How Did We Wind Up Here?

After reading the page full of unpleasant adjectives that described the word "codependent", and resigning myself to the fact that pretty much all of them fit me, I started thinking "How did it come to this?" I didn't have to read much further into the book to find the answer.

Again...these words paraphrased from "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie

After a couple of years of sobriety, Ms. Beattie was beginning to understand herself, but try as she may she could not understand the codependent people (usually wives of the addicts) she had been assigned to work with.

Years later when she was counseling a group of alcoholics, things changed dramatically. Ms. Beattie became so caught up in the lives of the alcoholics she was counseling that she practically stopped living her life. She stopped thinking. She stopped feeling positive emotions, and was left with rage, bitterness, hatred, fear, depression, helplessness, despair, and guilt. At times she wanted to stop living. She had no energy. She spent most of her time worrying about these addicts and trying to figure out how to control them. She started finding it hard to say "no". Her relationships with friends and family members were in shambles. She felt terribly victimized. She lost herself and didn't know how it had happened. She thought she was going crazy and thought, shaking a finger at the addicts around her "it's their fault"!!! (Sound familiar??)

After floundering in despair for awhile, she began to understand. Like many people who judge others harshly, she realized she had just taken a very long and painful walk in the shoes of those she had judged. Now she understood those crazy codependents. She had become one.

Most people aren't born codependents, although with many of us, characteristics start to develop at a very young age. Most of us grow to become codependent out of necessity. The addicts and alcoholics in our lives create so much chaos for us that we don't have a choice.

We have felt so much hurt that hostility becomes our only defense against being crushed again. We're that angry because anyone who had tolerated what we had would be that angry.
We are controlling because everything around and inside us has been out of control.
We manipulate because manipulation is the only way we can get anything done.
We feel we are going crazy because we have believed so many lies, we don't know what reality is.

It's taken six journal entries to briefly explain what codependence is, and how we get there. It's a sickness all in itself that can be crippling. We don't get there overnight, we don't get out overnight.