ASYD - Day 41 - Epiphanies sometimes suck

Years ago, I spent a lot of time in 12-step programs for both Adult Children of Alcoholics and Codependency. Like a lot a lot of time, at least one meeting a week, sometimes more. I wanted to learn how to not be broken like my parents had been, and I learned a lot. I made real changes in my life and in my coping mechanisms. In a lot of ways, I felt like I had grown up because of those meetings.

Flash forward 20 years to today. I'm sitting here trying to figure out why I'm reacting the way that I am to so many things. What has caused these emotions, these responses? I'm practically obsessing about.... wait. What? Obsessing? About my feelings toward someone else? About my feelings toward myself? Where have I...?

CODA. ACOA. Al-Anon. 

That's where. That's where I remember these feelings from. That's where I remember those words, those phrases. This feeling of spiraling out of control, of losing oneself in worry about another. This feeling of codependency.

For my friends who are blissfully unaware of what codependency is, allow me a moment. There are all kinds of definitions that you can find on the the web, but on a very personal level, for me, it means:

Coping with a loss of control in one's life by trying to control the feelings and actions of another using manipulation and emotional warfare. 

Jeez, that was painful to write. It's even more painful to acknowledge as true. It's what I've spent the better half of the last decade doing, trying to control the uncontrollable using nefarious and horrible methods. This goes back a lot further than moving to Portland. 

My father was an alcoholic, and therefore, by default, everyone in the house became codependent. It was the only way to cope with his erratic and violent behavior. The only coping mechanism we had to control the uncontrollable, or at least to feel like we could. It's shown itself differently in each of us, but I think it's pretty safe to say that my siblings and I all deal with it in one way or another. They're just more functional than I am, I think.

My recent ex-husband is an addict. His addiction is his own affair and isn't important in this context. It is, however, important in helping you understand what I've been doing, and why. I didn't know that he was an addict until the end of our marriage, but that's also immaterial. Addicts have certain ways of living life, regardless of their triggers, and he lived the life of an addict. In turn, I became codependent again. It was a rut - a comfortable, easy path - for me to fall into. So much so that I didn't even realize that I'd done so. I didn't see his reactions and attitudes for what they were, and I certainly didn't see my own responses for what they were. 

So I've fallen back into old patterns, being manipulative and controlling - or trying to be. Convinced of my own powers of observation and drive to do to be able to make people like me, want me around, and believe that I'm worthwhile. Because if I didn't do those things, you see, people would hate me. All of the things that my hateful, drunken father said about me would come to light, and I would be alone, despised and forgotten. 

Look, I can rationally know that that's bullshit. I have so many amazing friends who love me as I am that logically, I know that's crap. But here's the beauty of your formative years - they dig deep, unforgiving ruts into your psyche. They burrow in, and no amount of excavation will smooth them over. They're like the foundations of castles past with a thousand years of silt and dust and traffic over them, and then one day, poof! We know where King Richard III is buried under a car park. 

The worst part of all of this is what that means for my entire relationship with S. I was in full-on codependent coping spiral throughout the whole thing. 

• Controlling - being whatever and whomever I thought he wanted me to be to make him like me. 
• Manipulative - trying to convince him that he cared for me more than he did so that I wouldn't be alone. 
• Emotionally abusive - making him feel like it was his fault when things didn't go the way that I wanted/needed/expected them to go.

W. T. F. 

Who does that?? Who does that to someone they claim to love?? Jesus. What an awful, horrible thing to do to someone. It wasn't intentional. I didn't realize that I was doing it. I rationalized it away as being a "chameleon" and somehow making it his fault. But let's be clear about this: I did this to him. I acted this way to him. I treated him that way. This wasn't any fault of his own; this was my default factory settings being reset and him bearing the brunt of that error. 

I've never felt more ashamed of myself in my life. I knew that I did these things. At least, I knew that I've done these things in the past. This, again, is my default factory setting. I have to actively work to reprogram myself. And I forgot. 

The problem is that people with these coping skills? We don't get to forget. When we forget, we hurt not only ourselves, but the people we love. It is my responsibility to never forget because I am self-aware enough to know that this happens. And I got lax. I failed my friends and family in doing so.

One of the most important steps that I learned in CODA and ACOA is to make amends when doing so won't harm the other person. So I'm going to work really hard to make amends to S, as his friend, asking nothing from him but forgiveness. And I'm going to take a long hard look at the last five to ten years of my life and see where and if I have other people that I need to apologize to, because while I can't take back how I was, I can own my mistake. And yes, I will include myself in that, I promise.

I'll be hitting up the local CODA meeting tonight. There's also another group for dealing with divorce that I'll be going to another night. I don't get to ignore this. That's simply not an option.

Life is a process, and it's not an easy one. So many things going on all the time, so much stress, so many burning sticks in the air. This is a journey of a million steps, sometimes forward, and sometimes back. Today I realized that I've been going backwards for a while. It's time to turn things back around, starting with a single step.