Codependent Cravings….
Well I have come to an interesting conclusion… I am a codependent eater. I guess it had to show up somewhere… It seems to be that, with addiction, you can knock one on the head but, like that crazy Japanese squirrel game, another pops up when you least expect it.
Codependent eating is, I believe, different to food addiction. At least it is for me. I can eat perfectly healthily when living alone but, when in partnership, I realise I hand over the reins of my food choices to my partner. It’s so crazy it’s laughable… and yet, with an outer marshmallow layer of denial, it’s hard to ignore.
I don’t mean to say that partners dictate what I eat. No, I wouldn’t stand for that! Instead, I ask them what they want to eat… and I eat it with them!! So… my food choices become proxy choices. So now I get it… what do I do about it? Ok.. pass me another biscuit and I’ll tell you…
Well, I’ve discovered onepinky.com…. and the founder of this organisation is someone who’s been there.. alcohol, drugs, food… and the essence of her program is self-care… loving oneself. How come I thought I was doing that already? Aha.. well… I am my own woman these days… I don’t rely on other people’s opinions of me…. I am careful with behaviour and language in relationship… and catch myself when I get into recycling… but codependent eating? Well I never!! Ok… actually I did 
Progress through perseverance, as they say… ok, no thanks to that biscuit after all… I’m giving my marshmallow layer permission to leave me.. No longer required, thanks… and as for choosing food by proxy… no more… Now… where did I put those lentils…? Ommmmm…..
Is this as good as it gets…?
“The world is full of emotionally unavailable men… When will I feel like this again…?”
Ok… ok… so I changed the words a little but it’s the same sentiment. Why is it that, when we get into recovery, get with the program, have some time out from crazy-makers and then… land yet another unsuitable catch? I guess the only saving grace is that my knowledge of female codependents in recovery who make a couple of dodgy dating decisions and recycle tend to do it for a much shorter length of time than they did pre-recovery, ie their tether has somewhat shortened…
Cycles and recycles… When will it all end? Will I ever feel better? Many clients ask the same questions – when will things change?
Well, I return to the rubbish bags in the head – until these are truly emptied, rummaged around, checked for valuables and then a few more toxic thoughts are laid waste (either through therapy or some laser-sharp recovery coaching), the time is not yet nigh. And even when it’s emptied, rubbish tends to leave a residue. Time heals even the worst of wounds… but only if we allow it to…. and we can always remind ourselves of the scar… should we need a reminder.
So… is this as good as it gets? Really? A lifetime in recovery of broken, discarded, “almost-there” relationships? I don’t think so. Each time we work on healing that broken relationship with our self, we create a space for a healthier relationship with others. I’m a great advocate of the “slow burn” idea… The people who send you crazy with an endorphin rush akin to a coke-fuelled high – or a rollercoaster rush – are the ones we, in recovery, need to step to the right of… We need to avoid the inevitable collision… with crash and burn sure to follow. Slow burn, however, is altogether different in nature but that’s for another time..
And so… to answer the question…it gets better… oh yes it does… as these days in recovery roll on by… and I believe that (with a lot of artistic licence) if Peggy Lee had understood recovery, her lyrics might well have sung out: “This IS as good as it gets… for now… and there’s more and more to come… no need for the booze… cos this is ALL there is… and all I need… today… right here… right now”….So let’s keep on dancin’ and when we get tangled up in our respective recoveries… we tango on… with a little help from our friends…. and coaches
I’d like to invite 6 women to get in touch with me who are ready and committed to learning to let go…. I have freed up some time to individually welcome you at ‘Base Camp’ before we start your ascent to recovering from loving too much… 
Are you ready to start your adventure? Contact me via my website.
“And the million dollar question is….
… How am I gonna feel today, honey?”
Oh that old devil called love addiction again… It seeps in when we’re least expecting it… and turns “..with the clamp on its jaws”, as the great man notes. Approval-seeking… grasping for crumbs of affection… accepting sex when we all we really want is a hug… Feeling – and being – by proxy.
Whenever I feel an attack of the proxies coming on, my body instantly goes onto red alert… I liken it to a Pointer dog when it has discovered its quarry… stiff, motionless and fixed. Stuck in gear, obsessing over the small stuff and stuck in the grunge that is dependency… Another day.. another headache… Thank goodness I decided to tune into those body alerts… otherwise feeling by proxy would have been the order of the day.. and the morrow…
So.. How am I gonna feel today? I now ask this of myself and even manage to answer it most days… I choose to feel shameless today… in a forthright yet compassionate kinda way… retaining my personal power and not looking to anyone else for approval… I reckon that’s a good way to start any day. How are you gonna feel today?
‘An eternity of frustration’… Groundhog Day…
… so that’s what Sisyphus was condemned to… pushing a boulder up a hill and before, it reached the top, it rolled all the way back down… and he had to repeat it all over again. Phrases like ‘an uphill struggle’ and ‘Groundhog Day‘ could have their roots in this myth. And it kinda sums up for me the frustrating part of recovery… the part before we get into recovery… when it’s ‘same crap… different day!’ and the part when we’ve made some headway in our recovery and then wham! There goes that boulder….!
There is a school of thought which believes codependency is akin to an incurable psychological illness…. We can treat the symptoms and, at best it will go into remission, only to reappear some time later… at worst, symptoms remain constant because it goes untreated. Hmm… As far as I’m concerned, the jury’s still out on this one….
Yes, I agree that recycling is common and I certainly experience it.. it’s well-documented here…. But for everyone? I’m a little wary of a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Just as we have each had our own unique life experiences, I believe there is an element of uniqueness in our individual recoveries. There could be common themes running through our lives… the thread which ties together a scattered life’s tapestry… but there are many other threads which create the whole interesting picture of our lives. Recovery ties us together – in much the same way as our addiction does – yet how we deal with it and which tools will work for us is certainly individual in its making. Just as Al-Anon and CODA are sufficient for many, therapy and/coaching provides that little bit more for others. Seek and we shall find our recovery tools… and perhaps some of us will be fortunate enough to live them from the get-go… whilst others of us need something else… something different… and maybe it’s the same as yours and we just haven’t found it yet. One thing’s for sure… there’s no need to suffer in silence… or to be condemned, like Sisyphus, to an eternity of frustration….
Chaos theory….
Something which seems to sow the seeds of addiction is the notion of chaos in childhood. That’s not to say that they cannot whither and die in some individuals, who somehow find coping mechanisms to deal with trauma or who have been self-aware enough to seek therapeutic help or have been offered some form of therapy in childhood to stop the rot from setting in.
Chaos conjures up a lack of control… bewilderment… unnerving… anxiety-inducing…ground-shifting. The opposite of stability, one imagines… wherein a child might feel sure of her surroundings, her place in the family, a knowledge that there is nothing to fear and that all is calm and well…. The notion of safety.
For those of us who didn’t grow up in such an environment, stability and the idea of feeling grounded can be more than a little scary. Sometimes when we sense this rather odd feeling – the unfamiliar feeling of safety and security – we feel unsettled within and can upskuttle ourselves to restore chaos – that old familiar feeling. It might mean we move house (doing a geographical), or we break up with a kind, loving partner in favour of a familiar love avoidant (albeit unconsciously) or we leave a perfectly good job/course for fear of failure… or even success.
It is possible to change these patterns of behaviour – to embrace stability and harmony and to discard chaos – but it takes time and repeated effort and, most of all, a willingness to do so. Chaos can be pretty addictive… it gets the pulse racing after all. But a slow, steady pulse rate is pretty good by me these days… I’m no longer interested in getting high…or, more accurately, low… on chaos. What about you?
Crossed wires….
I have this feeling that those of us who love too much find it difficult to name our emotions. I mean… what on earth are we feeling when we’re triggered by some difficult experience which transports us back in time? Is it anger or fear? Is it fear or excitement?
I guess I’ve come to a rather strange conclusion, based upon both personal and professional experience… and much reading, of course. That excitement and fear can become entangled… as if those wires in the brain have become crossed… fused somehow when we were children…at a crucial time in our emotional development when emotions were beginning to form and grow. This, of course, feeds into the notion of ‘arrested’ emotional development and for me, it also explains why I became involved with – and was more attracted to – partners who were, more often than not, controlling with more than a hint of aggression about them. This was explained to me after an Al-Anon meeting one evening, when a member advised me that she’d had to learn to grow up in the (Al-Anon) rooms from an emotional age of 8 years old… at the tender age of 53. Every part of my being understood those words.
And so, as emotionally underdeveloped adults, imagine the effect of crossed wires on how we express emotions? Wow! So… if we, can’t name the feeling, how can we know what we’re expressing? We might think it’s anger… but is it really fear?
Maybe the next time you feel triggered, how about asking your body what it thinks? What are the sensations you’re feeling in your arms, neck, shoulders, hands, face? Where is the tension? Are you relaxed? How do you know? Is that roller-coaster feeling in your stomach really anger? If you’re still not sure, maybe check out the NVC Feelings Wheel online… or look up definitions of each emotion. Maybe you’re fortunate to feel your feelings without confusion. For me, it took many years of practice…. and I find my daily ‘checking-in’ practice helps me in every aspect of my life. Being mindful of how our bodies feel can lead us to interesting answers about ourselves… even when we can’t express the questions…
When being in love means being in pain…
This is a rather famous tagline from Dr Robin Norwood, author of Women Who Love Too Much. When I first read those words, I recall feeling a searing pain in my chest and a roller-coaster churning in my stomach. I guess my body was telling me: “This is how it feels to love too much”. But I didn’t know that it was possible to love too much… and I thought that heartbreak and loneliness – whilst in a relationship – were normal. I mean… how else would I know I was in love? Not to mention chronic insomnia, increased use of substances (alcohol in the teens; nicotine and alcohol in my early twenties… and the list goes on…), anxiety, depression, weight loss, weight gain, general poor health… Oh yes, being in love meant being in pain.
So how do we learn to recognise the signs? Well, that list was a good starting place for me… Several visits to my Doctor later and I finally agreed to counselling. It won’t do any good, I thought… There’s nothing wrong with my relationship…. I mean… everyone says the course of true love never runs smooth… I just need to try a bit harder to help my partner get over their problems… I ‘m depressed because I hate my job… and my neighbour’s cat has just died… and I’m worried because he hasn’t answered any of my calls today… and so it circled and cycled until finally I woke up and smelled the proverbial cup of coffee. It was a shock to learn that love didn’t mean pain. For me, it meant an exacerbation of anxiety (which I often mistook for excitement) – I was so familiar with love = pain from a tender age that I’d never questioned it. As I know all too well … there is comfort in discomfort.
And so I’ve had to relearn a whole lot of stuff…. and, incredible as it might sound, pain and chaos are pretty difficult to give up. At least you know where you are with them, right?! Or at least I thought I knew… But they’re also pretty addictive. And so relearning means unravelling to some degree; getting back in touch with the essence of myself… my Higher Self… the person I was born to be. And, although it takes perseverance and is an ongoing process, it feels GREAT! Pain-free is the way to go… I’d thoroughly recommend it.
So… do you think you’re loving too much? If so… what might you do about it today?
Recovery Coaching and Women Who Love Too Much
Here I am talking on local radio about my background, the role of recovery coaching… and how it can assist and support women to move forward from toxic relationships.
Tired of giving too much…?
An audio version of an old article I wrote. Perhaps you’ll find it of interest… or even comfort…?!
Recycling Myths – No. 1: “I should be further along than I am….”
Recovery isn't a race or a competition. The only winner is YOU!
First – and foremost – Who says?! I’m sensing a waggly-finger here… Like the one I have pointed at myself on many an occasion… ahem. That “could try harder… could do better… could BE better”. Yes…. as Melody Beattie says in ‘Beyond Codependency‘ … “I’m a professional in the recovery field… I shouldn’t be having this problem”… but, dear reader, you know I do, on occasion, experience recycling… If you didn’t know, maybe you want to check this out to find our more http://positivefootsteps.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/when-recycling-really-isnt-environmentally-friendly/
And so to… the recovery journey. It begins when we finally admit our lives have become unmanageable, as a consequence of these feelings and beliefs. How can we possibly measure the distance of our own journey against one another’s? After all, we have had many different life experiences… it’s highly unlikely that we were in the same place at the same time, had the same friends/lovers/family members…. But one thing is true. Somehow we have a connection. Something happened along the way that arrested our healthy emotional development in some way and, as a consequence, we began to experience – and live via – codependency. We began to feel we weren’t good enough, in some way, and that broken part of us perhaps didn’t quite heal properly… like a broken bone which sets out of alignment because it hasn’t had the proper care and attention it needed . I guess that’s what codependency is for me… a part of me which hadn’t quite healed properly… a misalignment.
Susan Jeffers tells us in ‘Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway‘… “It’s all happening perfectly“. We are exactly where we’re meant to be right now and that loving kindness… that compassionate way of being with ourselves is way more effective in moving us “further along” than the waggly finger.
So how do we do this, after years of negative self-talk? How about imagining you’re talking to a worried little girl…? Would you scold her for being worried? No? Well, that’s what we’re doing when we beat ourselves up for not being where we “ought” to be right now… Time to lower yourself down from that hook and give yourself a great big hug instead… Are you still sure you should be further along than you are right now?
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