What is Codependence?

            In June, I celebrate my eight or ninth year in Co-Dependence Anonymous.  It is hard to remember the exact number of years because I think I celebrated one year twice.  My husband and I moved up here in Middle TN in the summer of ’99.  I think I started in 2004, so eight years, maybe.

            Until I got into recovery, I know I wasn’t a great friend, spouse, or family member.  I either looked too much for another’s approval or demanded others take my unsolicited advice.  For sure, I didn’t know squat about boundaries—minding my own business or not allowing another person to mind mine. 

            Today, I depend on a loving God for direction. I try to live my life and enjoy others as they live theirs.  Sometimes staying true to myself is hard because still particular codependent patterns rear up, but recovery is about progress. I am perfectly human.  I am, also, full of trust others (talking about adults here) can care for themselves or ask for help. 

            About three years ago, a couple of good friends and I started up a CoDA group in Spring Hill. My phone is the contact number. I get calls from people asking me to define co-dependence.  I hmmm and haw around a lot.  Not so much because I don’t know what it means to me, but because even the literature from Co-Dependents Anonymous doesn’t attempt to exactly define it. 

            CoDA’s Blue Book says “codependence is a disease that deteriorates our soul.” It gives characteristics and patterns of a codependent under the headings of denial, low self-esteem, compliance, and control. This disease will manifest itself in as many different ways as there are dysfunctional families.  I think it is the core problem of most addictions.

            Patterns under denial are

·         having difficulty identifying, minimizing, or denying one’s feelings,

·         perceiving oneself as unselfish and dedicated to the well-being of others. 

            I guess it’s not hard to figure out low self-esteem, but some of those patterns are

·         having problems making a decision,

·         judging oneself harshly,

·         being embarrassed with praise or recognition,

·         being unable to ask for one’s own needs or wants,

·         putting the value or approval of others above their on self-approval.

            Some of the compliance patterns are

·         compromising ones value and integrity to avoid rejection,

·         being overly sensitive to others and taking on another person’s feelings,

·         having extreme loyalty,

·         having fear of expressing differing opinions, viewpoints or feelings,

·         putting aside hobbies and personal interests to do what others want,

·         accepting sex as a substitute for love. 

            Under the control patterns, codependents

·         believe they can take care of another better than the person can care for himself/herself,

·         try to tell others what to think or feel,

·         get resentful or hurt when people say no to their offers of help,

·         freely offer advice and guidance without being asked,

·         have to be needed to have a relationship with others. 

·         lavish gifts and favors on those they care about

·         use sex to gain approval and acceptance

            I think everyone has some of these characteristics.  Taken out of context, some of them are not something you’d really want to weed out of your life, like being loyal, sensitive to others, or being unselfish.    But a codependent person is out of balance with his/her goodness and helpfulness to the point of arrogance and grandiosity.

Thanks for letting me share,

Karen

*These characteristics and patterns were paraphrased and taken from the eighth printing of Co-Dependents Anonymous.

 

Blackbirds

            They are complex characters.

             I guess I'm really pushing the envelope when all I have to blog about is birds.  But, I hold a grudge against a whole flock of blackbirds.  I just washed off the driveway where they congregated in one big group poop.  Those birds have no dignity! 

            They bombed my car a couple weeks ago.  Little terrorists with feathers.

            When my husband and I went to Jamaica, we took a nature tour around the resort where we stayed.  The guide/maintenance boy pointed out all sorts of plants naming their botanical names.  Then he told us their Island names.  I wish I could remember some the exotic Island names for things I recognized like yarrow or mother-in-law tongues.   The Jamaicans have a different sort of name for almost everything.  But luckily, I remember the Island name for a blackbird. 

            “See that black bird up there in the tree?” The guide said.   He pointed to a lone scout clucking and whistling to its buddies in other trees. 

            I wonder what they call it here, I thought, getting primed to go home and tell everybody.

            “We call that bird a Black Bird,” said the Jamaican with a big smile.   

            Black Birds turn into jazz musicians in the Caribbean.  Some of their songs sound like the plop of water drops and the chatter of porpoises.  On dayshift, they play their fluty music and then just give it up to the crocking frog performers when the sun goes down.  I love shimmery iridescent blackbirds down near the equator.  Up here in Middle Tennessee, not so much.

            I have Native American blood in me; that may be the reason I want to know what animal totems mean.  Blackbirds are in my yard nearly year round; surely their presence means something.  So I Google them.  Blackbirds bring creativity, intuition and a grounding connection with self.  How cool is that?  They are full of fertile shit!

            I want characters in my book to be like blackbirds, multifaceted.  They are shitty, beautiful, mob-like radicals with laid-back music skills.   I hate them.  I love them.  I need them.  That’s what creating a complex character is like, living with blackbirds.  

Happy writing,

Karen

Blog Darkness

            My last post a few weeks ago pronounced a grain of my reason for starting this blog, to tell my personal truth.  I made a commitment to myself to say the truth as I see it. And, then I stopped posting. 

            What a laugh, huh?  I tell you to expect honesty from me, and then I turn into a turtle with my head tucked ever-so-safely inside.

            Here are some honest-to-goodness things that are going on with me lately. 

            I finished the second trimester with the MTSU Writer’s Loft.  I plan to take the last course for my certificate in September.  My mentor, Charlotte Rains Dixon, has been just awesome.  I have close to two-hundred-and-fifty pages written of my first draft.  I am amazed how much going to the Loft has helped me—a person who started out with writer’s block.

            I still haven’t finished my first draft.  But it is so close, I can envision the ending.  Actually, the other night I saw the most magnificent sunset as I thought about my book’s last scene.  I guess all sunsets are beautiful, but some are monumental.  I haven’t seen one as incredible in twenty years with the orange, blue, and purple colors arranged in such a way I honestly felt I could hear it sing.  The only one I can compare it to was when Alan and I lived in Decatur, AL.  We were dating then and had gone for a walk on the shore of the Tennessee River.  The sunset that night transported us to a serene magical place where tree stumps in the water were black against a maroon sky.  I’ve always felt that particular sunset brought something unlimited to our relationship, like we walked through fairy dust.  I hope the one I saw the other night will bring just as much good to my book.   

            I am treating my family with love, kindness, and hopefully healthy boundaries.  There have always, always been conflicts in my mind around my love for my original family.  One of the promises of Co-dependents Anonymous is “I learn that it is possible for me to mend—to become more loving, intimate, and supportive.  I have the choice of communicating with my family in a way that is safe for me and respectful of them.”  This is such a grace-of-God thing in my life.  

            Easter came late for me. At the first of this year, I was confused by how much my father’s suicide and the religious holiday of Jesus dying for my sins had blended.  This past year I worked with a therapist when I realized the locked-box grief of his death was a major part of my writer’s block.  The therapy work brought up another layer of grief.  I made huge strides in breaking open the writer’s block, but confusion weaseled itself into my feelings about God, about my church life, and about Easter. 

            http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5972462272937973038#editor/target=post;postID=7075698488284050629

            In one of my CoDA meetings, and in the above blog, I said that I wanted to give up Easter for Lent.  A trusted friend really helped me with my feelings about Easter.  She asked if I knew the meaning for Lent and for Easter, that Lent was a time of grief and that Easter became time of renewal.  In my confusion, I tried to give up the perennial qualities of God, and hold on to the grief.  I was thankful for the courage of my friend.  I am thankful for my own courage to hear her.

            There are still issues for me around my church life, but I am seeking guidance. 

Much love,

Karen