5 Jul 2009
You crossed my boundary
Codependency recovery is about viewing the world from a safer space, a cordoned off arena that offers the chance to rebrand, review and rediscover. Coda types often gain esteem from doing things for others without finding the time or enthusiasm to motivate themselves into order. Recovery arrives when you put the coda books down and start to crank your voice up. Change is a frightening process for those stuck in automatic pilot, even thinking about it can put people in freeze frame. I always suggest that reading a book first about CODA will force the issue up front as identification takes place, and often I will say BRADSHAW ON : THE FAMILY as a first call.
It’s subhead is : A Revolutionary Way of Self-Discovery – so prepare for a long haul. Published over 20 years ago it still holds court when it comes to family dysfunction and the adoption of new tactics within it to heal the soul. Bradshaw calls Codependency the most common family illness, here is a snippet from the book.
" Codependence is the most common family illness because it is what happens to anyone in any kind of a dysfunctional family. In every dysfunctional family, there is a primary stressor. This could be Dad’s drinking or work addiction: Mum’s hysterical control of everyone’s feelings; Dad or Mum’s physical or verbal violence; a family member’s actual sickness or hypochondriasis; Dad or Mum’s early death; the divorce; Dad or Mum’s moral/religious righteousness; Dad or Mum’s sexual abuse. Anyone who becomes controlling in the family to the point of being experienced as a threat by other members, initiates the dysfunction. This member is the primary stressor. Each member of the family adapts to this stress in an attempt to control it. Each becomes OUTER-DIRECTED and lives adapting to the stressor for as long as the stress exists.
Each becomes co-dependent on the stressor. "
I would then add that each person becomes codependent on the stressor in order to survive and this continues into adult relationships and the workplace.
Imagine a kid coming home from school, turning his key in the door preparing themselves for the energy behind it, learning quickly to duck n dive, shut up or disappear. Survival behaviors are hard to give up say’s Bradshaw, they are old friends who served us well. We did survive, but we survived by developing a kind of POWER that resulted from scarificing ourselves, needs and desires. We then learned to control people by becoming caretakers, parenting and babysitting friends and partners. In the end our survival behaviors left us powerless and spiritually bankrupt because the power in the family drained spirit, hope and pleasure leaving us " less than " instead of feeling balanced, complete and adequate. As the power dominated the family – functional bounderies were trampled on and lost. In recovery we learn that everything is NOT our fault. We learn to separate the issues and decide what is our stuff and what is other people stuff. In a confused childhood it’s easy to think we are bringers of pain and stress so we spend our adulthood walking on tippy toes to please people in order to gain approval without confrontation. Bradshaw wrote this book based on his PBS Television series when Mum & Dad were the only considered parent but all these tactics can and are acted out by step fathers,step mothers or substitute parents all over the world. Creating new boundaries to offset past abuses are best solved in therapy or within groupwork as you would be the last person to even recognize the subtleties involved in untangling where and what your needs are other than double caring for others, since you are likely to operate on automatic pilot with emotional disturbance, much like the majority of the population.
Learning how to create boundaries, demolishing people pleasing and finding a guiltless self will continue in the next blog. In the meantime consider who was the controlling energy in your childhood, what you have inherited from them and how you act out misplaced revenge onto others.
I’m a member of CoDA and a student, taking courses in addictions counseling. I’ve no idea what the story is in the UK but here in the states, co-dependency is not viewed as a legitimate disease by the professional community, unlike alcohol or narcotics, hence our text suggests we send our future clients to AA or NarcAnon, even AlAnon, for help, but not CoDA.
I would like to write a paper arguing that codependency is a real addiction and should be listed as such in our literature.
Just because something is prevalent doesn’t make it functional or “normal.”
You strike me as a professional therapist and I fell upon this posting through a Google search. Was very impressed by your simple explainaion of co-dependency, which means you understand it. Any books, research or other sources to you might refer me to in order to support my position would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely Yours,
Maria
Maria A.
October 25th, 2009 at 11:47 pmpermalink