EQI.org Home | Personal GrowthCodependency and Personal Growth An Outline For Change This is a file I wrote in 1995. It was one of the first things I wrote in the area of personal growth. I have been re-reading it and editing it a little since a lot of time has gone by, with a lot of changes in my life. S. Hein ** under construction.
Personal Note (My Feb 2006, comments are in blue.) In the fall of 1983 I began a 7 year codependent relationship. There was an incredible passion and spark between us. When things were good, they were very good. When they were bad, sheer agony. The intensity was addictive. I was controlling, manipulative, abusive, judgmental, insensitive, immature, and generally speaking, wildly unhealthy. There were no drugs or alcohol involved. The intensity came only from our pure emotions, energy and needs. I truly loved her, but I didn't know what love was. I didn't know the difference between loving someone and needing them. I had never heard of codependency. I wanted what was best for her. But I went about it the wrong way. My efforts were frustrating, and in the end, futile. In fact, they turned out to be totally counterproductive. The person I loved the most in my life, the person I cared about the most, now will have no contact with me. The thing I needed and loved the most, I pushed right out of my life. I know now why I did the unhealthy things I did, why I had the unhealthy needs I had. A very large part of it has to do with my parents and their parents. I have resolved some of this with my mother. My father died before I ever had the first clue about my life. I wish I could talk to him now. But I can't. That is reality. I accept reality now, rather than wishing & hoping & praying for something unreal. Now that I have studied & understood my childhood, I have come to this conclusion:
For the past several years I studied my primary codependent relationship, and others, to learn about myself. I made a commitment to learn about myself and to become happier. I invested my time, money and energy into this effort. It is the best investment I ever made. |
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page 2 Maybe it would have been good for me to read my own writing from this outline. I haven't read it in years myself, to be honest. Sometimes when I look back at my writing from around 1995 I think I was not very in touch with my feelings. Actually, I know I wasn't. I wasn't very empathetic to young people who are depressed. I didn't know any really back then. And I didn't know anything about cutting or teen suicide. I don't want people to feel discouraged or cynical if when they read this outline they think I am making this all sound too easy. It's not easy. It is hard. It is painful. If you are a sensitive person and have been emotionally damaged to anywhere near the extent I was, or worse, it is going to take you years of recovery. It took you years to be damaged so it only makes sense I guess that it will take you years of recovery. And it may well be easier to damage a young person's self-concept and teach that person toxic beliefs and lessons about life than to recover and learn more healthy beliefs and skills. And for my teen friends who might read this, who have been in so much emotional pain for so long that they are now cutting themselves to try to numb their emotional pain, I want to say that what I went through is probably not nearly as bad as what you are going through. So if you can't do the things I talk about here, then please don't feel discouraged or bad about yourselves. And try to remember that when I wrote this I had nearly total freedom. I was free to travel where I wanted, do what I wanted, read what I wanted. I had all the time in the world to read, to think, to go to the mountains and beaches or to go camping in the national parks in the USA and Canada, or to sleep in the back of my car pretty much wherever I wanted. I could get away from the people who were damaging me, hurting me, poisoning me. Freedom may be one of the most important medicines in the recovery process. Time and freedom. But though you are not free, maybe you can give yourselves some small amount of psychological freedom by changing your beliefs about what is important at this point in your life and what your needs are. For example, do you really need to be making good grades and trying to get the approval of people who will mean nothing to you in a few years? Is it really important that you are good in sports or some subject at school which doesn't interest you? Will these things help you with your own codependent relationship problems a few years from now? Or are you headed in the same direction I was: Academically smart, but emotionally illiterate and relationship destructive? But again, when I said "This works for me", though that sound simplistic now and even a little fake, I suppose it was working in a way. My beliefs at that time got me through the rough period of my divorce with Galina, or Gale as she now calls herself. But then I started talking to suicidal teens and started feeling their pain and my frustrations and resentments from years of feeling judged, controlled, mocked, teased, laughed at, invalidated, lectured to, threatened, punished etc. And on top of all of that I started feeling something new - discriminated against, in the sense that only because of my age I was being told I couldn't do things, not even talk to people or chat with them online, simply because of my age and their age. I was misrepresented by people. I was ostracized by people, including people the field of EI like David Caruso and Jack Mayer, because I criticized them and disagreed with them. All of this hurt. Then I met Laura in Peru and she gave me so much unconditional love. Or at least the closest thing I have ever had in my life to that, with very few exceptions. She loved me more more than my own mother. She saw me more clearly. Appreciated the things about me that I wanted and needed someone to appreciate. Not just the things that served her, such as the things my mother would reward me for with her exaggerated praise when I did something as trivial as take out the garbage or clean the basement stairs. A few years ago my mother told me she was proud of me, and I think she really meant it and was talking about the more important things I do and the more valuable things I have to share with the world, but she never gave me this message when I was younger. But anyhow, all the positive psychology and self-help books are great, but they can't take the place of hugs and love from another intelligent sensitive human being who values the best qualities in you. This reminds me of what Nathaniel Branden said about being "psychologically visible" to someone. Laura saw me for who I am inside. Or at least she saw a lot of me. She has her own very deep unmet needs, pain and insecurities which cause us serious problems and conflicts at times but overall I think its fair to say this is the healthiest relationship I have ever been in. S. Hein -- Links Cutting Next page |
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II. Love Yourself
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D. Educate & Empower Yourself
III.
Get Real A.
Stop being idealistic
B.
Stop making things worse than they are
IV. Accept Appropriate Responsibility
V.
Balance A.
Emotions/Intellect VI.
Look at Your Life A.
Your Values
B. Assess your beliefs
C. Determine the origin of your beliefs 1. Your family? 2. Your church? 3. Your friends 4. Your role models? 5. Society? 6. Your own educated analysis & selection? D. Determine which beliefs have helped you vs. hurt you E. Create your own, healthier belief system F. List your positive attributes G. Your self-defeating patterns & bad habits H. Expand your positive attributes; decrease your negatives VII. Set Goals A. Personal B. Professional C. Educational VIII. Develop An Action Plan A. Break it down by time 1. Daily 2. Weekly 3. Monthly 4. Yearly B. Put your plan in writing C. Share it with someone you trust; who will support you IX. Follow Your Action Plan A. Congratulate yourself for success B. Celebrate major accomplishments C. Learn from failures & move forward D. Encourage yourself frequently X. Make Adjustments As Needed! CONCLUSION Remember that it took you a long time to get where you are. It will take a long time to recover. Perhaps recovery is not even the best word. Recovery implies you were healthy at one time. Most likely you never were, or at least not since you were a new born, bouncing baby. From that moment on you probably have been exposed to unhealthiness. Perhaps a better word is discovery. The discovery of the real you. Of what makes you happy. Of what makes you feel good about yourself. And good about life. I truly believe that if you make a committed effort to trying to apply the ideas I have outlined above, you will begin to feel better. But I also caution you that there lie painful moments ahead. These are to be expected. They are normal. Don't get discouraged. When you feel down, feel down, then pull yourself back up. Never give up. When you feel at your lowest & you feel totally overwhelmed by life, ask yourself this question: Am I going to give up? As long as your answer is: "No, I am not going to give up", then you can ask the next question: What I going to do? If you are not sure, go back to the first question. Keep repeating this until you figure out what action you are going to take. Action is one of the most important keys to breaking any cycle. ----------------------------- It is my sincere desire that this outline has helped you find the strength and motivation within you to break the cycle of codependency. Best Wishes Steven P. Hein June, 1995
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