Activity 2

How would you define codependency?

the definition of codependence is going to be different for everyone i guess. there is the definition that the author pens:   a person who has let another person's behavior affect him or her and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior.  So this definition resonates with me except for the control part. and this was something that i kept questioning myself about. Am I looking for control? Have I been controlling people this whole time? That just seems so dark and manipulative. but then i flashed to one of our conversations post break-up, she said that she felt like i was trying to control everything and trying to insert myself into everything in her life. her therapist said certain things i did were manipulative. at the time, it horrified me and angered me. ME? MANIPULATIVE? are you kidding me?! but maybe i was. maybe,  it does all go back into trapping someone into needing me and therefore not leaving me.

its funny, because my cycle with codependent relationships goes as follows: i meet someone, we click, but im wary because i have been left high and dry before, so i go slow..i dont jump in with both feet. but the other person, keeps showing up, says all the right sympathetic things- those people didnt deserve you, they didnt see how special you are, i would never do that...and slowly i start to believe it. and then once i care- i care for life. your my family. and then eventually it becomes for the person who swore up and down that  THEY WOULD NEVER DO THAT....too much and they bounce. leaving me to my once again broken heart. i never set out to be enmeshed, i actually push it away,like beis din for a convert. but they keep coming back insisting that they are genuine.  and i think in the moment they are. no one is malicious.

there was a line in the chapter that was so powerful for me that i had to stop, get a pen and underline it

  they wear a sackcloth because they do not believe that they deserve silk. 

codependents want to help...but they probably died thinking they do enough and felt guilty.

the guilt thing has always been a big motivator in my life. its something that i have discussed in therapy a lot. its something that has been burned into me from childhood as well as the codependent models i had as parents. guilt makes me go to work when i feel sick, makes me go home and visit my parents when i would much rather be -literally anywhere else. its what keeps me up most nights and the source of many of my tears. guilt is what keeps my heart heavy even when i make the hard choice to put up a boundary and do what i actually want to do.  i guess with practice it will get better, putting up boundaries is always difficult and never simple and always with consequence. 

i have tried all my life to be independent. to be my own person. to make my own choices. be financially independent. to be someone others can come to. someone who stands on her own two feet. but my parents, they need me to be dependent on them. it gives them purpose.  i have written more than once that one thing i know for sure i want is not to be like my parents.  this is why i am doing this work, well part of the reason.  I started noticing that i was doing exactly what they are doing and i dont want that to be me. i dont want to guilt anyone into  being with me. i dont want to bind your feet and then carry you. 

one last line that resonated with me : codependents are reactionaries. they overreact. they underreact. but rarely do they react. they react to the problems, pains , lives and behaviors of others.  

 its true, im always trying to fix things. how can i make it better? how can i relieve your stress. what do you want, what do you need. its ok ill do my thing later, ill do my homework later, ill sleep later, my grocery shopping, my laundry ..all that can be pushed off. sure ill move you our of your apartmnet the night before im traveling across the world- person i just met a month ago.  

so the work now is to learn how to act, make my own dreams. make my own choices. be empathetic but detached. more on the detachment later ( it comes up in a future chapter)