First of all, I went to my first CODA meeting.  Heh I was such an emotional wreck at the beginning that I had to go to the washroom and bawl my eyes out before I could join.  I knew if I didn’t cry beforehand I wouldn’t be able to speak.  At first I was upset with the “no cross talk” rule because I want advice goddammit let’s fix my problems already!  But then remember that advice giving is a problem with codependents and afterwards, was happy that they just listened and gave me support.  They were so sweet and understood me so well.  It made me feel pretty hopeful about things.  

Anyways, I’ve been reading Albert Ellis book “how to refuse to make yourself miserable about anything (yes anything)” and decided to do one of his exercise here which is to find the humour in my anxiety about anxiety.

i actually did want to write a post earlier about how frustrated I was with my anxiety about talking about my anxiety to my partner. They say codependents have poor communication skills.  Is that ever true with me!  I just stammer and lose my train of thought and forget the brilliant insight and argument I had in my head or get them out wrong.  It’s atrocious.

So of course I’m anxious about my poor communication skills, and then I get anxious about how anxious I am!

In a way, I find it hilarious how the night I confronted my partner about the stonewall went down.  First I sat on the floor beside our bed and said “I have something to tell you.”  And then the anxiety kicked in, so I said “I suck at communication.  Let me try this later” and bolted out of the room.

then I spent THREE HOURS composing what I wanted to say, rewriting it a million times, and went to tell him and lost my nerves.

then got my nerves to open the door to read it to him, and then looked at him, lost my nerves, and then shut the door.

Finally hours later pretended god was holding my hand and stammered/bulldozed my way in.  It did not go well but I am proud I did and I look back and laugh sympathetically at myself now

after that though, I didn’t want to be anxious when I wanted to talk to him about stuff and then would get so anxious when I felt how anxious I was.  Every time I felt anxious, I’d get mad at myself for my anxiety and poor communication skills.  

Anyways Albert Ellis said to look at our musts and shoulds and see how irrational they are.

So I believe “I must not be anxious when I want to talk about something.  I must not stammer or falter or show weakness.”  Of course that’s irrational because communication takes practice and it’s impossible to go from stammering to assertive without fumbling and practice.  

My other shoulds and musts are “my confrontations/ communication must go well in order for my partner to understand where I’m coming from which he must do.”  I realize that it’s okay if I communicate poorly and it is not mandatory that he listens or gets me and it’s not imperative that we fix this relationship.  

So now I communicate (poorly) for practice expressing myself and to get used to the idea that things don’t always go the way I want them to, and I’ll survive it (though it hurts like hell a lot.).  It has gotten easier.  Not the communication part (AUGH Why so hard!!) but I’m not as anxious over the fact that I’m anxious.  Baby steps :)