Codependent Recovery Is Tricky

Codependent Recovery can be like maneuvering through a maze.  I’ve been saying for years that the alcoholics have it easy… when they relapse, there is no doubt in their minds what happened.  They took a drink, sobriety ended.  I don’t say that to be flippant or to discount the struggles that alcoholics face.  I just wish codependent relapse was as easy to identify.  For years, I didn’t realize I was relapsing until I felt like I was going to come out of my skin, then I would sit down and try to discern what was wrong.

Defining codependency is equally challenging.  Every definition I’ve found has been either so vague it was useless or filled with so much psychological jargon that I didn’t know how to translate what I’d just read to English.  At different times in my Recovery, I’ve considered Codependency to be an addiction to either addicts, drama, chaos or control.  While I’ve never been able to completely define codependency, I’ve made some feeble attempts that I think reflected where I was in my recovery at the time.

1. When I’m doing for you what you can and should be doing for yourself.
2. When I’m so busy minding your business that I’m not minding mine.
3. Anytime I start a sentence with “you gotta,” “you needta,” or “you shoulda,” I’m getting into business that isn’t my own.

If number 3 sounded familiar, that’s because I did a blog post all about it on January 9^th.  You can read it here https://sheddingthebaggage.com/you-gotta-you-needta-you-shoulda-stoppit/ if you missed it.

While the three “definitions” I listed above are accurate, they barely scrape the surface of what codependency looks like in my life.  There is another side to it.  Seven years ago, while working through “The Codependents’ Guide to the 12 Steps” by Melody Beattie, I came to realize that while I’d made great progress in overcoming my codependent behaviors towards other people, I’d made almost no progress in overcoming my codependent behaviors towards myself. 

What does that look like?  I was hoping you would ask.

1. I ignore all the “red flags” that warn me that a relationship I’m getting into is wrong for me. (I’ve done this out of loneliness, but I’ve also done it because of my tendency to assume responsibilities that aren’t mine.)
2. I will turn myself inside out to accomplish a task for you, but I can’t hardly force myself to get up and exercise for 30 minutes a day even though I know the health benefits and that it will bring me closer to my health and weight goals.
3. I have accepted the abusive behaviors of several people in my life as evidence that there is something fundamentally wrong with me and I am not worthy of love and respect.

Mostly, I think I’ve treated myself way worse than anyone else has.

Yesterday, I stopped on the way home and bought a new outfit.  It was a shirt and leggings.  I was so excited when I picked them out; I couldn’t wait to get them on and see how cute I was going to look in them.  It was Valentine’s Day, I was feeling good about buying something cute to wear (as opposed to my typical truck driver garb); I was in town in time to go to Celebrate Recovery.  I was having a great day.  After my shower, I got dressed, stepped in front of the mirror and the first thought that went through my head was “stuffed sausage.”  Trust me when I tell you that outfit looked way better on the hanger than it did on me.  Then I heard myself say the most horrible thing I’ve probably ever heard come out of my mouth.  “You are so f—ing fat!”  I got changed into something that didn’t make me feel like an elephant and went into the bathroom to do my makeup.

I’ve been texting on and off with a man I met on a dating site last year.  We’ve never met in person, just texted and a few phone calls.  We were talking about it being Valentine’s Day and the conversation evolved to… he sent me a picture of him wearing a red shirt (for Valentine’s Day) and I was going to reciprocate after I got home and got a shower.  I was dressed, got my hair and makeup done and grabbed my phone to take a selfie to send.

I am not photogenic. At. All.  I’m not exaggerating.  I’m not being negative.  I’m just telling it like it is.  Because of my combined issues, I haven’t been comfortable in front of a camera for a very long time.  I would almost rather take a bullet than have my picture taken.  I’m a real bundle of joy at the license branch, let me tell you.  The only time I will request my picture being taken is when my reason for wanting the picture trumps my hatred of having my picture taken – like when I’m with my kids.  My discomfort in front of a camera is obvious in the resulting pictures, at least to me.  In every picture I have posed for, my expression is a pained smile at best.  Spontaneous pictures aren’t as bad, assuming I don’t have some weird expression on my face or I’m not standing in a way that makes me look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

So, I take the first selfie last night and I hear myself say, “God, you’re ugly.”

Oh yes, she did.

It shocked me so much that I stopped what I was doing and gave myself a good grilling.  Is that what you really believe?  Why do you think it’s acceptable to say something like that to yourself?  Would you allow anyone else to talk to you this way?  Is this really all the progress you’ve made after 12 years in Recovery?  If this is all the progress you’ve made, what makes you think you can help anyone else?  And on and on and on.

Easy there, cowgirl!  Put down the bat and step away from the mirror.  When I have moments like that and I’m beating up on myself, I quickly accelerate to “you’ve never ever done anything good or right in your WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE.”  I can go from zero to Lunatic Barbie in record time.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been that awful to myself.  I used to do it almost daily.  As bad as it was, I can still see evidence of how much progress I’ve made in my recovery.

Defining codependency is tricky; relapse isn’t usually a tangible event that I can point to; but I’ve gotten a clear definition of sobriety.  I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never be completely free of my codependent tendencies.  I think there is always going to be that part of me that instinctively wants to downshift into rescue mode or lash out at myself with hate and anger when I fail to meet my own expectations.  I hope I’m wrong about this. 

That part of me that automatically defaults to codependent behavior is that Inner Child I talked about a couple of weeks ago.  She is still in survival mode and when she is triggered into remembering old fears, she reacts with old coping skills.  I’m holding out hope that some day she will be so completely healed that she won’t have to revert to those default settings.

Without going into obsessive overthinking, I spent some time thinking about what I’d said to myself and also about how I reacted to it.  I didn’t try to deny how disappointed I was by my behavior.  However, instead of beating myself up over it for days on end – like I would have just a few years ago – I shared my struggle with a group of friends where I knew it would be safe to share it.  As expected, I was met with acceptance and encouragement.  No one judged me, in fact, several shared that they struggle with the same issues.  They gave me a safe place to be real and the love and acceptance that I needed to be able to love myself through it, which in turn gives me what I need to look for a way to change that behavior. 

In the meantime, I define my sobriety by the amount of time it takes me to realize that I’m reverting to codependent behaviors and put a stop to them.  I also define my sobriety by my ability to recognize situations that trigger those behaviors – before the behavior starts – and choose a response instead of yielding to the default reaction.

Yes, Codependent Recovery is tricky.  It can be frustrating and confusing and hard.  Still, I can say with absolute certainty that I would not choose to go back to the way my life was pre-recovery.  My worst day in recovery was still better than my best day in addiction.