Tag: Melody Beatte

• Steering Our Own Canoes!

  One definition of codependency; Adult children of alcoholics; people in relationships with emotionally or mentally disturbed; people in relationships with chronically ill peoples; parents of children with behavior problems; people in relationships with irresponsible people; professionals – nurses, social workers and others in ‘helping’ occupations.  Even recovering alcoholics noticed they were codependent and perhaps had been long before becoming chemically dependent.

   

  Melody Beatte goes on to write.

   

  “One fairly common denominator was having a relationship personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people.  But a second more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships. These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations, such as being human, vulnerable or imperfect; selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change – however healthy and beneficial that movement might be.  These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families too.

   

  Melody’s personal definition is; A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.

                  Melody Beatte

   

  As I sit here 5 ½ years later, I realize that I rocked the family canoe by getting out, I tipped the balance and was seen as crazier than the folks who began steering that canoe long before I was born.

   

  I heard on the radio today, that a family boat is heading down a certain river before a child is born, and our legacy is to pick up an oar and row.

   

  We are taught how to row and in what direction by our parents.  And we don’t start rowing at 18, but at about 1 year old or younger. 

   

  We are taught how to row and where.

   

  It is my opinion that two mentally and emotionally disturbed people were rowing my family’s canoe, and that the only way to save my self was to get out of the boat, and not to just stop rowing.

   

  I was no longer trusting in the elders who steered our family canoe, nor was I going to ride along with the rest, just because we were born in the same boat.

   

  While I couldn’t change the course of the family boat, I could change mine, but in order to do so, I had to jump out.

   

  It is seen as rejection of all who stayed in the boat.

   

  It isn’t seen as healthy or wise, but rather that I have set boundaries to keep them out.

   

  And I guess I have.

   

  I don’t want people in my canoe trying to steer me in a direction I don’t want to go in. 

   

  It has been a long and arduous journey to find the strength and confidence to row myself, to strike out on my own, learning how to row in a direction that is much more healthy than what I was taught.

   

  While the rest may see me as rejecting them, I am only embracing me. 

   

  Embracing my independence, my freedom of choice, my boundaries, and learning what is healthy for me and what causes me pain, what I need to live in peace, love and joy.  Learning how to stay in my canoe and in my business, allowing and honoring each person to ride the river of life as they chose.

  I heartily and cheerfully encourage the rest to jump ship, letting the family’s legacy canoe to finally become empty of dysfunctional codependent folks.  It can happen when one by one each of us begin steering our own canoes!

   

   

   

  August 24, 2010

  canoe, changes, changlings, codependent, empowerment, legacy, life, Melody Beatte, more, no, of, own, patterns, river, self, steering, your

  ---

• What I Mirrored.

  Continuing on from “Codependent No More” by Melody Beatte, she writes.

   

  “Gradually, I began to climb out of my black abyss.  Along the way, I developed a passionate interest in the subject of codependency.  As a counselor (although I no longer worked full-time in that field, I still considered myself one) and as a writer, my curiosity was provoked. As a “flaming, careening codependent” (a phrase borrowed from an Al-Anon member) who needed help, I also had a personal stake in the subject. What happens to people like me?  How does this happen?  Why?  Most important, what do codependents need to do to feel better?  And stay that way?

   

  I talked to counselors, therapists, and codependents.  I read the few available books on the subject and related topics. I reread the basic – the therapy books that have stood the test of time- looking for ideas that applied.  I went to Al-Anon meetings, a self-help group based on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous but geared toward the person who has been affected by another person’s drinking.

   

  Eventually, I found what I was seeking.  I began to see, understand and change.  My life started working again. Soon, I was conducting another group for codependents at another Minneapolis treatment center. But this time, I had a vague notion of what I was doing.

   

  I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, and all the things that I had found them before.  I still saw all the peculiar twists of personality I previously saw.  But, I saw deeper.

   

  I saw people who were hostile; that had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again.  They were that angry because anyone who had tolerated what they had would be that angry.

   

  They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control. Always, the dam of their lives and the lives threatened to burst and spew harmful consequence on everyone. And nobody but them seemed to notice or care.

   

  I saw people who manipulated because manipulation appeared to be the only way to get anything done.  I worked with people who were indirect because the systems they lived in seemed incapable of tolerating honesty.

   

  I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies they didn’t know what reality was.

  I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own.  These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; they were just picking up the slack.

   

  I saw hurting, confused people who needed comfort, understanding, and information.  I saw victims of alcoholism who didn’t drink but were nonetheless victimized by alcohol.  I saw victims struggling desperately to gain some kind of power over their perpetrators.  They learned from me, and I learned from them.

   

  Soon, I began to subscribe to some new beliefs about codependents. Codependents aren’t crazier or sicker than alcoholics.  But they hurt as much or more. They haven’t cornered the market on agony, but have gone through their pain without the anesthetizing effects of alcohol or other drugs, or the other high states achieved by people with compulsive disorders. And the pain that comes from loving someone who’s in trouble can be profound.

   

  “The chemically dependent partner numbs the feelings and the non-abuser is doubled over in pain – relieved only by anger and occasional fantasies,” wrote Janet Geringer Woititz in an article from the book Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue.

   

  Codependents are that way sober because they went through what they did sober.

   

  No wonder codependents are so crazy. Who wouldn’t be, after living with the people they’ve lived with?

   

  It’s been difficult for codependents to get the information and practical help they need and deserve. It’s tough enough to convince alcoholics (or other disturbed people) to seek help.  It’s more difficult to convince codependents – those who by comparison look, but don’t feel, normal – that they have problems.

   

  Codependents suffered in the backdrop of the sick person.  If they recovered, they did that in the background too.  Until recently, many counselors (like me) didn’t know what to do to help them.  Some times the codependents were blamed; sometimes they were ignored; sometimes they were expected to magically shape up ( an archaic attitude that has not worked with alcoholics and doesn’t help codependents either.)  Rarely were codependents treated as individuals who needed help to get better. Rarely were they given a personalized recovery program for their problems and their pain.  Yet, by its nature, alcoholism and other compulsive disorders turn everyone affected by the illness into victims- people who need help even if they are not drinking, using other drugs, gambling, overeating, or overdoing a compulsion.”

                  Melody Beatte

   

  What I love is that she sees how the codependents were formed…and in my experience it matches to what I know to be true for me.

   

  I love how she says we suffered sober…for indeed we did…My perpetrator wasn’t an alcoholic, but a sexual predator, yet the outcome is still the same.

   

  My mother’s codependency of my father is what I mirrored.

   

  August 21, 2010

  Al Anon, caring, child, codependent, Dysfunctional, legacy, Melody Beatte, more, no, pain, Recovery, sober

  ---

• Who I Used To Be

  I picked up the book, “Co-Dependent No More,” which was one of the first ‘self help’ books I read in the early days upon learning about my sexual abuse.

   

  Here is what I read in the first few pages….

   

  “Codependents were a necessary nuisance.  They were hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with, generally disagreeable, sometimes downright hateful, and a hindrance to my compulsion to get high. They  hollered at me, hid my pills, made nasty faces at me, poured my alcohol down the sink, tried to keep me from getting more drug, wanted to know why I was doing this to them, and asked what was wrong with me. But they were always there, ready to rescue me from the self-created disasters.  The codependents in my life didn’t understand me, and the misunderstanding was mutual.  I didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand them…

   

  My employer at the Minnesota treatment center told me to organize support groups for wives of addicts in the program.

   

  I wasn’t prepared for this task.  I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with and more.

   

  In my group, I saw people who felt responsible for the entire world, but they refused to take responsibility for leading and living their own lives.

   

  I saw people who constantly gave to others but didn’t know how to receive.  I saw people give until they were angry, exhausted, and emptied of everything.  I saw some give until they gave up.  I even saw one woman give and suffer so much that she died of “old age” and natural causes at age 33.  She was the mother of five children and the wife of an alcoholic who had been sent to prison for the third time.

   

  I worked with women who were experts at taking care of everyone around them, yet these women doubted their ability to take care of themselves.

   

  I saw mere shells of people, racing mindlessly from one activity to another.  I say people-pleasers, martyrs, stoics, tyrants, withering vines, clinging vines, and borrowing from H. Sackler’s line in his play, “The Great White Hope, ” pinched up faces giving off the miseries.”

   

  Most codependents were obsessed with other people. With great precision and detail, they could recite long lists of the addicts deeds and misdeeds: what he or she thought, felt, did, and said; and what he or she didn’t think, feel, do or say.  The codependent knew what the alcoholic or addict should or shouldn’t do.  And they wondered extensively why he or she did or didn’t do it.

   

  Yet these codependents who had such great insight into others couldn’t see themselves.  They didn’t know what they were feeling. They weren’t sure what they thought.  And they didn’t know what , if anything, they could do to solve their problems – if, indeed, they had any problems other than the alcoholic.

   

  It was a formidable group, these codependents.  They were aching, complaining, and trying to control everyone and everything but themselves.  And, except for a few quiet pioneers in family therapy, many counselors (including me) didn’t know how to help them. The chemical dependency field was flourishing, but help focused on the addict. Literature and training on family therapy was scarce.  What did codependents need? What did they want? Weren’t they just an extension of the alcoholic, a visitor to the treatment center?  Why couldn’t they cooperate, instead of always making problems? The alcoholic had an excuse for being crazy – he was drunk.  These significant others had no excuse. They were this way sober.

   

  Soon, I subscribed to two popular beliefs. These crazy codependents (significant others) are sicker than the alcoholics. And no wonder the alcoholic drinks; who wouldn’t with a crazy spouse like that?

   

  By then, I had been sober for a while.  I was beginning to understand myself, but I didn’t understand codependency.  I tried, but couldn’t – until years later, when I became so caught up in the chaos of a few alcoholics that I stopped living my own life.  I stopped thinking.  I stopped feeling positive emotions, and I was left with rage, bitterness, hatred, fear, depression, helplessness, despair and guilt.  At times, I wanted to stop living.  I had no energy. I spent most of my time worrying about people and trying to figure out how to control them.  I couldn’t say no (to anything but fun activities) if my life depended upon it, which it did. My relationships with friends and family members were in shambles.  I felt terribly victimized.  I lost myself and didn’t know how it had happened.  I didn’t know what had happened.  I thought I was going crazy.  And, I thought, shaking a finger at the people around me, it’s their fault.

   

  Sadly, aside from myself, nobody knew how badly I felt.  My problems were my secret.  Unlike alcoholics and other troubled people in my life, I wasn’t going around making big messes and expecting someone else to clean up after me.  In fact, next to the alcoholics, I looked good.  I was so responsible, so dependable. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure I had a problem. I knew I felt miserable, but I didn’t understand why my life wasn’t working.

   

  After floundering in despair for a while, I began to understand.  Like many people who judge others harshly, I realized I had just taken a very long and painful walk in shoes of those I had judged.  I now understood those crazy codependents. I had become one.”    

              Melody Beattie

   

  Now, I understand completely how she knows codependency so well…she has seen it from both sides.  She has used codependents and has been used as a codependent.

   

  What is also so striking in both sides is that while you are in that mode, you don’t know it, and blame the other person, but never look at your self!

   

  You are never the problem, you can’t see yourself, but you can so clearly see the other.  Amazing to see this in her first few pages.

   

  So, not only does the alcoholic or drug addict, have to be able to admit they have a problem, so does the codependent, both have to face their actions, and see themselves in reality.

   

  Simply see themselves and stop looking at others, blaming others, wanting to control others, but just turn all focus on self.

   

  That stops the codependent and makes you independent.

   

  Just re-reading all the colorful terms used to describe a codependent makes me shudder, it is reading who I used to be.

   

   

   

   

   

   

  August 20, 2010

  codependent, Melody Beatte, more, no

  ---

• Who I Used To Be

  I picked up the book, “Co-Dependent No More,” which was one of the first ‘self help’ books I read in the early days upon learning about my sexual abuse.

   

  Here is what I read in the first few pages….

   

  “Codependents were a necessary nuisance.  They were hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with, generally disagreeable, sometimes downright hateful, and a hindrance to my compulsion to get high. They  hollered at me, hid my pills, made nasty faces at me, poured my alcohol down the sink, tried to keep me from getting more drug, wanted to know why I was doing this to them, and asked what was wrong with me. But they were always there, ready to rescue me from the self-created disasters.  The codependents in my life didn’t understand me, and the misunderstanding was mutual.  I didn’t understand me, and I didn’t understand them…

   

  My employer at the Minnesota treatment center told me to organize support groups for wives of addicts in the program.

   

  I wasn’t prepared for this task.  I still found codependents hostile, controlling, manipulative, indirect, guilt producing, difficult to communicate with and more.

   

  In my group, I saw people who felt responsible for the entire world, but they refused to take responsibility for leading and living their own lives.

   

  I saw people who constantly gave to others but didn’t know how to receive.  I saw people give until they were angry, exhausted, and emptied of everything.  I saw some give until they gave up.  I even saw one woman give and suffer so much that she died of “old age” and natural causes at age 33.  She was the mother of five children and the wife of an alcoholic who had been sent to prison for the third time.

   

  I worked with women who were experts at taking care of everyone around them, yet these women doubted their ability to take care of themselves.

   

  I saw mere shells of people, racing mindlessly from one activity to another.  I say people-pleasers, martyrs, stoics, tyrants, withering vines, clinging vines, and borrowing from H. Sackler’s line in his play, “The Great White Hope, ” pinched up faces giving off the miseries.”

   

  Most codependents were obsessed with other people. With great precision and detail, they could recite long lists of the addicts deeds and misdeeds: what he or she thought, felt, did, and said; and what he or she didn’t think, feel, do or say.  The codependent knew what the alcoholic or addict should or shouldn’t do.  And they wondered extensively why he or she did or didn’t do it.

   

  Yet these codependents who had such great insight into others couldn’t see themselves.  They didn’t know what they were feeling. They weren’t sure what they thought.  And they didn’t know what , if anything, they could do to solve their problems – if, indeed, they had any problems other than the alcoholic.

   

  It was a formidable group, these codependents.  They were aching, complaining, and trying to control everyone and everything but themselves.  And, except for a few quiet pioneers in family therapy, many counselors (including me) didn’t know how to help them. The chemical dependency field was flourishing, but help focused on the addict. Literature and training on family therapy was scarce.  What did codependents need? What did they want? Weren’t they just an extension of the alcoholic, a visitor to the treatment center?  Why couldn’t they cooperate, instead of always making problems? The alcoholic had an excuse for being crazy – he was drunk.  These significant others had no excuse. They were this way sober.

   

  Soon, I subscribed to two popular beliefs. These crazy codependents (significant others) are sicker than the alcoholics. And no wonder the alcoholic drinks; who wouldn’t with a crazy spouse like that?

   

  By then, I had been sober for a while.  I was beginning to understand myself, but I didn’t understand codependency.  I tried, but couldn’t – until years later, when I became so caught up in the chaos of a few alcoholics that I stopped living my own life.  I stopped thinking.  I stopped feeling positive emotions, and I was left with rage, bitterness, hatred, fear, depression, helplessness, despair and guilt.  At times, I wanted to stop living.  I had no energy. I spent most of my time worrying about people and trying to figure out how to control them.  I couldn’t say no (to anything but fun activities) if my life depended upon it, which it did. My relationships with friends and family members were in shambles.  I felt terribly victimized.  I lost myself and didn’t know how it had happened.  I didn’t know what had happened.  I thought I was going crazy.  And, I thought, shaking a finger at the people around me, it’s their fault.

   

  Sadly, aside from myself, nobody knew how badly I felt.  My problems were my secret.  Unlike alcoholics and other troubled people in my life, I wasn’t going around making big messes and expecting someone else to clean up after me.  In fact, next to the alcoholics, I looked good.  I was so responsible, so dependable. Sometimes, I wasn’t sure I had a problem. I knew I felt miserable, but I didn’t understand why my life wasn’t working.

   

  After floundering in despair for a while, I began to understand.  Like many people who judge others harshly, I realized I had just taken a very long and painful walk in shoes of those I had judged.  I now understood those crazy codependents. I had become one.”    

              Melody Beattie

   

  Now, I understand completely how she knows codependency so well…she has seen it from both sides.  She has used codependents and has been used as a codependent.

   

  What is also so striking in both sides is that while you are in that mode, you don’t know it, and blame the other person, but never look at your self!

   

  You are never the problem, you can’t see yourself, but you can so clearly see the other.  Amazing to see this in her first few pages.

   

  So, not only does the alcoholic or drug addict, have to be able to admit they have a problem, so does the codependent, both have to face their actions, and see themselves in reality.

   

  Simply see themselves and stop looking at others, blaming others, wanting to control others, but just turn all focus on self.

   

  That stops the codependent and makes you independent.

   

  Just re-reading all the colorful terms used to describe a codependent makes me shudder, for I was reading about who I used to be.

   

  August 20, 2010

  codependent, Melody Beatte, more, no

  ---