lol yes yes and yes... really I need to stop worrying about that. If the time and person was right I don't think I would be obsessing over it....

How silly when I don't feel comfortable with myself yet. I think it's because my friends are all getting married... my ex is with someone already... the majority of my friends are a part of a couple... I'm sure it was always like this I just never noticed because I was "one of them" too... plus I am nearing 30 and hope I don't turn into one of those women who obsesses over her clock ticking.... the last thing I need to do is settle down because I feel I am running out of time.

I LOVE the way you changed the questions, thank you

Haha - Yeah we've relied on trying to make others happy, and other peoples general happiness to make OURSELVES happy for so long that WE don't know what we can do to make us happy on our own - independent of another human being!

Man - A few months after i moved out of XABF's, after reading SO MUCH here and in other books for years, and the dust had finally settled...I was left in kind of an existential crisis - like, I was 38 and didn't know who the F I was! How could that be?!

I knew a handful of hobbies were fun..but it's taken some doing to honestly enjoy solo walks, solo meals, solo trips and solo hobbies - it's kind of a fake it til ya make it deal there. It's been so good to sort out what is my responsibility for my happiness and appreciation, and my restlessness and angst, and what times i really need to reach out to a friend or family member (or here) to sort through something difficult.

It gets easier and easier...and I've been guilty maybe too much lately of or postponing a casual date because I preferred to hang with a friend, or because a frozen pizza, fat pants, and binge-watching Supernatural sounded better.

A few months ago, I just felt so restless and uncomfortable 'missing something' (someone). Someone here said "no one ever died of discomfort." Haha - that stuck with me and they were right....and all my crisis stuff fell into place - and yeah, there is a ton of stuff that I thoroughly enjoy doing on my own.

Hang in there..get over that 4 - 5 mark hump...you'll be treating yourself like you 'own the place' in no time.

My therapist helped me to picture what you are talking about like a pendulum on a clock.

I was so lopsided and one sided that just "swinging," in the other direction was uncomfortable for me. I would get panic and often overcompensate back to old behaviors because of how uncomfortable I was.

For me one of the biggest lesson was that self care IS NEVER selfish (as someone has already mentioned). It was something I needed to work THROUGH though.

As someone struggling with being alone at the moment, just wanted to thank all who posted here. Very great information and also nice to know I am not alone and that there is hope for the future after putting in the work.

ya know, i am a caretaker by nature......and hank certainly gives me PLENTY of opportunities to do so.

but, he was off to his home town a few weeks ago, for a whole week...and i took that week off of work. i posted a thread about it....i used that time to my advantage....i watched what I WANTED to on the TV, i watched the movies I WANTED to, if i left the room and came back, the TV stayed on the same channel.

i set up projects every other day or so, things i've been wanting to do, thinking of doing, and just DID THEM. i was Queen of my Domain, and i LIKED it.