1a What is a co-dependent or co- dependency? A co-dependent has developed patterns in their lives, probably from living in a dysfuntional household while growing up. They have problems with coping skills, and have had difficulty creating and maintaining relationships by using a set of dysfunctional rules, given, or taught to them by the family system they grew up with.
A couple of the symptoms are:
1. They have difficulty in identifying their feelings accurately; Am I hurt or sad or angry.
2. Stubborn in their attitudes, and don’t see a need to change, ridged behaviors; been doing this too long for change.
3. Problems expressing feelings; I wonder if it’s safe to tell how angry I am?
4. I have to do everything right, perfectionism; simply demanding too much of yourself and others.
5. Can’t or have a hard time making decisions; I don’t know, or I might screw it up.
6. I hate conflict, I’ll just keep things as they are; I agree when I don’t agree because of the consequences.
7. A feeling of shame, guilt and embarrassed don’t think I’m that important; what I think is unimportant, and useless.
8. A feeling of responsibility for other people, their problems might be, it’s my fault; I hope they don’t do that or I’ll apologize to them.
If two or more of the above rules apply to you then you have probably worked hard to become a co-dependent.
Because minor children are not co-dependents, they have no choice who their family is, if trapped in a troubled environment. When one leaves home, he then chooses to become a co-dependent, or chooses to walk away from that lifestyle, either way he then becomes a volunteer. Folks, we are not victims as adults, unless a knife or gun or some real threat is there, we all have the ability to solve the problem, or simply just walk away. Therefore co-dependency is a chosen lifestyle, and hence causes problems because of our skills or lack of them, and in most cases no one is to blame.
Certain avenues have to be taken in order to become acute at being a co-dependent. A few of which I will briefly mention:
a. I’m OK and you’re not OK
b. you’re OK and I’m not OK
c. it’s not okay to talk about our problems
d. not okay to express my feelings in regards to not being understood and of retaliation having
e. expectations of others and/or yourself that are unreasonable
f. and by no means ‘rock the boat’
If in our rearing up years certain subjects were not to be talked about, such as sex, or any other sticky subject, then we were stifled and come to believe that it was dirty, thus not understood.
If there were times that our moms and dads would fight or argue, we might hide, go to bed, or build a mechanism to turn off the volume. The next morning one might get up and the fight was over and never knowing how it got resolved, one might grow up thinking that problems would go away on their own.
Many families, especially the parents of middle age or older, did not tell their children that they loved them, only that “you know I do”. We might have grown up thinking that our parents loved us, but was still many times, deprived of hearing it. In my case, my Mom and Dad grew up in the hard times of the depression, when their parents were more worried about feeding the family, and less on the intimate contact a child so sorely needs. Much less with concerns about the other necessities of life, many did not tell, nor show their children their affection. Therefore they passed on to us what their parents gave to them. Actually, I was forty-five before my Dad told me that he loved me, and that was after my brother, his son was killed in the military.
Remember, all things work together for good to them that love the Lord..., and this was one of those things. It was sad the time my brother died, for all of us, but we did have the wonderful opportunity to hear our Dad tell us he loved us. From then on, every time we saw each other, he would always say it. This was more than good for me, it was great at this time in my life, I was so thankful just to get to hear him say those precious words; “Ross, I LOVE YOU.” Pure music to these ears, at a time that I was still having panic attacks.
Lesson learned; My children got to hear those words often.
Understanding this set of rules that one has to follow in order to become dysfunctional, and I say this with tongue-in-cheek, we can see that only adults, or I might say adult children, can truly become co-dependent, therefore dysfunctional. Adults can and do make a choice, children cannot, they truly are victims, adults are volunteers.
Everywhere a semi-trained eye looks, one can see in any varying degree that in these days and times co-dependency and dysfunction is an epidemic.
Relationships worldwide are strained under the set of dysfunctional rules that teach by example, or directly taught to us in our earlier years that we don’t know any better than to follow. Such as;
a. ‘Don’t rock the boat’
b. ‘what’s done in this family, stays in this family’
c. ‘ don’t talk about your problems, be strong’
d. ‘don’t just do the best you can, be perfect’.
Therefore many have lost who they are, and their maturity and identity development has been put on hold. Truly, many adult children in their thirties, forties, and even pass their fifties, are still trying, seeking the trueness of their inner identity. No wonder so many today suffer from free floating anxiety.
If one doesn’t know who he is or how he fits in, or is having a crisis to know what his purpose is, or just can’t figure out why he does and says things that are not accepted, shows prejudice, tries to control people and situations not under his control, feels like they don’t measure-up, are the ones that see fault in others.
Mostly blaming anything or anyone for the faults and defects in their own lives; you made me do it, it’s all because of you, you hurt my feelings so I lashed out, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have said it, I know what you’re thinking even if you didn’t say it, and many more of the blame games that one can play, shows a low self-esteem, and a disrespect toward themselves. If we do not respect our self it is impossible to respect others.
Have you ever noticed that feelings and reality are two separate things? Our feelings don’t often tell the truth, it just feels like the truth; “I have this sense, or feeling that says something is wrong, when in fact it is not going wrong. Or he might be up to something, when in fact, he is not. Many people, after shown evidence that their feelings were wrong still choose to believe that something was wrong, but just can’t prove it. Our thoughts and feelings sometimes are believed as being more real than the things that are truly real. Therefore we develop trust issues, all because of a thought or a pass performance, or just a suspicion, and end up miserable over something that in truth is not there.
Our feelings are wonderful, and life would be hard and hum-drum if we didn’t have them. But our feelings are just what they are, feelings, good or bad, they are feelings. They are not a god, not there to control our lives, they are there, maybe to put up a signal, maybe even to be listened to, but not necessarily there to make our choices or necessarily there to be taken as reality.
Dysfunctional people, and many of us at one time or the other are, trying to live our lives the best we know how, but are doing it under a learned process handed down from a set of rules that don’t work…… I’m thinking it’s time for a change.
As for me, especially in the mid-nineties, I was living under that set of rules, and they were driving me crazy. So, I sought help, all the help I could get. I read every book, many of them were hog-wash, took every course I could fine, took classes, went to therapy, took internet classes, set under the feet of several people in-the-know, meditated for weeks and years, but mostly prayed, and I prayed often, to be delivered from this demon I called a dysfunctional co-dependent way of life. Even though I was healing, I still worked at it every day of my life. I still watch the games people play on themselves and others, and each time I see them, I’m reminded and encourage to inventory the inside of me, to see if there are any remnants left.
I stayed in therapy until 1999, and ended up getting a psychology education, and learned stuff about myself that I will carry with me for the rest of my earth years. There were things down there, inside of me, that wasn’t recognized and I didn’t know existed.
So now my life is an open book, literally, I hold nothing back, my past is my school-master, and will always tell on myself at any opportunity. Shout it was the roof top. If I tell about the junk, silliness, foolishness and the wrongs in my life, they can never be thrown back at me with regret. I’ve done just about everything wrong at one time or the other in my life, and maybe not proud of all of them, but each has been beneficial in my emancipation.
Every person is made up of; a parent, a teacher, and a child. The three are inside of each and every one of us. This is a good thing, and essential to have for a balanced life.
The parent is the person that tries to do what is right, lays out the ground work and makes the rules.
The teacher is the person inside of us that teaches how we should do it, and the way to get it done.
The child inside of us is the person that needs to learn, wants to play, whines, cries, laughs, gets hurts, or any spectrum of feelings we have in our being.
These three make up who we are, and can sometimes get out of whack. We could look at this as a trinity in each individual; a father, a spirit and a son.
A few of the dysfunctional ways these three can and are used are as follows:
Our dysfunctional parent inside may say; “get this or that done, if you don’t quit crying I’ll give you something to cry about, You do what I say and not as I do, If you don’t mind me you’ll regret it, if I’ve told you once, I told you a thousand times, and so on and so on.
The dysfunctional teacher inside of us might say; I don’t care how you get it done just do it, you better listen to me or I’ll set your hind-end on fire, I’ve shown you once do I have to show you again. you better..., you ought..., you have to..., and so forth. The dysfunctional teacher barks out orders, and demands, without seeing or understanding the consequences as an end result.
The dysfunctional child in us might feel unloved, when in fact he is loved, may feel unimportant, feels as if he is in everyones way, too much is expected from him, and so on. All children, healthy or not; whines, cries, is selfish, wants attention, blames, calls others names, in other words, does our feeling for us. But leaves these behaviors in their childhood, and does not bring them to their adult years.
As opposed to the true parent, teacher, child, (God, Spirit, Son) the parent speaks with gentleness, peaceably, always encouraging, with a tone in his voice that is soft, joyful, well mannered, and all the traits our heavenly Father has. This true teacher, teaches with their arm around us, instructing in an encouraging way, that helps us to have an importance, and allows us to want to learn with enthusiasm. Unfortunately we weren’t all brought up that way.
The child feels loved, develops in their play and with playing with others are settled and can learn behavior at an appropriate rate.
Many people (adults), don’t understand that this is going on inside of each of us, therefore inadvertently stifle the inner child. In my case, after realizing that I even had an inner child, come to see him as a brat, really a super brat. He would act up or maybe I should say act out, at any given time, with or without my permission. My inner child was not necessarily mean, just mischievous, somewhat inappropriate, and would feel and say things that were not right for the situation. But after understanding that he was a part of me, an important part of me, and that I, that is to say my inner parent, held him back, so to speak, by keeping him in his bedroom and out of sight, not letting him out to play, I, speaking of the inner child, suppressed him by ignoring him.
Any child, whether a young person or the inner child, has the right and necessity to play. Mine was stifled, and I figured he was a nuisance, therefore I kept him locked up. This only made matters worse and that’s how I came to view him as a super brat. When in fact my emotional inner child was a pretty good feller.
So as I continued to learn about the psychological workings that were going on, and began to see more of the truth about the inner parent and teacher that was working inside of me, inside of all of us, and slowly realized that the whole ball of wax was out of kilter. My mind began to change to the fact that all my development was learned, given and taught through my family and circumstances, at least the way I viewed them, and could be revamped.
As we allow, or even enjoy, our inner child to come out and play, with the supervising inner parent and teacher, we will find that he will have enough activities to keep him satisfied, at the appropriate times, and that he will not act out on his own. Therefore, it is very important that we all have a well-rounded life, filled with the things that we enjoy, and just have some plain fun, all done in an appropriate atmosphere. This will bring about a positive change, and anxiety, and uncontrolled emotions will begin to fall in place, and will be settling in each of us in a way that will be noticeable.
Anyone that has uncontrolled emotions; are quick to blame, easily can call another a name, feels sad or left out in a crowd of friends, thinks of themselves as better than others, or just throws an old fashion temper-tantrum. They probably have an inner child that has not been emancipated. That is; has pushed their inner child back, and he, has become like an anchor, and is holding our emotional development back. All is going to be held at a standstill, and our emotions will continually be out of control until we come to terms with the real problems that lie within.
We all have to learn to play, have humor and enjoy things in life to be emotionally sound, whether we are grown or still growing. Our child within is a very important appendage of our being and has to have fun in life or we, because of the inner child’s lack of skills, will be held back, therefore not truly functional in our lives.
God created us all of us in his similitude, and in his image, therefore has made a way to overcome, or means of escape.
Anyway, maybe I’ve said enough, surely don’t want to get you bored, because I could go on and on and on. I love this topic of why and how we work, all on a scale that is sub-conscience, working behind the scenes in each and every one of us.