Dr. Irene (whose website is a must-see for anyone who feels they may be in an abusive relationship), describes codependency in useful terms here.
In the Care Taking section, I scored 23/25.
Low Self-Worth: 24/31
Repression: 2/3
Obsession: 6/13 (Hey!)
Controlling: 6/8
Denial: 10/15
Dependency: 11/26 (I’m getting better)
Poor Communication: 18/33
Weak Boundaries: 8/8
Lack of Trust: 7/7
Anger: 9/16
Sex Problems: (Now, I receive a 4/18, in my marriage, it was 18/18).
Misc: 1/16
Progressive (now, 0, in my marriage, 11/12)
But what is codependency? Wikipedia has a pretty good spread, in the first few paragraphs.
Basically, it’s putting other people first, to the detriment of yourself. It encompasses all the thinking and feeling that goes along with it. And it has to be a pattern of behavior. Over-committing yourself does not make you codependent.
I noticed this, because, of course, we take a lot of our problems with us, and in my current relationship, I just woke up to a long section of codependence, which helped make us both miserable. Of course, my current relationship partner is codependent as well. You should see us trying to decide what to have for dinner:
HIM: “What would you like to eat, honey?”
ME: “I don’t know. What are you in the mood for?”
HIM: “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
ME: “I’m not that hungry; you decide.”
HIM: “Well, I could go for pizza…or maybe Chinese…”
ME: “Sure, those sound good.”
HIM: “But which one?”
ME: “I don’t know.”
Sigh (which is also a codependent behavior: indirectly expressing emotions instead of just saying, “this is exasperating”).
But I did find a nice “Recovery Patterns of Codependence” pdf from “Codependents Anonymous”. Although I have never tried the 12 steps and have no desire to try them, this pdf gives thought patterns and then the Challenge Thoughts, which is useful with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Mindfulness, etc.
And a lot of the “Recovery Patterns” deal with Mindfulness, which is also a trend I’m seeing from the universe recently in my life.
Trends in the Universe
Yeah, about that. Synchronicity, or patterns that must be more than mere coincidence. Divine Intervention… In my life recently, the following have been the synchronicities I’ve been seeing:
1) Engage the “Right Hemisphere” (although we know now that the hemisphere’s aren’t as separated as we thought in the 1980’s, there is still enough pop-culture knowledge of Right Brain/Left Brain that most people know what I mean. Right-brain activities include meditation, art, sex, exercising, prayer, imagining/visualizing, music.
2) Be Mindful: in emotions, in weight loss. Being mindful seems to be echoing through the cosmos right at me.
3) Take care of yourself and your boundaries First. This is something I’ve never been good at, but not only are people asking me about it in their own lives, but in my life, too, my strife comes from not respecting my own boundaries or taking care of myself.
A friend of mine would say that we are co-creators through Spirit, and we see in our lives what we ask the Universe to show us.
I’ve had enough experience with this phenomenon (as an occasionally fundamentalist Christian, this would be called Divine Intervention or the working of the Holy Spirit), that I do see it, and I’m not surprised by it. Right now, agnostic as I am, I can’t tell if it’s the collective unconscious, my own co-creation, God, or what. But I do see the patterns, and I am trying to learn.
What’s funny is that the way out of codependence, and the way out of my weight problem, my posture problem, my spiritual-crisis problem, my blah-life problem, is all the same. Use my right brain, be mindful, guard my boundaries.
So maybe I should get on that right now…
Today I’m supposed to pick up “The Emotionally Abused Woman : Overcoming Destructive Patterns And Reclaiming Yourself” by Beverly Engel.
And I feel very good about that step.
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