Codependency

Janey, I'm amazed at how many of us (on all sides othe adoption equation) turn to alcohol to "deal" with "the hole". I'm just realizing that it's better to embrace the pain then spend years trying to "numb" it. No matter how we arrive at this, all that matters is the child. How they respond to us, for better or worse, is OUR problem, not theirs. I've only just come to grips with the fact that I gave my son up for a better life and, in doing so, have to accept the fact that he may want to be a part of my life as I want it, or just to know him. Once you let go, you've let go, regardless ofthe circumstances. It's been hard to realize, but it's not all about me - that's my biggest problem in the world - me first. NO! that's what is wrong today - we forget about the environment, others and turn inwards - let's see a refreshing change and concern ourselves with others again, or maybe I'm thinking this way as I'm trying to make amends. KD

Hiya Everyone! I'm back. I know you thought you'd escaped me BUT I AM BACK! I'm glad to read some of these posts as I'm thinking back on my vacation. I'm sorry about your Ex Janey...that's not what's making me glad... I need to take to heart the live for the day statement. How was my vacation? Not as I expected it...we lost 7 days or so due to various illnesses. My husband started the vacation with 24 hours in the hospital with chest pains. They basically found out that he has a healthy heart and lungs, I'm thinking it's stress. Not a fun way to start the vacation! But thank goodness we got him checked out. I ended up with strep throat, and my youngest ended up with virus unknown that involved high fever and barfing. But there were a lot of nice moments! And now it's over and sure I'll rehash some stuff (lucky you guys, right?) but there were some really lovely things... So on to my co-dependancy problems?? My dad. Fine form this vacation! But I realised something...he attacks me when he is under stress. He told a complete stranger while we were awaiting my husband to go through his stress test that I'd wasted my education. I said 'I use it every single day and make $250 a day + expenses teaching, I don't think it's wasted' but still, it hurt. I then got scared he'd trash me in front of my son. He trashed me again when he thought I forced my poor tired mom out to the shop to buy me some soup. In reality, I'd asked her what she needed since I really only felt for soup and was going to go myself. She refused to let me go since I was in the middle of my strep throat and had a fever. I was disappointed in myself because our last visit home, I felt I'd figured out how to deal with him, this time I was in tears and freaked out most of our visit. He was suggesting we stay in a hotel not so subtlely. I didn't think my mom would appreciate me saying that we wouldn't be able to come visit if we had to stay in a hotel. I'm wondering, since I saw this stress connnection, if I should try another tact. When he made the comments while we were waiting for DH should I have said 'Gee dad, you must be really worried about my husband.' Probably not... love you all! missed you terribly...

Being my sarcastic self, I would probably respond to Dad, "I'm sorry, I'm not the daughter you want; please tell me how you wish I were using my education." (Said very sweetly of course!)

Oh Kathy, next time I visit I'm bringing you with me.

Hey Quantum! Saw this before I signed off so I wanted to take a moment to answer before I call it a night. I'm so sorry you guys were ill during your vacation! What a nightmare!!! Is everybody better? I sure hope so! I can understand why it would be difficult to do what I'm about to suggest when your son is witnessing what's going on. That must've been very upsetting. ((( Quantum ))) Here's a thought I had though........ There are several ways to defend oneself from this kind of thing. One is deflection, one is silence and the other is the "agreement" defense. Instead of finding yourself moving to justify and defend your choices, try this: Say your dad brings up your education again in the near future and tells you you've wasted it (just using this as an example). Try saying, "You're absolutely right!" See .....people tend to make these kinds of comments because they want to belittle us for whatever reason. But when we agree with them? That effectively stops them in their tracks because you can't belittle someone who's agreeing with you - or at least not very effectively. It doesn't mean of course that you actually agree with what he's saying but it may stop him from nitpicking at you. I know it sounds crazy but I've used it and believe me, it works! I mean, what the heck? It's worth a shot if nothing else right? I'm going to hit all the recovery books tomorrow and see what step or slogan covers this as these publications usually have lots of advice. For now though....sending a hug :grouphug: and a "glad you're back!" :rockband: Love ya!

Hey guys! Hugs to ya! :grouphug: Yeah bud - but it just goes to show how great your pain must've been. Ya know? And most of us did it in some fashion I'm sure. Buried ourselves in a hole of booze of drugs of denial. It's all symptoms of the same disease; the same sorrow. I've thought a lot, you know, about why I married an alcoholic. I think on some level it was a subliminal understanding that in marrying him the demands of emotional commitment would be "deadish" (forgive that made up word). But I didn't have the capacity or the strength after the surrender of two children to do anything but drift and pretend I was shiny, white and respectable. Of course I wasn't. Not at all. Because it was pretend. But hey, we can only know what we know at the time; can only handle what we can. And in admitting what we were and learning to forgive ourselves, we do make amends; not just to others but most importantly to ourselves. In honor of you (and I've been thinking of you and wondering how you are) a song that's really a poem (IMO) from the brilliant Alice In Chains Down in a hole: Bury me softly in this womb

I give this part of me for you

Sand rains down and here I sit

Holding rare flowers

In a tomb...in bloom

Down in a hole and I dont know if I can be saved

See my heart I decorate it like a grave

You dont understand who they

Thought I was supposed to be

Look at me now a man

Who wont let himself be

Down in a hole, feelin so small

Down in a hole, losin my soul

I'd like to fly,

But my wings have been so denied

Down in a hole and they've put all

The stones in their place

I've eaten the sun so my tongue

Has been burned of the taste

I have been guilty

Of kicking myself in the teeth

I will speak no more

Of my feelings beneath

Hey Quantum!!:love: I had been trying to remember what my old therapist taught me about the different principles of defense against verbal attacks. (Sorry - I know that word's a little harsh - just tired today and can't think of another one! LOL!) I believe she mentioned that there were 5 different types of defense. I can't remember all of them. Anyway...from memory here....and sort of using my own definitional words...terrifying thought, huh?.... (verbal attack underlined........responses in colored italics) Interogatory. In this defense you continually ask the person a question after each statement they make, taking care to use the word "you" back at them in each question. "You wasted your education". Really? Why is it you say that? "It's obvious" Really? Why do you say so? Etc., etc. This puts the person on the defensive because they are forced to quantify their beliefs. Meantime you are neither agreeing nor disagreeing but keeping the focus on them. Declaratory. In this defense you echo back everything the person is saying without adding an opening by way of question and also without agreeing or disagreeing. Focus still kept on them. "You wasted your education" What I hear you saying is, I wasted my education. "Yes and I'll tell you why....with your intelligence you could've gone to Cornell and studied math." What I hear you saying is that I could've gone to a different University. Etc., etc. Of course you wouldn't have to put "what I hear you saying is" before each answer but that's the general gist. Agreement In this one you simply smile brightly and completely agree. "You wasted your education" "You're absolutely right! "You could've done so much more with your life" That's for certain! LOL! Pretty basic but I can tell you this one really works. I mean, imagine what it's like for someone who's used to having everyone around them rush to defend themselves only to have someone turn around and agree! It takes people by suprise. I've used all of the 3 above at one time or another and they work quite well. There is also silence whereby you say absolutely nothing and ignore the person. I've only used that one though when dealing with actively drunk people in my life. "Never argue with someone during a drunk" is very wise advice. But when someone is sober....I dunno....the silent treatment seems to only make them angrier and more focused on me so I don't apply it anywhere else. I think there is a 5th called deflective but for the life of me I can't remember what it is or how it's applied. Sigh....I think it has something to do with statements like "I'm glad you feel that way" after someone verbally attacks us. That kind of thing. You know what? If it's okay with everybody, I'm going to see if I can get Brenda to pop in here and help us with this because I think it's very important to know how to defend oneself from verbal injury without selling out our pride or self-esteem and without getting roped back in and ending up yelling or screaming and feeling like a horse's patoot afterward. (Not meant toward anyone but myself on that last statement. LOL!) If anyone in the meantime knows what these defenses are actually called or has any thoughts to share.....please do!! :love: :love: I know I could use the wisdom many a day! Hugs to you guys!

As Bill Sees It, pg. 8 Regardless of wordly sucess or failure...pain or joy, regardless of sickness, health or even of death itself, a new life of endless possibilities can be lived if we are willing to continue our awakening.... Once upon a time I went to a 50th Wedding Anniversary for a lovely couple; both of whom were longtime AA members, one of them a founder of AA in Detroit. The founder was the wife. She threw her 50th Anniversary party in a hall attached to a police station in Detroit that was owned by that particular precinct because as she said, "When I drank I spent a fair share of my time here at this police station. I figured I should celebrate my sobriety and my marraige here too." That party was resplendent with an accordian player who was at least 80 and who only knew songs from the 20's. Lots of little old ladies and their dates dancing the jitterbug as best they could and a menu which included baloney sandwiches, pretzels and Big K Cola on sale half-price. In short, it was the best shindig I ever attended. One of the people there that day was a member of AA who'd been told that morning that he had roughly 3 months to live. When he got up to the microphone to toast the Anniversary couple he said, "I was given a choice today. I could either take the news I was told and give up right there - or I could come out and dance and eat a couple of baloney sandwiches. I decided on the baloney." In my life there will be darkness and grief. But there will also be shindigs with musical accompaniment of accordians and table top sing-alongs of Bicycle-Built-for-Two. And I only hope that when the choices get hard I will have the strength to reach for the baloney and to understand that it's the simple things in life that define life. (Aside to Ruthie. Thank you my friend!)

Kinda super funny that it's baloney! It's true though, we do have huge choices to make when a load of crap gets thrown our way. I hope I always have the courage to face things with positive actions.

St. Francis of Assissi God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change Recently I was given the chance to learn a sad yet important lesson when my ex-husband called to tell me that his doctors believe he is dying of pancreatic cancer. We talked a while about that and then he asked me not to say anything to the girls until he had a 100% diagnosis. On the day of his doctor visit, I called to ask him if he wanted me to accompany him to his appointment as I feared it might be overwhelming to be alone if hearing such news. He said (quoting from memory), "Oh I've decided not to go to the doctors. I'm just not going to do anything and I don't want to talk about it anymore and I don't want the girls to know how sick I am. Let's just not tell them and that'll be that." :eek: :eek: :eek: Well.....I hung up the phone and sat there staring at the handset, blinking in disbelief and saying too myself, "What the.........." I was now in the position of being asked to keep from my daughters the gravity of my ex-husband's health and to go along and "pretend" to my daughters that everything is fine and dandy. In effect, to lie to them. Meanwhile, ex is frail, in constant pain, sick to his stomach all the time, unable to do much more than lie around and he gets winded when he speaks. He is gaunt and walks feebly. Yet he is asking me to look the other way so that our daughters don't think there's anything wrong. It took me a week-and-a-half of talking to trusted friends and my current hubby and some family to reach the point where something dawned on me. I was back to playing into one of alcoholism's very most favorite games: "The ssshhhh....let's all pretend that this great big huge frigging giant elephant isn't in the room. Lah dee dah". Oh yeah. How well I remember it. Telling myself that ex-hubby didn't have a problem and that I didn't either. Nope. No siree!! We were one big happy family!!! Except for the part where booze was pounding our souls into the dirt. Yeah....................Right. It'd been a while since I'd been involved in that insanity and yet here I was feeling as if I'm betraying ex by saying anything to my girls, yet feeling as if I'm betraying my girls by keeping things from them. I believe they call that being the ball in a game of tennis. Well....I refused to keep up with the insane volley. So I told my girls about ex's issue. My eldest I told point blank. She hinted to ex that she'd be open to talking to him, then waited for ex to call her but he never did and she is resigning herself to him dying with things unspoken between them (which maybe is part of his reasoning to begin with). She is learning to accept that she will be robbed of the chance to say goodbye because he simply will not talk about it or come clean. With my youngest, I said that her dad has been ill for some time and I don't know that he's going to get better. She said she'd known that anyway and then she talked about other things. I guess that's a 13 year old's way of acknowleding their fear but keeping it at bay till they're ready to face it. So in her way she is accepting his inability to open up too. As for me, I have had to accept that my ex-husband may very well die without ever having reached out to those closest to him; without every having given himself the opportunity to talk to his daughters of his life, his philosphy, his regrets, his memories. That is a sad, sad thing. And there is nothing I can do about it but pray for him and let it go. I am giving it to God to guide me and my loved ones in this difficult time. Thanks for listening.

I'm glad you told your daughters. It is something that you've had to make the decision that's right for you and your girls. What a tough one. I've been thinking about this a bit. My sister in law is in the hospital, they think it's something to do with her pancreas, and/or diabetes. I guess it's been rough. My mom made a point of saying how my niece doesn't really know what's going on. OK she's 10. But still, I don't get or like this big secrecy thing. Obviously she knows SOMETHING is going on. Grrr And then back to the co-dependancy thing. I wish I could be there to support my SIL. She's GREAT and I love her to bits BUT my dad would be ripping me to shreds right now. Which brings me back to your quote. I've come to realise that I can't change him. I am starting to understand at least a bit as to what triggers him to attack me, but I'm still struggling with how to deal with it. It brings me down and I don't know how to not let it. I can't confront him, he just becomes more agressive. Just beats down my already bruised self esteem. *sigh* Anyway, love to you Janey and your family. Why does life have to be so HARD sometimes?

Quantum Hey Bud! :flower: I meant to reply to this earlier but things got kind of hectic today. So here I am! I just read in the other thread that your SIL isn't doing too good. Please keep me posted okay. I will be thinking about you and your family and praying for some good news. That's all right that you can't confront him, buddy. That's okay. Ya know, it takes years sometimes with family to see triggers and first you have to acknowledge that the triggers are there and that people can have that kind of effect on us. That doesn't make us flawed which I have to remind myself of on a minute-by-minute basis some days. And on the days when I don't remember that, I have my dear friends in here to say, "Hey! Janey! Get off your own back and be kind too yourself!!" ((( Q ))) When we're little girls, daddy is our prince, our first love, our everything. And then they say things.....see it's the words....it's the words that really kill. I had been telling someone in here that on another thread. Words can kill a person. Maybe...maybe not kill them as in take their life, but it can kill a person's belief in themself, damage who they are at the very core of who they are. If you hear a thing long enough, you begin to believe it. And, sure, there are those who say "Eh! I don't care what so-and-so thinks." Yeah well, that's only half true because somewhere out there is a so-and-so that they do care about. The old adage "The Pen is Mightier Than The Sword" still holds. That's why there is so much censorship in dictator countries, because words move people. Telling a little girl, then a young girl, then a young woman that she is worthless or whatever horrible thing our fathers said....that chips away at self confidence. I fear the day my dad dies because he told me over and over that he was going to kill himself because of me, because I was such a selfish worthless thoughtless terrible child. That's still back there. Yes, I can rationalize it. Tell myself through logic that that is rediculous. Yes, I can put my ego in there and say something like, "Good luck at your new location" But the heart? The heart is something else again. The heart is where we keep our dreams, our love, our devotion, our hopes, our desire to be the best for people we love. That little muscle deep inside the ribcage has a logic and ego all it's own. And it takes time to heal it. ((( Quantum )))) You are a talented, kind, compassionate, intelligent, fabulous person!!! Just in case you didn't know! :grouphug:

Hey buddy (name withheld for anonymity but you know who you are) :love: I've been thinking a lot of how you've been feeling; the struggles you've had with visiting the other "neighborhoods" as it were. The feeling of not being welcome; of not being trusted; of not belonging. I have felt the same a great deal at times and it reminded me of something that happened back in the day. I'm trying to remember the conversations exactly. Some of it's verbatim; some of it's me trying to relay what went down from memory but it's all the real deal. So bear with me if you can. ....One summer night me and three of my friends needed to escape Detroit for a while; go somewhere where the lawns were big, the sidewalks had no cracks, the parking lots weren't full of needles and people were safe (yeah right). Anyway one guy had a car, this beat up piece of crap Dodge, and the other was flush with a $20.00 So we set off - the four of us (two guys, two girls) - to buy some Micky Dees and have a picnic on the street curbs of a magical place on the border of Motown where life was as different as day was to night. We sat on the curb of a street not far from the fabulous mansions of people with surnames like Vanderbilt. We sat under the stars, quietly eating our burgers and dreaming the dreams of innercity kids surrounded by such staggering wealth. Anyway, one of the guys looks across the street to this unbelievable home with like 20 rooms fronting the road and says, "Man it must be really sumthin livin in one of those. No worries about nuthin,man! Just spendin your dough and sailin on your friggin yacht." The other guy with us looked at him and laughed and said, "Sheeyacht! Ya think these people don't got no troubles, dude? I guarantee ya somewhere in here there's some auto baron coming through the door, grabbing a bottle of scotch, and yellin to his kid to stand there, that's he's had a bad day at work and wants to take it out on the kid's face." He shook his head and added, "Money don't got nuthin to do with that s**t, man!" We all bobbed our heads and had some fries and started talking about what we'd do if we had us big cash. I'm sure it was the usual crap everybody else thinks of. Big pools shaped liked Maui and rooms with closets that you could live in for a year. So there we were - four poor kids from nowhereville - sitting on a rich man's street curb, taking in the stars, eating food and feeling generous towards humanity. And that's when The Boys showed up. They came cruising around the corner and pulled straight up to us, got out of their car, looked us all up and down and said (and this is verbatim) "What are YOU doing here? Your kind don't belong here." (In case you're wondering, that's cop-ese for "What are you white trash no good drug-dealing scum doing on the other side of 8 Mile? Don't you got some gas stations to rob?") The guy that'd just stuck up for the rich people looked at the cop and said, "Hey Off'sir! We ain't botherin nobody. We're just sittin here talkin, man." The cops said something about how there'd been a couple of robberies in the area in the past week. And my two guy friends came back with stuff like. "Aww gimme a break! Those houses have state of the art alarm systems. How the f**k are poor white trash like us gonna break into 'em?" That kind of thing. Pretty dang stupid come back when I think of it now. Anyhoo...the long and short of it? My two guy friends ended up face down on the hood of the cruiser, legs spread in the customary position, being searched for whatever. The cops then "invited" the guys to get in the back of the patrol car and take a little ride to the station. After our two guy friends were safely "ensconsed" in the back of the squad car, the cops escorted us two girls back to our measly Dodge, put us in the back of it, ogled us and said (again verbatim), "You ladies stay put okay? We're going to take your men to the station, check 'em out and if it turns out they did something wrong, we're coming back for you." I.e. We got the power over you south of 8 Mile tramps. Don't forget it. It occurred to both me and the other girl as we sat in the car waiting for the cops to make good on their threat to us, that we'd only been in the neighborhood sitting on the curb for maybe....maybe....ten minutes tops when The Boys arrived. So that meant somebody in one of those grand homes looked out their massive leaded-glass windows, saw us white trash sitting on the curb next to our rusted ghetto cruiser and called the Po'lice on account of we was poor so we was surely up to something. You know how us government cheese folk are. You can't turn your back on us for one second. We'll steal your house, your dog and your size 6 skivvies. Sigh..... An hour or so later our "men" were returned to us and we all drove away, laughing and saying stuff like, "That'll teach us man. Us white trash gotta know our place. Only curb we're sittin on's the one where you duck when dude's drive past. Lesson learned (word deleted)." Ah well....we shouldn't have been there to begin with. But I'll forgive us for that. We were young and still full of notions of equality. So, here's what I learned from that, buddy. You sit on the curb in someone else's neighborhood, trying to take the world in, get some rest, have yourself some french fries and maybe aim at seeing things from the other guy's perspective. Because deep down you realize everybody's got troubles, everbody's got a story to tell, and just 'cuz you live in a clapboard piece of doo-doo and someone else lives in a stucco palace don't make their life any easier. And then...right then when you're feeling some empathy.....the "cops" show up to throw you out because somebody in one of those homes was scared; afraid for their lives. They don't want to know you because then they might have to know themselves. You're a walking reminder of how life can be when someone steps outside their comfort zone and comes down to the street below. It's all about I don't want to know you. I don't want to sympathize. I don't want to see that maybe there's a reason you're who you are. That maybe there's a reason you've been where you've been. That maybe - just like me - the circumstances were set out for you right from the friggin start and you're simply doing the best you can with what you've been handed. We never ventured across 8 Mile like that again. We got the message. Our kind weren't welcome. Funny thing is though. That one guy who said that about money not having anything to do with abuse? He ended up being pretty dang successful. I'm only hoping he wasn't ashamed of where he came from. I'm only hoping he wasn't standing at his window one night looking down at the trash and calling The Boys to take it out for him. I hope not. Don't know if that story helped you but feel free to post anyways. :grouphug: Wishing everybody a curb to rest on, a warm night sky full of stars, a bag of french fries with extra salt and the peace to enjoy it all in.

Read: "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codependent_No_More]Codependent No More - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url]I'm sure this has already been suggested, but if not, this is a great book and will help immensely.

What's how Bill and Bob stumbled into the path that would later be labeled as "Recovery". They were just two men suffering from an overwhelming urge to drink who couldn't seem to stop but when they met up and simply sat and talked, it eased the power; the grip alcohol had over them.