Codependency Support Group
Codependency is defined as someone who exhibits too much, and often inappropriate, caring for another person's struggles. A codependent person may try to change, or feel shame about their most private thoughts and feelings if they conflict with the other person's struggles. If you are on a journey towards self-love, this support group is for you. Join us and find others...
I don’t know where to begin. I have just in the past few months finally understood that I am codependent and have been told many times by counselor and my spouse that I am in a codependent relationship. My counselor suggested I attend a few AA meetings, but I am scared to. My spouse has Borderline Personality Disorder, for years it just seemed to be PTSD as a child of a BPD mother who experienced horrible trauma through his youth, but our understanding has evolved and grown.
Do you ever feel like there are too many pieces to sort through to know which steps to take or decisions to make? I am overwhelmed by my own problems but have tried to keep them on the back burner because I don’t want to trouble anyone or have expectations of anyone, but I have hit a low point and am very confused and shutting down. I feel incredible self-hatred and blame myself for everything that is wrong in my life. If I just could have been better, done better, gave more of myself. I really want to hurt myself but have been holding back. My mother has stage iv b cancer and I quit my job so I could go spend some time with her. I haven’t been able to find new work now that I am back home and I feel like everything is crashing and burning. I have always been the primary bread winner, sometimes the only bread winner, so I understand it was really selfish of me to quit my job without a back up plan. I have felt really unhinged and hopeless with the progression of my mother’s illness. I do not feel like I have my spouse’s support and I feel like I deserved some consideration but did not trust I would receive it. Sometimes his needs are so great and he will point out how I am not meeting his needs and it becomes catastrophic for me and I spiral deeper into self hatred. Sometimes I am defensive and will yell and he has said those few times that he felt I was verbally abusive or responding or using words the way an abuser would. That made things feel even worse if possible.
I believe that beyond our dysfunction that we love each other, but sometimes our interactions are so toxic and I cannot find the thread of why things explode or went wrong. I try to have no expectation and as a result have kept to myself more than is nurturing to a relationship.
Every time we get into a big fight I think the right thing to do is to leave but we have children who I am afraid we will hurt worse from our separation than from our dysfunction. My spouse feels differently, but he is from a divorced family and I am not so we have different perspectives on the matter. And I can’t even conceive of living in two households when we are struggling to cover the cost of one. I feel ashamed that I am giving nothing but excuses. I guess I am curious to know if anyone has seen a codependent/BPD relationship? I am trying to read as much as I can on codependency as there have been many reading recommendations but I have not gotten far enough to know whether I can tell when I am being reasonable or unreasonable. If that’s a thing.
Thank you for reading and for any thoughts. It was hard to write this because I am afraid of judgement and am pretty sure I have a lot to be judged for.
for your story.
I am glad you are in therapy to help to
guide you.
I myself needed alanon to help me get
better and stronger. I also went to therapy.
Much of this journey is about us learning
a whole new way of being.
There is no easy, fast or simple fixes to our
problems.
Ross Rosenberg's has some videos on
Youtube. He talks about bpd.
Many times its a codependent with a narc/
addict or an emotionally unavailable person.
That's the norm.
Hugs and welcome
Welcome here to this group.
It troubles me that you have a counselor who would say that you are in a codependent relationship because that is not truly accurate, because even if you break up the relationship then the codependency will continue onward, because it is not in the relationship - it is in our self.
If you change the way that you alone act in the relationship then the relationship can get better or get worse by your own actions alone, and so you can heal your self and heal the relationship all by your self alone.
Co-dependent does not mean co-relationship.
See an explanation here = https://independentfew.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/codependency-definition/
As such I do not see how you going to an AA meeting could be beneficial at all - unless you your self wants to stop your own drinking?
As to being judged and judgments then I find it best to accept and embrace judgments from other people and build on those judgments. If someone tells me that I am being a jerk (or whatever) then I ask - why is that? how am I being a jerk? or whatever negative words they might throw at me. Seek the truth.
I had to do all of my own work on recovery myself for 30 plus years, because most other people are not helpful, and I in time I went to a treatment facility and they did not really comprehend my horrible family of origin, and the 12 Step groups let us talk when I never wanted to talk and there is no feedback, and a Therapist cost a lot while they do nothing or very little.
So I like self help, because the best way is to help our self.