I had this post all planned out, well, for the most part anyway. And then I found this quote by this author who I adore. Who I even harbored a crush on when in my adolescence I first saw old footage of him when he was young. This quote made me stop and think and this post may go in a completely different direction because of it. A more positive direction.

When I started this blog I was new at exploring all the different roles I fill in life, setting boundaries and trying new things. I was like an eager student after reading her first great work of literature. I felt empowered, strong, adventurous and great about myself.

It didn’t stick. I’ve written a lot lately about guilt, perfectionism and beating myself up excessively and without restraint. I’ve noticed too that I’ve fallen back into some of my old people pleasing patterns. I’m sure part of it is grief over losing my friend but I believe there is more to it than that.

I’m considering the possibility that it’s easy for me to see myself and be myself, free of people pleasing behaviors when I am not part of a couple. I don’t want out, hubby and I are doing just fine. In fact, I feel closer to him than ever before in our 22 year history together. It’s me. It seems that at some point after we reunited after our 5 month separation I slowly began to lose myself again. It’s as if I allow myself to become swallowed up in the “we” and forget me. Luckily this time around the “we” is working well. He’s the first one to point out when I am trying to people please or when I need time to myself. I started to write about how I need to get back to that person I used to be. But this quote….what if it’s ok that I’m not who I used to be? Again. I was a different person in 2008 than I was from 1997-2007. Why not another different person this year? What if that’s the whole point of this current identity crisis.

It has also been suggested to me by someone I trust that the possibility exists that I don’t like myself. At first that didn’t ring true but then she gave an example. She knows a man who doesn’t like his son. They are wired differently and butt heads over everything. I’m guessing the father wants the son to be a certain way and the son is not that way and so the father doesn’t like him. It’s a sad story. The father is hard on his son, figuratively beating him up all the time. When this was suggested to me I was both the father and the son in the example. The idea being that I don’t like myself so I beat myself up in some self-destructive effort to get me to be who I want to be.

It sounds strange. Maybe too much psycho-babble for most. But the more I consider this possibility the more it starts to make sense. I want to feel like I felt in 2008 but I don’t. So I beat myself up for it. But what if what I really need is to be someone different entirely. Some new version of me. Yes, I do still need to find myself again but what I find may not be what I expected. It’s mind blowing.

In fact, I’m not happy with how long it’s taking for me to complete my psych degree. I’ve always joked that I’ll be 72 before I get to treat patients but I’m starting to actually believe that lately. I’ve been reading a bit about Life Coaching and know my friend Dawn has nothing but wonderful things to say about her Life Coach. I have begun to wonder if this could be one way to work in a field similar to my chosen field of psychology while continuing to pursue my degree. No, I won’t be analyzing anyone’s past or diagnosing anyone with anything but I would be helping people. Maybe even helping them to find themselves. Maybe helping them like themselves. I know very little about it so have some feelers out and am at the information gathering stage right now. But thinking about doing it feels good. Maybe I’m onto something.

My mother’s day weekend trip is less than two months away. I can’t wait. I feel a strong need to go this year that I did not feel last year. I think reconnecting with my beloved ocean, relaxing, alone with my thoughts, away from my daily routine may help me find myself again. Another thing I’m feeling that I didn’t feel last year or the year before is fear. That’s one of the things that I’m not liking about myself right now and the most compelling reason for me to go. I know there is nothing to fear but I’m feeling so weirdly vulnerable that traveling alone is evoking some fear, along with the joyful anticipation of going to my happy place.

Right this moment I hear a bunch of boys, my sons included, playing in the backyard. This makes me smile. These sounds are priceless and will be gone in the blink of an eye. I so love my role as their mom. I love their roles as kids who get to play until it’s dark out. This mom-thing is amazing and probably the only role that has kept me somewhat grounded and remotely close to sanity during the past 3 years. But I can’t lose myself in that role again either. It’s not good for me or them. But they teach me things too. Like I want to play more.

Thanks for stopping by!

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We had been friends for years. Our kids were friends. Our husbands were friends. We all spent several nights per week together in one combination or another. All of us hung out at their house at least one night almost every weekend. We went on couples’ dates together. We went on family outings together. We attended concerts, went out to dinner, had parties and barbecues…all together. They were our best friends. They were there for us when we were having marital problems and neither took sides. They were like family.

That all changed one night in July. Turns out there was a big secret lurking in their home that they hid quite well from us, despite all the time we spent over there or how close we thought we were. We knew they were having some marital problems. We knew their teenage son was having some emotional problems. We had no idea, or looking back it’s more honest to say that we had some idea, but we really didn’t know or want to know the whole truth.

My friend called and asked if I’d watch the kids. She was hysterical. Of course I said yes. It seems their marital problems were much more serious than we knew. He was threatening to leave and take all of their money. She was panicked, had some errands to run, and wanted to leave the kids with us for a few hours.

She returned several hours later and that is when the full truth came out. He was in the middle of a full-blown narcissistic rage that would only continue to get worse as the night went on. He made many threats against her, her car, our home, their home and himself. He would hang up on her for refusing to come home and then immediately call back to scream horrendous insults and threats at her. She and the kids were panicked. My kids were panicked.

At one point she was on the phone with the police and kept putting them on hold to answer his calls because she was afraid to not answer him even while on the phone with the police. The whole truth was displayed for us with all the gory details that included years and years of emotional, verbal and physical abuse against my friend and her teenage son. She tried not to let us hear but he was screaming so loudly that even at the lowest volume we could hear him clear as a bell from the next room. She finally became so terrorized that she actually believed he would come to our house and asked if we could go to my sister’s to spend the night there instead.

Of course my sister opened up her home to all of us. We stayed up until 3am talking and just sitting with her and her kids. The whole time the insane phone calls never ceased. He called his wife and mother of his children names I have never considered calling my worst enemy. He threatened suicide. He threatened to burn down the house. He threatened to bash in her car. I heard him say that she had unleashed a monster that she will never be able to escape from. He tried every form of aggression he could think of to get her to come home but she was too scared. She finally turned her phone off and we all slept on the floor in the living room of my sister’s small home.

Of course he never did any of the horrible things he threatened to do the night before. In the morning, sober and more in control, he apologized….sort of. She went home. With her kids. Alone. We offered to go with her. The  night before she had said she would be taking the police with her to pick up clothes for herself and the kids. In the morning, when he was calm, that all changed and they went home. 

My sister and I were terrified of what they were going home to. What he would do once he got them back into their house all alone. When I spoke to my friend later that day she said that they had talked and everything was fine. I imagined him standing over her shoulder or even on another phone listening. I was traumatized and shaky for two weeks afterwards. We had re-lived any given night from our own childhood and were helpless to stop it even though we are adults now.

I have not talked to her since. Her kids have not spoken to mine since that night either. I knew I could never be friends with a known child abuser but I naively thought that she and I could maintain our friendship and that our kids would not lose their friends. I was wrong. I tried for months to get together for dinner or drinks but there was always an excuse.

She and I did have an e-mail correspondence in which she mentioned that she hopes her son is happy and that she has done everything she could to make his life perfect and prepare him for adulthood. That story may still fly with the ladies at school or in the neighborhood but she knows that I know the truth. I couldn’t just go along with the delusion so I reminded her that her son is depressed and about as far from happy as he can be because of his abusive father. She didn’t come out and say why she has cut us out of her life but I can only guess that they need us out of their lives because we know the truth. His image is blown.

I had suspected he was a narcissist. There were many clues. He always had to be in control. Once he even took the wheel when hubby was driving us somewhere because he thought he was about to hit a parked car (he wasn’t). His constant efforts to convince everyone of his perfect image and the perfect home and all the things he needed to make it a perfect home. He was obsessed with appearances including, but not limited to, a perfectly landscaped and manicured lawn. He bragged constantly about his latest frivolous purchases that no one else cared about and had to have the top of the line everything. He always had to be right. I also noticed tell-tale signs in the ways they interacted. When his glass was empty, she jumped to refill it. At parties they hosted she spent the whole time keeping everything immaculate instead of enjoying the party. I could go on and on. I chose to ignore it because we enjoyed their company and because I figured their marriage was their own business.

One night in July changed everything and yet it changed nothing. We lost our best friends but that was really only an illusion anyway, wasn’t it? For all I know we are just one couple in a long line who have been cut off when he has slipped and exposed his true nature. Nothing changed for my friend and her son. I hope they are ok. I hope she gets the courage to take care of herself and her kids. I hope she believes that I will be here for her if she does.

Thanks for stopping by.

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I had no boundaries at all when I started dating. I had extremely low expectations about how I would be treated by men. Basically if a man was interested in me, was attractive and did not scream at or hit me, he was a keeper. One of the first guys I dated for any length of time during high school treated me like garbage. I only know that now. I didn’t know it then.

We worked together at a part-time after school job. We didn’t go to the same school. We did have some mutual friends. He asked me out and our first date was to be at a Halloween party. I was scheduled to work that night but called in sick. My boss, used to dealing with lying teenagers, gave me a hard time about it.

He stood me up. For our first date. I waited for hours making up excuse after excuse for his possible tardiness in picking me up and lack of communication about what was keeping him. When I finally stopped rationalizing his behavior I was devastated. I spent hours crying and trying to figure out what I had done wrong.

By the time I saw him at work a few days later I had already resolved to not let him know it bothered me at all. He did apologize but gave me no real explanation other than none of his other friends were bringing dates to the party. He said he still wanted to go out. I resisted for about a week but finally gave in and agreed. His chasing me was flattering. This time he was punctual. My parents loved him because he was tall, blond, good looking and behaved respectfully towards them.

He had recently been dumped by a long term girlfriend. She was a cheerleader. He was still pining over her. He even had a little shrine to her in his room complete with pictures of her and little mementos she had given him. It creeped me out but I rationalized this by telling myself it was a recent heartbreak that I would help him get over. Can you smell the co-dependency in the air even then?

His parents grilled me about my grades, what I wanted to do with my life and what extra curricular activities I was involved in. They were still pining over the ex-girlfriend too because they mentioned her and all of her activities often. I knew I could never measure up to her but I was determined to win them all over with my sparkling personality. The truth was, my after school activities involved making sure dinner was on the table as soon as my parents walked in the door and avoiding being hit or screamed at. I couldn’t exactly tell these fine, upstanding, cheerleader-loving people about that dirty little secret.

I can’t remember how long we dated but it was longer than I had dated anyone else. I was on the pill (that’s a post in itself) and decided I wanted to see what sex was all about. With him. I was extremely innocent, having done nothing more than make out with boys previously. I was curious and protected plus I figured he’d be less likely to dump me if we were having sex.

We were at his house alone one day making out on the couch when he suggested we go up to his room. I probably beat him up the stairs I was so eager to please. We were in bed, my clothes strewn about the floor of his room, about to do the deed when his parents came home early. He jumped out of bed, collected all of my clothes, threw them at me and pushed me towards the stairs telling me to get dressed in the bathroom downstairs and to hurry up. I did as I was told.

We went out once more after that incident, to one of his friend’s parties. He ignored me and flirted with some other girl the whole night. On the ride home he broke up with me. I acted like it didn’t bother me.

Once home I cried and cried, again wondering what I had done wrong. What I had done wrong! He had done everything wrong and wasn’t worth a second of my time. Reliving this is making me cringe. I want to build a flux capacitor, rent a DeLorean and travel back to 1986 to smack some sense into my 16 year old self. There are so many things wrong with the way I saw myself and my thought processes that I don’t even know where to begin. I shudder to think of what I would have become if I had had sex with him. I know I would have assumed that he broke up with me because I was bad at it and probably would never have tried it again. I’d be the creepy-spinster-cat-lady on the block most likely.

This all came up because I’ve come to the realization that I still have boundary issues and allow inappropriate behavior from men in my life. It’s not them, it’s me. I send off this signal that gives them the green light to behave badly. I allowed all sorts of nonsense from my own husband for years before realizing we had to change our relationship or end it. Luckily that worked out.

It’s other men in my life where I continue to find myself in uncomfortable conversations that I should not be allowing to continue. I was recently having a conversation with a man about a very serious and painful subject. He kept bringing the conversation back to sex. I kept laughing as if he were joking and then changing the subject back to the topic at hand. I made excuses for him since he is going through a lot right now. That’s horse-shit. I don’t care what he’s going through, nothing is a good enough excuse for this married man to be soliciting me, a married woman, for sex, “joking” or not.

This is not the first man with whom I’ve had these sorts of conversations either. That’s how I came to realize that it’s my lack of boundaries, not their behavior, that’s causing me confusion and feelings of being used. It feels just like it did to be the aforementioned asshole’s “girlfriend” back in high school. It’s time to challenge these “absolute truths” and stand up for myself once and for all. If I don’t insist on appropriate behavior I will continue to feel like that pathetic discarded 16 year old. I don’t need this type of attention from other men to feel validated anymore. It never validates me anyway.

Thanks for stopping by!

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I am officially and publicly rededicating myself to changing many thoughts and behaviors that I had vowed to change but have slipped back into old patterns from time to time. These are things that I know are right for me. They may not be right for anyone else and that’s ok. In no particular order, mine are….

• I will not allow myself to be manipulated or manipulate others.
• I will use direct communication to ask for what I want or need from others.
• I will judge others. I will judge myself too. Much lip-service is being paid these days to being non-judgmental. It’s human nature. We all make judgments every single day. They help us decide what is best for us. These judgments can be flexible and knowing that, I will continue to question and challenge my own judgments about others and about myself regularly.
• I will be assertive. I will recognize the difference between assertion and aggression.
• I will speak freely in my life and on my blog. No fear. My opinions and judgments are my own. Others can disagree and have every right to express their opinions. However, I have no less right to express mine just because others don’t agree with them.
• I will remember that my own opinions about myself, my life and anything else are more important to me than those of others.
• I will allow myself to express emotions. The good, the bad and the ugly. I will cry when I am sad. I will not be afraid of my feelings. They are mine and are only harmful to me when I stuff them. The fear of sinking into a deep dark pit of despair causes more anxiety than the emotions themselves.
• I will trust my own instincts, regardless of what others believe.
• I will face my fears and overcome them.
• I will not engage in arguments, debates or conversations with people who are unreasonable, manipulative or simply out to perpetuate their own false image.
• I will stand up for myself when I feel someone is attempting to take advantage of me.
• I will admit when I am wrong.
• I will not apologize for anything I didn’t do.
• I will not doubt myself when I am wrongfully accused of doing anything I did not do.
• I will not accept others’ opinions of me, my words or my actions when I recognize that they are false.
• I will say what I mean. I will not sugar-coat the truth when it is important that the truth be heard.
• I am not obligated to explain my decisions or beliefs to anyone. If an explanation is requested, I may choose to give one but I owe no one.

I think that’s enough for today. I’m sure I’ll think of more. If anyone wants to join me by adding their own personal statements in the comments section, feel free. I may have missed a few of my own and be inspired by yours.

Thanks for stopping by!

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As I was reading along about self-worth, I was kind of on auto-pilot.  Much of what I was reading was familiar already. Worthy of review but familiar nonetheless. Suddenly within a passage about repressed anger I was snapped out of auto-pilot when I came across the dreaded phrase, “People Pleasers“. Dammit. Not that again.

Breaking out of anger and rage often means having to break those patterns from childhood that said, “You must stuff feelings rather than fully express them.”. Expressing anger will help a person get “unstuck” and be able to go and feel other feelings.

Blocks To Expressing Anger

1. Dependent people are afraid that being angry will prove them unlovable. They are afraid people will reject them or abandon them. They struggle half-heartedly and tend to whine and complain rather than get angry and use that energy constructively to work toward resolution. They waste much energy and often feel depressed and apathetic.

2. Controlling people tend to intellectualize their anger and remove all feelings from it. They confuse the issues, look at every possible perspective and verbalize or avoid instead of feel. They stockpile so much anger that occasionally they vent out irrationally. Their fear of “loss of control” is often justified since they have so little consistent healthy expression.

3. People pleasers are people who often disguise their anger. They hint around about being angry, all the time smiling through clenched teeth. Often, the feelings manifest themselves as physical complaints. Headaches, muscle tension and stomach upsets are all signals of held-in anger.

-Learning to Love Yourself: Finding Your Self-Worth

Since I was in self-awareness mode while reading, I had to re-read this part of the book after I read #3. It sounded like me but I had to go back and make sure I wasn’t just attached to a label that no longer made sense. I re-read #1. That isn’t me. Then I re-read #2. That isn’t me either. What I did realize though, is that #2’s are the people with whom I have the most conflicts. #2’s drive me crazy. This makes sense since I was completely controlled my whole life, first by my parents and then by my own behaviors that I took with me when I left home. I hate being controlled. I want to crawl out of my skin when I feel as if I’m being controlled in any way. Every sentence in that description got under my skin. I can name a dozen people in my life, past or present, that fit into this category and each one elicits a strong emotional response when I even think about my interactions with them.

These days when I encounter controlling people the first thing I do is determine if they may possibly be narcissists. I know narcissists are to be steered clear of at all costs. Once I’ve determined that they are not and are just control freaks, I write them off as such and try not to take their behavior personally. This works fairly well. However, I have to admit that when I’m forced to deal with these people in a way that I don’t want to deal with them, I revert back to people pleasing. Smiling through clenched teeth. I don’t want them to know they’ve gotten under my skin. Why? Because if they know that then they will know that they have succeeded in controlling me and I don’t want to give them that satisfaction.

First of all, this is absurd. It doesn’t really matter if they know it or not. The mere fact that I react so intensely means that I am allowing them to control me in some way. I am basically regressing when I do this. I used to swear I was not going to let my father see me cry and always beat myself up when I did cry. I thought if I could control my outward reaction then I could have some control over the situation and lessen his control over me. It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now. This is called repetition compulsion.

Secondly, and this is possibly the key to diffusing my strong reaction to controlling people, is the understanding that they have simply learned to stuff their anger in a different way than I have. We are both hiding our “bad” feelings but are going about it in two different ways. They are actually more like me than different from me.

Wow. All this from a tiny little book that I was almost embarrassed to purchase. Stuffing feelings, especially anger….that I can relate to, no matter how it’s done.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Astute reader Tammy, at A Moment In Time, noticed something I wrote in my last post about not having been a people-pleaser in my early 20’s. She asked how I came to be one later in life, as I have written about on many occasions.

I haven’t written about what I believe led me to become a people-pleasing, insecure codependent before for a few reasons.  One reason is that I don’t want to hurt or embarrass hubby.  I did ask what he thought about me writing this and he was ok with it.  I hadn’t really thought about it before but the main reason is shame.  I am ashamed and afraid I will be judged.  Once I realized that I knew I had to write about it.  One of the main things I like about this blog is writing about things that we aren’t supposed to talk about. Getting these things out into the open releases the shame I feel about them.

Hubby and I got married when I was 27.  And we lived happily ever after. The End. 

Hubby wanted to have kids right away because he was 30 and didn’t want to be an “old” dad.  I wanted to wait a year, see how we worked together as a married couple first.  This is significant because if I hadn’t agreed to get pregnant right away, we would have been divorced before our first anniversary and I wouldn’t have either of my beautiful sons today.

I got pregnant within 4 months of our wedding day.  Hubby didn’t take the news well.  In fact, he looked at me like a deer in headlights when I came running up the stairs, positive pregnancy test in hand to announce the big news.  He feigned excitement, and explained his odd reaction to getting exactly what he wanted by saying he was just shocked.  This was my first clue. Shocked about me getting pregnant when it had been discussed at length and we had been trying for four months?  It bothered me but I brushed it off.  I had more important things to think about.  I was pregnant and couldn’t wait to tell everyone at Christmas.  He wanted to wait to tell everyone.  He had no good reason why.  That was my second clue.  I brushed that off too.

My third clue came not too long after that when I found a picture of a woman in his wallet.  I had never looked in his wallet before and can’t remember exactly why I did it.  Obviously my bullshit radar had been alerted, possibly just by my first two clues.  He said he had just thrown the picture in there to be polite when a woman he worked with handed one out to everyone at work.  Ok, and I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.  

I will spare you (and me and hubby) all of the gorey specifics.  We went over and over and over, in excrutiating detail, all of the lies and pain of that affair for 10 years and I finally came to terms with it in marriage counseling during our separation last year.  More than 10 years after the fact, I have finally forgiven him.  He has done everything right in proving that it will never happen again and I even understand why he did it.

Upon obtaining confirmation of the affair, I asked him to leave.  I couldn’t spend a single night in the same house with a cheater.  That left me alone and pregnant.  I cannot explain in mere words the amount of rage and pain that seemed to consume me on a regular basis.  I barely functioned at work and am still surprised that I didn’t get fired.  I wanted revenge.  I wanted to cheat right back.  I couldn’t.  I was pregnant.  I wanted a divorce.  Immediately. Once a cheater, always a cheater.  I was not a doormat then.  No one was going to insist that I get pregnant and cheat on me within months of our wedding day and get away with it.  But I couldn’t get a divorce.  I was too scared.  I was pregnant.  Had I not been pregnant, I would have slept with every one of his friends, relatives and co-workers, shown him the pictures to prove it, served him with divorce papers and never looked back.  The sheer terror of being pregnant and alone stopped me.  I listened when he said he was sorry, it would never happen again and he wanted to come home.

We bought our first house and the baby was born shortly thereafter.  This marked the beginning of the end of my entire identity.  I withdrew into a shell of the feisty, outspoken, confident person that I once was.  I put on my happy face and went on with my life.  I distracted myself with my beautiful baby boy.  Two years later we had another beautiful baby boy.  Life went on. I pretended everything was normal, that everything was ok, just like when I was growing up.

I took it personally and apparently vowed that I would be better.  I would be perfect.  It must have been my fault.  I wasn’t good enough, attractive enough, whatever enough.  I would be vigilant.  I would treat him like I treated my father growing up, and for similar reasons.  I would do more, be more, anticipate his needs, fulfill them and then do even more, to make sure he never wanted to cheat again.  Just like I had done to make sure my father didn’t erupt into an abusive rage.

I brought it up during arguments throughout the 10 years before I finally became aware of what I had become.  He always felt guilty.  I always asked questions.  He always apologized.  I always cried.  He always tried to explain that it was a horrible mistake that he would take back if he could.  I always wanted to know why he did it. 

Finally, in marriage counseling last year I got all my answers.  Why he did it? It had nothing to do with me.  He truly had gone above and beyond in attempting to regain my trust and repairing our relationship.  I was the only one keeping this 10 year old mistake alive.  Me.  It wasn’t about me at all but I made it about me for 10 years.  The relief I felt when our marriage counselor finally got this through my thick head was almost palpable in the room.  I wasn’t defective!  I didn’t have to do everything anymore to keep him from doing it again.  I was free.

So, that it is how and why I became a people-pleasing codependent at age 28 and stayed in that role until I almost cracked under all of the self-inflicted pressure when I was 38.  I can’t guarantee that he won’t ever stray again.  I don’t think he will, but I can’t control anything he does, no matter how fabulous I may be.  I do know that if he does, I’ll be ok.  I’m not sure he’ll be ok, but I’ll be ok. 

Thanks for stopping by!

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One of the comments on my previous blog post, What Do You Really Need, about what we need from our partners in a relationship, got me thinking. The comment was from one of the few men who commented on that post, Mark from The Naked Soul (great blog, BTW).  He said he needed a person who does not keep score.  When I read that comment, I identified with it in a big way. After writing my last post, Do You Know Where The ______ Is I realized why.

I was a scorekeeper.  I suspect that all codependents are.

I know several couples who literally and openly keep score.  If one goes out with friends, leaving the other home alone with the kids, then the other gets a similar night out.  If one spends $75 on a personal luxury than the other gets $75 to spend too.  Everything is tit for tat.  I don’t understand this type of relationship at all and want to clarify that this is not what I’m talking about (although it may have been exactly what Mark was talking about). It’s all out in the open and if it works for them, who am I to judge.  I’m talking about the insidious, resentment-building practice of secretly or even subconsciously keeping score.

I fell under the category of subconsciously keeping score.  I wasn’t aware of my own feelings or needs so I didn’t realize I was doing it, but I most certainly was.  I did so much that I expected others to do for me too.  As a people-pleaser, I took it upon myself to fix things, take care of things, and make problems go away for other people, without them requesting it and without their consent.  When they failed to do the same for me, I felt used and resentful.  This pattern of behavior set me up for feelings of disappointment and resentment with everyone in my life.

The biggest problem with this was that the people in my life for whom I was taking care of things did not know that I expected anything in return. Since I anticipated what I thought others needed or wanted and took care of them, I thought that when others didn’t do the same for me, I was not important to them.  They assumed, as is the healthier way to handle any relationship, that if I needed anything, I would ask.

The cycle would go like this…I would anticipate what I thought others wanted or needed, I would provide them with what I thought they wanted or needed, then I would begin to feel overwhelmed by everything that I was doing and feel that others didn’t care as much about me as I did them because they weren’t helping me at all.  Guess what.  I never asked for help. Additionally, they never asked me to anticipate their needs and wants either.  So, I was not only keeping a running list of all the things I did for them but expected them to read my mind and reciprocate.

Using my previous post as an example….if hubby asked if I knew where the sugar was, I would stop what I was doing, go look for the sugar, find it or run to the store to buy some if we were out, and then provide him with the sugar. Conversely, if I asked hubby if he knew where the glue was, and he didn’t know, he would simply say, “no”.  I unknowingly expected him to find it or go get it and provide it for me, since that was what I had done for him with the sugar.  If I had simply asked for help in finding the glue or asked him to please run out and pick up some glue for me, he probably would have happily done so, if he didn’t have anything else going on at that moment. Since I didn’t ask and he didn’t know where it was, he answered the question. That’s when I would begin to build up resentment over the “imbalance” in our relationship. After several of these types of instances, I would be feeling completely overwhelmed, unappreciated, used and unloved and would then complain to him about his behavior!  It was my behavior that caused my feelings all along.

Now that I have learned to be aware of my own thoughts and feelings, as soon as I start to feel resentment towards someone in my life, I take a step back and figure out where the resentment is coming from.  Most of the time, it can be traced back to when I was still an active people-pleaser and that running list of things I’d done for them is still there, in my head.  Now, instead of confronting them about their behavior, I acknowledge that I used to do things that they didn’t ask me to do.  I give myself a break for having been so clueless at the time and I wipe the slate clean.  I then examine how we currently interact and if I determine that they are, in fact, asking too much of me, I simply assert myself and do not do anything above and beyond what I can comfortably do.  This new process has eliminated most resentment in my relationships.

Mark has recently written two great posts that have also inspired me in writing this one, along with his initial comment. Check them out if you have a minute.  They are “I Create My Own Problems, Duh” and Conscious Thoughts on Subconscious Thoughts.

Thanks for stopping by!

Related Reading:

The Bad Girl's Rate-Your-Date Journal: Your Guide to Playing the Field - and Keeping Score!

The Joy of Keeping Score: How Scoring the Game Has Influenced and Enhanced the History of Baseball

Recovery from Codependence: A Jewish Twelve Steps Guide to Healing Your Soul (Twelve Step Recovery)

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Inspired by: Wiring at MamaNeeds2Rant

I seem to have an almost post-traumatic-stress-disorder flashback-type response to many of my own memories, from both childhood and adulthood. I had one of those today when a memory popped into my head. Most of the time, the reason for the extreme physical reaction I experience is that I feel the same feelings I felt when whatever I’m remembering actually happened.  I didn’t acknowledge or recognize those feelings at the time so it’s as if it’s happening again, in the here and now.  I am not hallucinating.  I am aware that it isn’t happening right now.  It’s just the emotions that get stirred up hit me like a ton of bricks.

I’ve written a lot about being codependent.  The blog post I read today reminded me of some of my old patterns of behavior.  I experienced this flashback-type reaction as I thought about it.  It is unbelievable to me that I used to think and behave this way.

The basic premise behind codependency as I understand it is that deep down, we unconsciously believe we are worthless unless we are doing something for someone else.  At the same time, we have convinced ourselves that whoever we are “helping” is actually incapable of functioning without our assistance.  We have convinced ourselves of this so that we feel needed and when we feel needed, we don’t feel worthless.

In classic codependent fashion, I used to respond to hubby’s question, “Do you know where the ________ is?” by stopping whatever I was doing to look for the _________.  It doesn’t matter what it was.  If he asked me if I knew where it was, I jumped.  He did come to expect this behavior and benefited from it for over 10 years.  In his defense, I am the one who created this ridiculous pattern, not him.

In a codependent’s mind, a question like this is not just a query but a call to action.  Hubby was really just asking if I knew where ___________ was because it would save him the trouble of looking for ___________ if I already knew where it was.  It’s a simple yes or no question.  It never occurred to me that it would be ok to simply answer, “no”.  Never.

Keep in mind that none of this was clear to me at the time.  My thought processes were completely hidden from my consciousness.  Once I began to realize what I was doing, who I had become and the state of my marriage because of it, I was horrified.  It had to be corrected, and now.  Old habits are extremely difficult to break.  I’d been behaving this way for the better part of 38 years.  Sometimes, even now, either hubby or I will catch me doing something similar.  He’s actually become better at spotting it than I am.  He spots it in other couples all the time and shakes his head over the way we used to interact and how blind we were.

When I read about “helpless” men and the women who seem to actually believe that they are, in fact, helpless is when I experienced this flashback sensation. I read the words and saw myself.  I imagined women who complain about their husbands incessantly because they are lazy, stupid, incompetent, etc., while in reality it’s the women themselves who create these “monsters” with their own codependent behaviors, just as I had.

Did I get trampled on like the doormat that I was?  Yes.  But only because I laid down in front of the door and invited the world in to wipe their feet. You see, behaving this way leads to feelings of resentment and feeling taken advantage of or even used.  An added bonus to feeling needed, and therefore worthy, is that I also got to feel superior.  I got to complain about how well I treated people and how poorly they treated me.  The only person with the power to stop this vicious cycle of insanity was me, and I wasn’t even aware that I was doing it.

There is not a healthy, disability-free adult in this world that is truly helpless or who actually requires assistance in performing mundane tasks.  The key to stopping it is to become aware of yourself and to embrace the simple fact that no one needs you to do anything.  And if you don’t know where ______ is, know that it’s ok to just say, “no”.

Thanks for stopping by!

Related Reading:

Boundaries for Codependents

Stop Being Mean to Yourself: A Story About Finding The True Meaning of Self-Love

Recovery from Codependence: A Jewish Twelve Steps Guide to Healing Your Soul (Twelve Step Recovery)

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If I have covered this already AND you have read it, then I apologize in advance.  I don’t believe I have ever written about the timeline or details of the series of unfortunate events that led to what I now refer to as my mid-life crisis.  I’m certain I’ve mentioned a few of them in different posts but never put them all together.  Again, if I’m wrong, and have gone all senile about my own blog like a complete moron, I apologize in advance.  If not… read on. 

1.  The mother of a close friend died suddenly a few days before Christmas of 2006 ~ Although I am close to my friend, I didn’t know his mom all that well but her death stayed with me for a long time.  I couldn’t shake the overall feeling of sadness, even weeks after her funeral.  I remember being baffled about this at the time.  I even spoke to another friend’s poor parents (actually it was the newly ordained deacon and his wife that I recently wrote about) about it when I stopped by their house just to run in to pick something up.  Boy, did they not know what they were in for that day!  They truly are lovely and amazing people.  At the time, I chalked it up to feeling so badly for my friend because her death was sudden and literally just days before Christmas.  I now know it was partially sadness for my friend but was also the first time I really pondered my own mortality.  The first time it really sank in that I am aging and will not live forever. 

2.  The sub-prime mortgage industry eventual complete melt-down became apparent and wide-spread, also in December of 2006 ~ I wasn’t working for a sub-prime lender.  However, the seemingly daily news of another lender suddenly ceasing all operations went from, “Look who else is going down and we’re still riding high”, to “Shit.  This is going to be all bad for all of us.”.  The fed was still claiming this problem was contained to the sub-prime arm of the industry but for those of us in the trenches, we knew that barring some miracle, the writing was on the wall for everyone. 

3.  I went on a business trip in January of 2007~ We had our annual sales conference in San Diego where our parent company was assuring us we were “in it for the long haul” but we weren’t convinced.  In the meantime, we partied like frat boys, had a blast staying up late getting bombed and then up at 6am for day-long meetings.  I hadn’t behaved like such a juvenile in many many years and this trip made me remember that I do love to have fun.  It made me realize that I had completely shut off that part of my identity when I became a mom.  This ridiculous long weekend of debauchery is what led me to begin to re-evaluate myself, my choices, my whole life, and most likely led to the theme of this blog too.

4.  My friend Gina was diagnosed with breast cancer~ When she first told me about the lump, I wasn’t concerned at all.  I’ve had them.  I’ve known many women who have.  They usually turn out to be fibroids, infections or easily removable and virtually harmless cysts.  I’ve even known women with breast cancer who had a lumpectomy and some radiation and went on with their lives.  Gina’s actual diagnosis turned out to be the worst possible case scenario in a breast cancer diagnosis.  This not only made me extremely sad for my friend, her family and forced me to consider what life would be like without her.  It also made come face to face with my own mortality again.

5.  Hubby got laid off from his job in May of 2007  ~ He had been struggling career-wise for a couple of years and due to cutbacks, was laid off on a Friday.  That in itself wouldn’t have been huge since I still had my high paying job with excellent benefits, but when combined with #6…..

6.  Two days after being laid off, hubby tore both ACLs~ His dream back in the day had been to be a police officer.  For whatever reason, that never worked out.  He decided to give it one last shot before he was officially over the maximum age limit and test for a county sheriff’s department.  The physical portion of the test took place on the Sunday after he was laid off.  He landed wrong after successfully scaling a 6-foot fence and tore both ACLs.  Football fans will know that tearing one ACL is, at least, a season ending injury.  ACLs cannot be repaired.  They must be replaced.  He didn’t tear his just a little.  Both were completely torn, along with a few other problems, such as his knee caps shifting without the ACLs there to hold them in place.  I consider this to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for my sanity.  He was completely helpless for several weeks.  He then had to have 2 different surgeries several months apart.  All told, he was down for the count for about 4 months.  No disability pay, since he had just lost his job 2 days before.

7.  The mortgage industry complete meltdown was inevitable by June of 2007 -  We knew the ax was going to fall at any moment.  Our company had consolidated offices.  We took on 5 other branches and, as the manager, got to see 1/2 my staff, chosen by the corporate office, lose their jobs.  I didn’t agree with some of the decisions but understood it was a business decision.   I felt horrible for the people that were laid off in this wave.  Many I had known and worked with for years.  I was already having difficulty sleeping for no apparent reason.  That escalated exponentially around this time.   With hubby out of commission and expensive medical treatments, that job was the only thing saving us.  I had to look at this as a lucky break for me.  I had no other choice.  It could just as easily have been me on the chopping block that day.

8.  The death knell for the mortgage industry came in August of 2007 ~ When Wall Street pulled out of purchasing mortgage loans, that was that.  We then knew it was just a matter of days before an announcement was made.  Unfortunately, we were right.  August 20, 2007 was when the announcement came.  I was out of a job.  Luckily, I needed to stay on through January of 2008 to shut down the office.  After that, a generous severance package.  However, no real prospects came along between August and January, since the vast majority of the industry was gone or almost gone.

9.  Therapy ~ I began individual therapy in October of 2007.  Over a year of unrelenting and increasingly serious insomnia which nothing my doctor prescribed would even touch, plus the overwhelming feelings of anger, confusion, depression, anxiety, etc…led me to the conclusion that I needed some help.  I was on the verge of a complete emotional breakdown and that is SO not me.

10.  Marital Problems ~ We began to have some significant issues shortly after I began therapy.  As I began to realize that what I resented and was angry about had been completely ignored (by me) because I was so co-dependent, and set out to correct that situation, things got ugly.  Really ugly.  It was affecting the kids.  We were both home almost every day…fighting.  By the beginning of January of 2008 it was apparent that we could not go on like this.  We began marriage counseling and separated.

11.  Marriage Counseling ~ I’m not going to sugar-coat this.  Marriage counseling is hell.  When two people who can’t even stand to be in the same house anymore and who see every situation from completely opposite perspectives are locked into a room with a person who wants to dig into all the BIG tough issues, it’s absolute torture.  It would have been much easier to have just filed for divorce than to go through all of that.  The end result would have been disastrous, but at the time, it would have been the easy way out of a horrendous situation. 

By April of 2008 we had made vast improvements in marriage counseling, we had both found jobs, and I was planning my solo vacation.  Things were starting to look up and that marked the beginning of the end of my mid-life crisis. 

Was it hell to go through?  YES!  But, in all honesty, without all of these events, I would never have learned all that I have about myself, my husband and life in general.  These events didn’t seem as significant or related at the time as they do in hindsight.  They all sort of just piled up on me until I reached my breaking point.  I am not the same person that I was in December of 2006, and for that, I am eternally grateful for the way this series of unfortunate events affected me.

Thanks for stopping by!

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I don’t know how I missed this quote until now.  This sums up my childhood and current situation perfectly.

I’ve wondered for some time what triggered my recent recollections and subsequent pain, anger and resentment about my childhood.  I’d always thought that once I got out of there, it was over.  I realized recently that was far from the case but I wasn’t sure why.

Here it is in black and white.  I’m safe enough now.  I’ve come to a point in my present life where I am happy enough, comfortable enough to be able to look back and face the secrets, memories and feelings I had been so afraid of before.

This is comforting to me.  No matter how anxious or depressed I sometimes feel, it’s yet another sign that I’m headed in the right direction.  I’m extremely lucky to have the help of my own friends and healers.  You know who you are. Thank you.

Thanks for stopping by!

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The Healing Way: Adult Recovery from Childhood Sexual Abuse (The Hazelden Recovery Series)

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