I was wondering if there were others like myself, who when faced with someone saying I can't do this or I can't do that, I feel myself start to bur up inside. Then I start to make things hard for them eg The other day I called a theme park to see if we could take our own food along (we have 5 children at home). They told me we could if we ate outside, so then I asked about people on special diets dah dah dah dah. Goodness me, the poor girl was probably glad to hear me hang up. It doesn't happen all the time, it depends on the situation. What is going on with me?
It's so bad with me (rejection of authority fiqures) that the only chance I have for employment is self employment (which has worked very well btw). Beinq a self proclaimed exceptional person, I'm always lookinq for the exception to every rule. "Rules are meant to be broken" is probably my favorite sayinq. Occasionally I do qet over myself and when I do I qet this rare qlimpse of a bratty child and it's not pretty, especially when someone observinq close by is rollinq their eyes and shakinq their head.
It's so bad with me (rejection of authority fiqures) that the only chance I have for employment is self employment (which has worked very well btw). Beinq a self proclaimed exceptional person, I'm always lookinq for the exception to every rule. "Rules are meant to be broken" is probably my favorite sayinq. Occasionally I do qet over myself and when I do I qet this rare qlimpse of a bratty child and it's not pretty, especially when someone observinq close by is rollinq their eyes and shakinq their head.
This is my experience as well but through a series of circumstances I found myself having to work for others again (I sold my business to take over my families restaurant which my mother subsequently sold to keep the $$$ for herself after I kept it afloat long enough for her to retire) so now one of the guys I work for is completely insane, he is the classic poster child for a "dry drunk" with the emotional development of about a 3 year old, he micro-manages everyone, I saw him get angry with a wheel barrow recently, which only has one moving part, he yells at everyone to be careful, then just constantly breaks things, whatever you are doing it's wrong, I will literally ask him "what would you like me to do now?" he'll tell me, then within 3 minutes be -screaming- "what are you doing what are you doing?"
He's literally insane, I've talked to him repeatedly after work, we'll meet on days off, he's a real nice guy who realizes he's insane but when it's time for work, he can't help himself, he even told me the reason he hired me was to walk away and let me "run the show" as I have experience with running businesses of this type, but when push comes to shove he can't let go of control, so after a few weeks I started getting real upset with him, it's been difficult to say the least, but I'm not in a position to quit right now, so I do what everyone on the crew does and just ignore him...
Anyhow, a few weeks ago I was called by another friend to do an emergency job for him as he was double booked, and the person he hired to sub this job was unable to do it, just didn't have the skills and ability to do it, so he sends me in to do it with the contractor that was unable to do it to provide my crew and support, so I get there, talk to the customer, ascertain what she wanted and start working, the -fail- contractor imediately starts trying to micro manage me, starts throwing fits, telling me what to do and how to do it, and it's been made VERY clear to me by both the homeowner and the guy who "subbed" me, I'm in charge, and I'm there to do what this man couldn't, so there I am working all day while this man comes -unglued- yelling, hollering, then trying to -one up- me by talking about old guys in our field, saying things like "anyone who knows anything would know this person", like this guy is doing anything he can to try to establish his "alpha male" dominance...thing is...I don't care...I smile, ignore him, and do my job, if he could have done it, he would have, but his tantrums and jabs and attempts at manipulation have -no bite- whatsoever, because I don't care, I even looked at him and just burst into laughter a few times
His behavior was exactly the same as my -boss- on this other crew, but since I didn't care, truthfully I just found him mildly amusing, it was like having a dog bark at me from the next yard all day, irritating if I let it, but since I've been dealing with this a lot lately, like I have grown used to "dogs barking" and I had ZERO emotional investment, it didn't bother me at all, as a matter of fact I actually learned something
People only have the degree of control over me that I allow, now I know that this should just be basic " human interactions 101" but it wasn't, I had to learn it, so when I went back to asswipe #1's crew, and he was back yelling, micro-managing, and telling everyone they were doing it wrong and just generally having his all day fits, temper tantrums, and foot stompings, waving his arms around, huffing and puffing and generally being a nuisance, something happened...
I don't care, it bothers me much less....because I was the one who made him an "authority figure" in the first place, and with authority figure, I gave him extra space, like...extra power in my mind...
Now...I don't care, he's asked me to do things since and I have laughed in his face and told him flat out, he is the most unprofessional unsafe person I have ever worked with, we have 3 ways we can do this, we let me do it, we let him do it, or I leave and he does it anyway...I just don't. care.
One of the things I do actually is "assign" him a job, I'll ask, why don't you do this and I will do this over here, and what I am doing is giving him something to do, something to concentrate on so his emotions go there, and now on running everyone else and micro-managing everyone else, he sees what I am doing and actually does it, and thanks me for it afterwards, it keeps him and his emotional life busy...and far away from the rest of us...
At the end of every single day he thanks me and congratulates me every single workday on my seeming calm and professional demeanor
It takes practice, but authority figures only have the power I give them, that being said I can't wait to start my own business again
-- Edited by LinBaba on Monday 7th of March 2011 09:11:59 AM
__________________
it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
Thanks for leading me to this group! I can really relate to having difficulty with authority figures. I have only recently cured myself of the idea that I can drive whatever speed I want -- after nearly losing my license for the number of speeding tickets I've gotten. And it's funny that in the many jobs I have held over the last 30 years that I can only remember liking 3 bosses. I sometimes wonder if I'm drawn to jobs with overbearing, dictatorial asses leading the teams I end up on. (I seem to go into new jobs with the knowledge that I don't like the boss, but I'll be able to suffer through it.) I know at times I can be a bratty kid, and that's humbling to realize. But on the other hand, I also have a great fear of true, direct confrontation. And I think if I could learn to appropriately confront people with whom I have difficulties -- even authority figures -- I might not have the urge to be "bratty" at other times.
Thanks for leading me to this group! I can really relate to having difficulty with authority figures. I have only recently cured myself of the idea that I can drive whatever speed I want -- after nearly losing my license for the number of speeding tickets I've gotten. And it's funny that in the many jobs I have held over the last 30 years that I can only remember liking 3 bosses. I sometimes wonder if I'm drawn to jobs with overbearing, dictatorial asses leading the teams I end up on. (I seem to go into new jobs with the knowledge that I don't like the boss, but I'll be able to suffer through it.) I know at times I can be a bratty kid, and that's humbling to realize. But on the other hand, I also have a great fear of true, direct confrontation. And I think if I could learn to appropriately confront people with whom I have difficulties -- even authority figures -- I might not have the urge to be "bratty" at other times.
I find I "recreate" scenarios over and over, ex: working for overbearing bosses, or another one more recently, as I was working -for- my mother taking over the family business with the idea that it was going to be given to me if I supported her and her family long enough by running it, she started giving me "lowers" instead of raises, she doubled my hours and cut my pay in half, then one day she decides she changed her mind, she's going to sell the restaurant and keep the money, she's NOT going to give me the 30 acres she promised, as a matter of fact I should leave now, thx bye, fast forward to 2 years later and I find myself working for a man who does the EXACT same thing, all the other people I know who -had- worked for him quit when he did this, it was part of his MO to hire you for awhile then when things got tough he'd just cut his employees wages, same hours less pay
I mean how many people actually pull this s*** in the entire world and I find him and work for him?
Anyway, my point is I now suscribe to the idea that relationships, -ALL- relationships are there to teach us lessons, in doing multiple 4th steps over the years the patterns have become crystal clear, now my 2 bosses are both -pattern repeats- and somehow I am supposed to learn a lesson from this, I don't know what the answer is at the moment, hence my interest in this forum actually, I am hoping to work the steps here with these exact and specific patterns in mind, but I ask myself, "who is this?" Are you Mom? Dad? My Grandmother? Mark? Margo? which pattern are you here to replicate? What is my lesson here?
I mean one of the biggest revelations of my life was...I explained about my G-mother in another thread, I realized when I was about 3 she was the oldest living relative in a straight line back I had, all my other blood grandparents were dead, so I decided to make her like me, it was important to me, I was 3.....what I didn't know was a) she was EVIL, I mean a NASTY human being and B) she hated me because she hated my father, so I spent my entire life trying to get her approval, so what do I learn on vacation in Mexico with her and my Girlfriend maybe 15 years ago?
I was dating my grandmother...they were identical, and frankly neither of them liked me very much, as a matter of fact they both DISLIKED me intensely for different reasons, both admitted this years later, MY Gma said "you weren't a mistake, your sister was the mistake, you were the mistake compounded, and the two of you have been nothing but a disappointment since"
I haven't talked to her since, which drove a fair sized wedge between my family and I since I never even tried to explain my side...it sounds paranoid, or delusional...or just...messed up...so I walked away with no explanation after thanking her for finally being honest, which she only did because she was all drugged up on pharm drugs and we were arguing
With Margo, the "girl of my dreams" my "grandma jr." I was with for many years finally admitted she hated me for all those years we were together because she couldn't control me, she was deeply deeply in love with me but she also hated me with an abiding passion, a fact she didn't admit until the day we broke up for the final time, she admitted to driving home in a great mood, then pull into the driveway and she got -angry- and it was time to torture me, by body language, by crashing dishes around, in a thousand passive aggressive ways but then denying it, and saying she was "fine"
crazy crazy years....
I mean not to get to weird or granola-ey, but it's just bizarre and frankly I would have been oblivious to the repeating patterns without doing repeated steps through the years, at one point, a few years into my sobriety my life was exactly like "A Clockwork Orange", where in the beginning of the movie he does all these bad things, then when he gets out of prison every single thing he did comes back to haunt him, I replayed every relationship backwards, I kept ending up with more evolved versions of the same woman, it was STRANGE, I even dated some of the same people...like...in backwards order getting to make amends in each case, all my family of origin stuff backwards until maybe 8 years after initially getting sober I was on -new- territory
Then I got mixed up with my family and everything went terribly terribly wrong, I fled there maybe 2 years ago, no money, no job, the clothes on my back and in a duffel bag, the rest of my stuff under a friends porch, sick unto dying with codependency, a horrific destructive relationship, resentments, fears, couch surfing having to start life over in my 40's....
So I don't know exactly how much .... like should I go back through my life? be MORE thorough with childhood stuff? Concentrate on just changing my actions? like with cognitive therapy? Why, as I go through life, did I keep ending up with women that hate me? that truly hate me, and harm me as much as they can? Why do I find this attractive? Am I just replaying my relationship with my grandmother out over and over again until I get closure? Do I get bored with women who are nice to me?
Anyhow, here I am a few years later, rebuilding from the ashes of a codependent familial bottom which cost me far more then my alcoholic bottom ever did...but I didn't have as far to fall when I was drinking, I was already a numbed out train wreck of dysfunction, so falling from "grace" I guess after many years of happy, fruitful sobriety got my attention big time, lost my house, my life savings, my Company, I don't talk to my mother or family any more, I had to completely start over...the truth is I have more to rebuild now, before, getting sober I didn't know anything, I was an empty cup, I was teachable, now my dysfuction is wrapped up in my recovery and it's all a jumble...what do I trust?
anyhow, long story for a short point, maybe by repeating patterns with overbearing bosses you are trying to repair a relationship from your family of origin replaying it over and over until you get it right, that's what I seem to do unconciously
Wow, seemed to have slipped my leash...just meant to type a quick response, welcome to our board lol
-- Edited by LinBaba on Monday 7th of March 2011 06:47:05 PM
__________________
it's not the change that's painful, it's the resistance to change that is painful
Thanks for sharing, LinBaba. Your story brings up so many overlaps with mine. I think my husband and my first post-marriage boyfriend hated, controlled and manipulated me, and helped me to preserve my own self-hatred. (And even though both were very different, they were the same in how I allowed them to treat me so poorly.) On another front, I have allowed my financial difficulties to control me and cause me to feel bad about myself many times over the years. I won't go into my family relationships now, but I can say they are pretty neurotic and more often than not unhealthy. On the upside, now that I have developed a healthy, loving relationship with a man, the neurosis in my family relationships don't bother me nearly so much....
I have lots of questions about working a Coda program. When I worked the AA program, I was able to focus on one main goal -- the desire to stop drinking. With that as my focus, and the 12 steps as my anchor, I "let" all the other good stuff happen on its own. So what is the main goal in a Coda program? It's not like I can have a healthy relationship with every last person I "relate" to in my life. That's unrealistic. What's a realistic goal? (Some days, I'd like to have a goal of not thinking one negative thought toward any of my co-workers. Is that realistic?)
Also, do people in Coda have sponsors? I frankly always had a problem with the whole sponsorship idea -- I had one for the first 2 months of my sobriety, and when that didn't work out, I basically went without a sponsor from then-on (although I often thought of my home group as my sponsor). I know some feel it's a cop-out not to have a sponsor, but I worked for 4 years in an AA group that was filled with women who had been abused, and there was strong support for the idea that sponsorship was not a strict requirement for working the program, if the alternative was not working the program. In any case, I've always felt that if I found someone I knew would make a good sponsor for me, I would know it, and ask them. I just haven't found that person yet.
So anyway, I look forward to exploring in this group and opening new doors to peace and serenity.
Whenever things didn't go my way, I would do a major guilt trip on the person I believed to be responsible for my distress.
It usually involved me having to pay a fine, or someone not meeting my expectations. I see this behaviour as very much part of me living my life from the viewpoint of a Victim.
I was completely oblivious to other peoples' feelings, unless it suited me to be aware of them, for people pleasing purposes.
I can forgive myself for this behaviour, because I wasn't aware of it at the time. Now that I am, I practice doing things differently.
For me these relationships, whether parents - bosses - older brothers - or intimate relationships where I did not have the power - were all VERY bad for me. I lived in fear and did anything to make them happy. I spent my time cowering, jumping through hoops, and changing things about myself that I didn't necessarily want to. I did not speak my opinion or disagree. No was not in my vocabulary. If it was an intimate relationship I would do anything to keep them and was desperate not to loose the relationship.
Then there were the relationships where I did have the power - too much! Certain employees and other acquaintenances, but mostly intimate relationships where I felt "better than" my partner. I felt a need to control some aspect of them and was never satisfied with who they were or what they did for me. Instead of speaking my needs - I gave them the silent treatment, expecting them to read my mind. It would get so cold and silent that they eventually left disgusted and feeling very disliked.
I am learning a middle ground. I am learning to own my power with those that try to control me and it is working. No is now a part of my vocabulary and I do not consider myself "less than" just because someone treats me that way. I actually find myself feeling a little sorry for them for being in that frame of mind and let it slide off. There are certain relationships, like with my older brothers, that get under my skin regularly - but now it is just an irritant and not something I take to heart and stress over.
I am also learning to have some humility and acceptance of others, to not try to control, judge or change them. This one is difficult because it takes the concept of not having expectations of others (hello resentments!!), accepting others for who they are, yet setting boundaries in your life in order to be treated the way you need to be treated. Seems like they are contrasting behaviors that all need to work together - some real gray area - and I don't do well with gray area.
I am trying to remove the "power" in my relationships and just let them be. I don't want to be in the "less than" or "better than" position anymore.
Linistea
-- Edited by Linistea on Monday 7th of March 2011 10:07:12 PM
I wanted to respond to your post separately regarding the CoDA program. Dean posted the preamble, which you might want to take a look at.
For me, I went to Al-Anon as I was with an alcoholic who demanded I get into recovery or we were over. Didn't take long before I thought I belonged in AA. Wasn't long after that - that my life fell completely apart and I just dove into the steps where I was, which currently was AA. I went through the steps with a 30+ year sober AA male sponsor with the AA big book AND Melody Beattie's Codependent's Guide to the 12 steps (on my own at home). The transformation between the day I walked through his door for the first time sobbing and barely holding myself together - and the last meeting having completed the steps was staggering. It changed me.
One thing that I heard over and over was the alcohol was a symptom - the problem was me, my thinking, the way I was living - I was sick and needed to get better. I wasn't even aware anything was wrong with me - I thought it was everyone else's fault or that this is just how life was. Deal with it. Once the light went on that there is a better way - I grabbed onto it. And it is obvious in my life that relationships - how I relate to others - was the core issue to my unhappiness. I am a good mom, good worker, keep a nice house, good at my finances - I get along with everyone - as long as I don't have to have a REAL relationship with them.
The nice thing about the program is that I don't have to listen to anyone label me as "love addict, co-dependent, bla bla bla" and tell me their version of healthy and what I am doing WRONG. I get to take a very familiar set of steps - 12 of them actually - and do the work. I get to admit that I am powerless over others and learn that the only thing I can control is myself - not something I have been doing very well to date. I get to dig through my life, past and present, and put all the pieces together and see what the picture turns out to be. See the repeating patterns - see where things are hurting me, where I am hurting others, and where things are working. I get to tell the truth and own my behavior. There is a mountain of resources available to help me identify my behaviors - and not so I can label them - I mean heck - passive aggressive behavior can just as easily be labeled "butthead" but it is a behavior I exhibit I don't like that I want to change. I have a book on the subject to help me learn more about it. Then I get to make a decision to change - to let go of my defects - make amends to those that need it - grow spiritually through my meditation practice and try to help others.
I not only get to learn how to have better relationships with others, I get to learn how to have a better relationship with myself. I get to learn how to love myself, accept myself, be gentle with myself and take my recovery as it comes. Progress, not perfection - but just keep trying. Just keep growing. That excites me.
So for me, that is CoDA. It is a 12 step program that helps me have better relationships - with everyone including myself. I get to be less co-"dependent" and more independent, centered, less reactive and more active in how I live my life.
Thanks for your overview. I agree that my abuse of alcohol was a symptom, and its clear to me that my unhealthy ways of relating to others are now what I need to focus on. I will definitely read Melody Beattie's book and see how the 12 steps work for CODA. Its funny how when I explored CODA 20 years ago, I just couldn't imagine how I could ever love myself and accept myself. But now 5 years into sobriety, I can say that that's one of the gifts AA has given me. Progress, not perfection...
I also feel like, even though I have much work to do, some things have clicked, since I can now say that I have a fairly healthy relationship with my 14-year-old son, I have a loving relationship with my boyfriend, and I'm on speaking terms with my parents and my sister. It's so easy to get down on myself for all the things that I'm doing wrong -- which these days is mostly at work -- but I HAVE made progress! I am so energized to keep exploring and connecting here. Thanks!
