I can not leave this alone when people are taking low shots at me personally.

As such the person ATGB said she had me on ignore and yet here she is again harping on me, and that is the problem with ignoring people whether in real life or on this internet forum - in that by ignoring me she simply shut herself out, as I found it rather nice not to have ATGB harping against me so I liked her ignoring me, but ignoring people is not a healthy thing to do.

When you ignore - then life goes on without you - as it is simply shutting your self out.

And what if I really were a troubled and sick codependent person - then why would you run and hide away from such a person?

The 12th step tells us this:
"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to other co-dependents, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

The 12th step is about trying to help fix other people.

To ignore people is about being self centered and selfish, and being no help to others and it is about being worthless to anyone.

"Break up with people - sure yes if that is what you choose - but breaking up is NOT a true healthy boundary. "

Please explain why you believe that ending an unhealthy relationship is not a healthy boundary?
Are you meaning that simply ending a relationship isn't the same as setting healthy boundaries that would have kept me from the relationship to begin with?

Thanks for the question, and it is a tough question too,

1st) "Are you meaning that simply ending a relationship isn't the same as setting healthy boundaries that would have kept me from the relationship to begin with?"
Answer - no.

The meaning is that the other person in the unhealthy relationship is still a person that counts and that matters, so breaking up is discarding the other person as if the other person does not count and does not matter - that is unhealthy and immoral.

It is correct that if you never get into the relationship then it does not happen, but in that way the other person is still being discarded.
There is no justification why we would not have a functional (not necessarily nice but a functional) relationship with every person that comes into our life.

A real and healthy boundary is to allow us to deal with anyone in both positive or negative ways, so it allows us to love or to hate, it is to allow us to embrace or to fight or to negotiate.

The ideal (which requires effort) is to have boundaries so that any other person can be accepted or dealt with - or else the other person needs to be the one who rejects it, and the other person needs to do the breaking up if they refuse or fail to be in the healthy relationship.

When we our self break up the relationship then that means our boundary was broken / our boundary was violated, and that means that our boundary was not secure and not healthy.

People with no boundary or with weak boundaries have to back off or run away or become defensive because having no boundary makes them as powerless, so then if they do ever get better then it is their job to create their own healthy boundaries and then return to the dysfunction and confront it and overcome it in order to be healthy.

As the 12 steps dictate = make amends.

You can call breaking up as a boundary, but it is breaking the boundary, and therefore to be functional we need other people to either accept our boundaries or else we need for them to walk away instead of violating our boundary.

Leaving the house or even running away is not necessarily violating the boundary, because if there is a violent abuser then one might need to escape the violence, but then later you go back with the police or with a means of retaliation and then enforce your boundary.

In codependency it is not a matter of running away from the ex or from the threats - no, it is a matter of running away from your problem(s) which is not healthy.

2nd) "Please explain why you believe that ending an unhealthy relationship is not a healthy boundary?"
Answer - The relationship never really ever ends, as the other person is forever a part of your life. We got into our own unhealthy relationships whether by birth or by chance or by design and so the relationship belongs to us forever, and if it remains unhealthy then we have not done our part by inserting healthy boundaries into the relationship(s).

This is an extreme position, but I find it to be the truly sensible and realistic and the healthy peak of recovery.

"The ideal (which requires effort) is to have boundaries so that any other person can be accepted or dealt with - or else the other person needs to be the one who rejects it, and the other person needs to do the breaking up if they refuse or fail to be in the healthy relationship "

Maybe I need to re read your post, but I do think I have to respectfully disagree with your above statement. Waiting for another to do what I know in my heart needs to be done for my own recovery and health is - to me- the very opposite of having boundaries. I learned that some boundaries are meant to separate one from unhealthy situations-

Iam not "discarding" anyone or their feelings. In my case, it is walking away because I believe its what is best for us both.

Quote = "Waiting for another to do what I know in my heart needs to be done for my own recovery and health is - to me- the very opposite of having boundaries."

That is not any way near to what I said or say.

What I do say is that our own boundaries must be onto our self and NOT a boundary onto any other person.

Link http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/traversing-the-inner-terrain/201205/creating-boundaries

"Waiting for another to do ..." is trying to control the other person.

What I see you (and others) mixing up is the difference between a boundary and a wall.

A true healthy boundary makes so that any relationship can function instead of dysfunction, and to "function" does include both positive or negative functioning, because a healthy boundary allows us to do whatever needs to be done - whether we need to love or to hate, or be friends or be enemies, because it is the dysfunction which makes us as vulnerable and powerless.

When we breakup or walk away then that is a wall, and it is a wall because it breaks up the relationship, and thereby there is no functioning or dysfunction as the wall divides the people.

The walls are okay sometimes, especially when one does not have their own healthy boundaries - then yes create the walls to get away from the trouble, and in that case the walls are healthy because the true boundaries are violated.

So the walls are for beginners, and the walls are done out of desperation or just for self defense, as walls are a part of the codependent dysfunction.

When some other person breaks up with you then they are dysfunctioning as they are creating the wall, and what the other person does is some thing we are not to control.

To enter into recovery then the walls need to come down, as each person needs to cross over our own walls, and we cross over by creating the healthy boundaries, and then be done with the old dysfunctional walls.

Having an ex-lover or ex-friend or ex-anyone who we can not communicate with - means that we still have a dysfunctional wall which needs to be crossed.

That is how I find this to be.

what you say makes a lot of sense to me. the isolation is the result of not having learned the tools i have needed to deal with others. going through my life creating close relationships that ultimately fail and then isolating myself has made me very unhappy and this time it is finally making me deal with my past. and, it turns out i couldn't just block is all out and move on. i will have to deal with it and develop healthier boundaries to do so.

"Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to other co-dependents, and to practice these principles in all our affairs."

The 12 TH step doesn't tell anyone to put their SELF anywhere they don't want to be. It doesn't judge you for not putting your SELF in danger or in hairy situations with EX's or anyone else. It says we TRY AND CARRY. It doesn't say we use it for JUDGEMENTAL STATEMENTS....It doesn't say we use it or any other step to ABUSE ANYONE WITH JUDGEMENTS. It allows us to offer what we have learned to others. It is not about "trying to help fix other people." That's why we believe in AUTONOMY and ANNONYMOUS. It's up to us to offer not to judge and not proclaim that our paths and decisions were the only way. LIKE SOME WE KNOW ON HERE. It is up to the individual to chose and go to our meetings. The ACOA and CODA meetings were outreaches of AA. Just like the Alcoholic must realize and come to terms with his own program and work his own steps and live his own life in the end, so must the Adult Child of Alcoholics and the Co-dependent. It is not up to someone who has or thinks they have more recovery to make JUDGEMENTS of that person or their recovery. That's incorrect thinking and ABUSIVE to the new-comer
We all were in horrible places at one time. While our friend at CODA programs could tell us (even sometimes with "tough love." Mostly shared by using "shares of our own Strength, Hope and Recovery." Not thinking we KNEW IT ALL. It is never to be about these horrible judgments and Gnostic statements.



"To ignore people is about being self centered and selfish, and being no help to others and it is about being worthless to anyone. "

JUDMENT MORE JUDGEMENT AND MORE JUDGEMENT...
RECOVERY is not about a strict and rule following process. It's about finding your own path, even if it looks wrong or right to others. As long as you are working toward a goal in your life, who you chose to let in or not is not for anyone else on this board or any meeting or anywhere else to say. No matter HOW BIG THEIR EGO IS, or what NARCISISM they are wrought with.

Sometimes we carry the message by JUST BEING OURSELVES.

By trying to FIX OTHER PEOPLE....we just re-enforce the fact that's one of the worst traits and hardest parts of recovery for CODA's is be a CARE-TAKING. Controlling what others think of us/what we think of them. That's the whold point of recovery and exactly the opposite of what 12 step programs teach.

I'll tell you what everyone, lets let BOOKY have the last share, so his EGO feels he won the point. That's really what HE needs here.
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Dear Hamster - can not you see your self just trying to stop the discussion, and severely overreacting?

We all have a real human duty to judge right from wrong, and refusing to judge right from wrong is morally reprehensible.

The old famous saying goes like this = "Judge not lest you be judged" - and that is a saying which cuts both ways as like a two edged sword.

I found this out in real life Court cases where the innocent defendants all want to be judged, as the innocent are happy to be judged as the innocent know that they are in the right, BUT - but the guilty do not want to be judged, as the guilty person fears being judged because the guilty want to hide their guilt.

So if you "judge not" then you your self are missing out on the rightful judgments, so if you put aside your own guilt then you will stop feeling afraid of being judged.

The correct way to judge is to judge the action and not the [person - as like "Hate the sin but not the sinner" and that means even when we our self are the sinner.

Your claim to stop judgments is simply putting an unhealthy wall around your self, as I am not trapped behind your wall.

Hi Cynthia35,

You clearly understand the point of codependent isolation.

Codependent people will not let them self to be loved.

Below is a song talking about that kind of love:

"It's the heart afraid of breaking
That never learns to dance
It's the one who won't be taken
Who cannot seem to give
And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live"

Link song = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf5UfOuvQHQ

Recovery from codependency means crossing over our own walls, which means a complete reversal of the dysfunctions.

I have been thinking about all that Booky has posted here.
To me, it makes good sense. However, to me it is so difficult to set
boundaries and stick to them. I have to learn self-discipline and apply it consistently. What I am most concerned about is how I take care of my kids.

With Love to you all,
heathercliff

It's nice that you feel that way heathercliff. Your profile says that you go to Ala-Non meetings. So where in Ala-Non does it teach tell you to be so judgemental toward other ACOA or CODA's Like THAT PERSON DOES. I GUESS YOU HAVEN'T heard the real 12 step message.

Yes, I was judgemental especially with the fact that he would tell people to go back to their abusers and make judgements on ATGB and others. I'm sick of that SELF APPOINTED SELF AUTHORED AUTHORITY. Maybe you are impressed but many on here aren't.
GOOD FOR YOU. He needs all the friends he can get.

I just think that Booky was being helpful.
I don't think he was judging anyone.
I took what he said differently than you and some other DS
members did. You know?

I hope everyone on DS gets the healing that they need.

God Bless us all.

Love,
heathercliff

Hamster,

I don't think you should attack HeatherCliff for finding his advice helpful, and to use her experiences at Al-Anon against her is just really hostile.

I've had issues with Booky myself on other posts, and I've made my opinions of his advice clear. I don't think he's trying to hurt anyone though, and he has never responded to your personal attacks in kind. I think he deserves some credit for that.

You're right. JUST BELIEVE EVERYTHING BOOKY SAYS!
He's the GOD OF CODEPENDENCY! HE HAS ALL THE ANSWERS.
DO WHATEVER HE SAYS...DON'T EVER CHALLENGE HIM HIS FRIENDS WILL ADMONISH YOU!

YOU Don't think he's TRYING TO HURT PEOPLE?
Ask the Survivors of JIM JONES.....
Ask the Survivors of the BRANCH DIVIDIANS WAKO TX. and David KORESH
Ask the Survivors of Heavens GATE and Marshall Applewhite's victims in Wako TX. who died on bad K MART LAWN FURNITURE...How far they would go to find and answer from a self misguided narcissist. Oh that's right you can't....THEY'RE ALL DEAD!