The first chapter starts as it should, someone telling their story so we can identify. This was Jessica's story. A 32 year old woman married to an alcoholic. Jessica tells of her inability to function in life anymore. The depression - the lack of will to do even the smallest things like showering. Naps became a necessity and her thoughts while awake are painful, full of resentment, and blaming her alcoholic husband for everything. She shifts from anger to fear in moments - blaming the status of their life on him, then shifting to fear for the end of their marriage, then shifting again to worry about his whereabouts, drinking, infidelity, and losing his job.
The story continues as she explains how the day progresses as the family comes home. She is mean and snaps at the children and that seems to be the way she treats them all the time anymore. Her anger towards her husband seeps through her passive-aggressive words. She even plays the martyr as she says she will go rake leaves as she is embarrassed what the neighbors think and knows he will not do it.
When a friend suggests Jessica accompany her to an Al-Anon meeting her resentments fly. There is nothing wrong with her. She is the one who holds it all together. If he would just fix himself, then everything would be fine.
Then we find out that her husband has been sober and in recovery for 6 months and he was getting better. She wasn't, nothing was changing, in fact things were getting worse.
"Somehow, I had been affected by his drinking, and the ways I had been affected had become MY problems. It no longer mattered whose fault it was.
I had lost control."
Melody ends the chapter by explaining that Jessica was not crazy, she was codependent. "Once you've got it, you've got it." She explains that if you want to resolve the issue it is up to you - you have to do the work - it is your responsibility. She says that to begin we must learn about codependency and the associated thoughts and behaviors and then make changes. Jessica got better.
-- Edited by Linistea on Sunday 20th of March 2011 09:36:10 AM
Great first chapter Thank you for the concise summary and your time
I can so identify with the young lady in that chapter. I do believe my problems started in early childhood and carried into my adult years The tools I used to manipulate my parents and siblings were destructive co-dependent tools and I did not know it . My mom blamed everyone for her difficulties and although I knew that was not so I incorporated that thinking into my subconscious and when I ran into difficulties I too blamed others. I martyred myself in an attempt to get others to do what I wanted. and gossiped to make myself look better than others and to keep the focus off me and on to others.
When I grew up and married an alcoholic my old destructive tools really played out I felt anger, resentment. self pity and fear Those were my only familiar feelings. I tried to manipulate to get my way, I thought he soul be able to ready my mind and never could be honest about what I needed or what I thought.
I was sinking fast- tried therapy, career change, church (in fact I was not talking to HP when I finally crawled into Al anon ),
I too felt there was nothing wrong with me!!!! and if everyone would just change I would be fine I really did believe this and did not see how crazy that was.!!!! I I also believed that I was perfect and knew all the answers. I also thought that the anger, resentment self pity and fear were who I was and that here was NOTHING under that.
Thank God I found al anon and learned that these feelings were just that and that I could have them lifted and under that I would be fortunate enough to find Serenity, Courage and wisdom. Living one day at a time, Focusing on myself, making gratitude list, meditating, accepting responsibility for myself was not an overnight change It was all a process and I am still a work in progress but how grateful I am to have started on this road to recovering myself and allowing others to be themselves. I responded from an alanon persepective because no one else had responded and I thought I would start and then others might respond from another point of view and i would learn.
I could so identify with parts of Jessica's story,
'The list was endless, yet I couldn't get started. It was too much to think about. Doing it seemed impossible. Just like my life I thought'
That is the story of my life, the most motivation I could muster on some days was to write a list of things to do, I'd feel frozen to my couch with fear, feeling overwhelmed, and then sooner or later I'd just crawl back to bed. Using this as yet another excuse to beat myself up for being so pathetic and useless. Just a viscious circle, plagued by angry thoughts about what my partner should or shouldn't have done.
Looking back I think I've always been obsessive about my various partners behaviours, when I was drinking and using I was able to numb the pain a bit temporarily, untill it would get too much and the relationship would end. But since I've been sober, just over a year, I've only been with one man and got together in my early days of recovery and I'm repeating the same obsessive behaviour again, and feeling all the pain!!
I'm really looking forward to continiuing reading this book and growing through the experience.
I have to admit, that at first I had resistance at reading Jessica's' story. On some levels I cant relate. But pushing through anyway, I soon found my self feeling what she felt. My care taking was different in the physical sense, but non the less destructive to my spiritual, emotional, and physical health. I didn't grow up in an alcoholic home, didn't have children involved at home, and I did have a 12 step program in my life. Having had program going on, you would think I would see the truth of what was happening, and would have not made that long slow trip into hell. I have had a real big struggle with the victim thing. The program I have worked, gives no room for being a victim, yet I became as pathetic as Jessica and could not see it till I was waist deep in it. I was waist deep in a pitiful spiritual muddy swamp, and as I would fight to get free, the deeper I would sink.
Coming into Alanon was my own idea. There was a guy in my AA home group who's wife's drinking was killing him and he was attending with 12 years of his own sobriety, so I thought maybe it would work for me too. I made a hand full of meetings and came to the conclusion that it was not for me, I was not " that sick ". I did not need to sit in room full of woman, and join in complaining about how thier " A's " have made them so sick. Wa wa wa....I have a program don't ya know. So I didn't stay. Looking back, they probably were not doing what I thought they were doing in those first few meetings. But I was, all I did was complain and tell my tale of whoa, everywhere I went, everyone I would talk to, wa wa wa ( all my program people ). I had become everything that Jessica described, only with my own brand of Superior smugness. A few more years of hell have gone by, and I hit Alanon again. I conceded that I am " that sick ". I have become sick from " her " drinking and ran with that for a few months, and tried to take some of the suggestions, I Started to learn some detachment as opposed to amputation. I started to be less angry and less self pity, but still feeling like a victim because I was made sick by her drinking, I found this codependent angle. Its not her fault or problem. Its mine. This board has motivated me to search out codependency recovery. I am enjoying this book and the guide to the 12 steps. I have also found another guy Robert Burney who goes a little deeper to the core of the matter. I am starting to really see that this codependent thing has been with me all my life, and not a result of living with an alcoholic. For me, the experience of living with an alcoholic was just a very fertile place for my codie stuff to just grow unrestrained and out of control. I can take responsibility for what had happened in my life, not be a victim, and take responsibility for my own recovery. I, along with the power that runs the universe, can break free of this bondage. I really love this explanation of codependency that Robert Burney gives:................ "Codependency is about having a dysfunctional relationship with self! With our own bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits. With our own gender and sexuality. With being human. Because we have dysfunctional relationships internally, we have dysfunctional relationships externally.
Codependency is an emotional and behavioral defense system which our egos adapted in early childhood to help us survive. We were raised in shame based, emotionally dishonest, Spiritually hostile environments by parents who were wounded in their childhoods by patriarchal, shame based civilization that treated children and women as property. We formed our core relationship with self in early childhood - and built our relationship with self, life, and other humans based on that foundation. Programmed to feel shame about being imperfect humans, and trained to be emotionally dishonest, we were set up to live life reacting to the emotional trauma and dysfunctional intellectual programming of childhood. Because we feel shame about being human, we have a relationship with life that does not work to bring us Joy or inner peace.
We do not have the power to change others - we do have the power to change our relationship with self by healing our codependency / wounded souls. We can access the capacity to accept, embrace, forgive, have compassion for, and set boundaries with, all parts of self. Learning to Love our self will allow us to gain the capacity to Love others in a healthy way. Changing our relationship with life can transform life into an exciting adventure." ~ Robert Burney
-- Edited by billyjack on Tuesday 22nd of March 2011 07:43:04 AM
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"Sometimes the lights are all shining on me - other times I can barely see - Lately its occurred to me - what a long strange trip its been." Robert Hunter
I can't relate to Jessica's story per se, but I can relate to her bottom and the physical and emotional aspects of it, being immobilized by depression and a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness and even powerlessness in a negative way, powerless to stop my emotions, powerless to change my situation, and helpless and hopeless as a result, the naps becoming a necessity, having my emotional life become so dominant it affected me physically
Truthfully what helped me finally break this pattern of thinking was working with a sponsor, we met, sat down, and he said the stupidest thing you could have ever said to me at that time
"So...how are you, what's going on?"
3 hours later when I stopped to take a breath he said "STOP!!!!!!!"
just.....stop...shut up!!!!
You bring your paper? pen? write this down
This ****'s gotta stop
then give me all the reasons it has to stop
he called this step zero
When I started writing, even though when i talked about all my "problems" it was a litany of misdeeds and harms done to me by others and my anger and helplessness, when I started writing something happened
this has got to stop only produced...me.....on the page, all the ways I was harming myself, I wrote pages on why this had to stop and every. single. thing. I wrote had to do with me
This was one of the most important and revealing things I had ever done, I learned my problem might have your name on it, but my solution had to have MY name on it, that all the changes that needed to happen in my life had to do with ME, the boundaries had to be mine, the changes had to be mine, that it was finally time for me to take back responsibility for my own emotional well being, that it was time to take back my power, I had given my power to others, now when I did that I initially did it knowingly, I put all my eggs in someone else's basket with the utter trust that this woman would care for those eggs like they were her own..and to say she didn't would be an incredible understatement, to say she took all my "eggs", including my nest egg and either stole them or threw them away would be fairly accurate....my friends had all told me "get it in writing, protect yourself Andrew"
I didn't think I needed to protect myself against my mother, I trusted her utterly
I was wrong
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it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
I can relate to Jessica's story. I have experienced losing control of myself and my actions and becoming obsessed with another. It is hard to take ownership of that and not point your finger at the other person and blame them for your behaviors.
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Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
For Tracey34. I hope you may find something here of interest. I suggested some literature & as well as the Step Study in accordance to CoDA we have this separately on the go at MIP also. It may help you with ideas. Never alone again. lilmzx
Thank you so much!!! Lilmz, i appreciate this post so much. i am off to do my first day of clinical and this is a great reminder for keeping my head healthy. i related to all of the comments made here, what a great way to start my day. jj
Thank you for this post. I read my story in this chapter 1, it was as if I had written it. I am Jessica! I have been struggling and not really getting it(anything really). I go to Alanon. But I guess I am a slow learner. I am excited to read this book. I have hope!
Welcome, Coffeegrounds! We are glad you are here. We are up to Chapter 9 of Codependent No More, you may have to look on the other pages to find the chapters you are currently reading.
We would love to hear more from you!
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Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
I just got this book yesterday after someone (a guardian angle I think) suggested it to me. It was profound to me to read "Jessica's story" right away. I could be writing it. I'm 33 and have been married to / living with an alcoholic husband for the past 11 years. He has been in recovery for a few months and made enormous progress. I, on the other hand, have seemed to have had a complete breakdown and it's getting worse. I have been constantly asking myself why now? Now that I KNOW my husband won't "go to the store" and not come back until 4am, now that I FEEL his love for me, not just his scorn. Why can't I just be happy? What is wrong with me? Why am I getting more depressed every day? Therapy is beginning to help but it's slow and I did not see the real context of my behavior. This chapter hit me right between the eyes.
I had the same initial reaction when I read this book and it just gets better as you continue reading. I had no idea what Codependent even was but was in a space of complete insanity when this book came into my life and it was the beginning of change for me.
Keep reading and keep coming back and sharing with us.
Yours in recovery,
willing
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Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
I see myself in Jessica's story. I have been separated from my alcoholic husband for about two months. I had always thought he had "all of the problems". I have reached a bottom with blaming others and expecting others to know how I feel. Coming to realise that I can take the focus off other people to do what I can do for my self - this gives me a glimmer of empowering me. The insanity of waiting for others to "fix" themselves - and telling myself that... then I would be ok, has been an unbearable way.
At the moment my lawn is longer than I would like it... the mower is in getting fixed - and today I am not concerned of the neighbours opinion because I know that mowing it can wait until the mower is repaired and back....lol ....