
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...

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I'm in a rough spot at the moment and feeling a whirl of opposite emotions and it is tiring, it is confusing, it is simply my own crazy making at it's best BUT I'm pushing through with some good stuff from some good people here on this site and I'm thinking about me, and what I'm feeling, and why I'm feeling it and realizing how uncomfortable I am with focusing on myself and making myself better and I want to know what happened, at what point in time that I convinced myself that what I feel and think isn't valid unless someone else says that it is. I can say I am not a validation seeker anymore, I won't move through 10 people to find the one to say, 'Amy you can feel that way and have a right too.' Actually outside this site and counseling I take a closed mouth approach with the peeps in my life BUT I get so out-of-control pissy and hurt when someone, anyone won't validate something that is true and normal or not normal and acts as if they and/or I should just pretend it didn't happen...
Isn't that 'smoothing something over' - making it okay, making it better? Why isn't it okay now to feel what I am feeling and express it?
Anyone experience issue or issues surrounding validation in the past, or currently?
Isn't that 'smoothing something over' - making it okay, making it better? Why isn't it okay now to feel what I am feeling and express it?
Anyone experience issue or issues surrounding validation in the past, or currently?
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I have come to realize with time that if I'm mad, I'm entitled no matter what the situation is. It's what I do as a reaction that I seek advice for now because of my crazy codependent ways!
Now I am at the point where I do not need to seek validation, and I have run into situations where I know I am right, or that something is true, and the person I am dealing with would rather pretend that it didn't happen, or in most cases just completely ignore what I am talking about, and change the subject.
Lately I have gone through a process where I tell myself that if this is how I feel then it is how I feel. I do not need someone to validate it. But I also have my own checks and balances to ensure that what I am feeling is not something that was derived from my codependant tendancies.
A wierd process to say the least but I am finding that it works. I also try to remember that in most cases when dealing with other people, we choose to feel the way we do, no one makes us feel "any" way. Our choices are usually based on our initial automatic reaction. Most of the time that reaction is based on our past, and how we have trained ourselves to react.
The one thing that I do now that is different from before is when I am feeling "something" and I express it, I do not accept anything or anyone who tries to invalidate it. If anything it makes me much more agressive to express the emotion(s), in spite of what the other person says.
So if I were to answer your last question as to why it isn't okay to feel what you feel and express it, I would say umm.. yeah it is ok to feel what you feel, and you have the right to express it. How else are we to deal with all of this?
Just my opinion...
i was thinking last night that i wanted my bf to validate me. (see my journal).
it's likely that we weren't validated in childhood. we were told how to feel or how not to feel or not to feel. others always did our emotional work so we don't know how to deal with it. therefore we focus on others to take our own issues off the table. it's just easier when it is not ourselves we have to look at.
it is definitely okay to feel what we feel and express it, but we must do it with love. we must find a way. that is why we need to sit with something and allow a peaceful response to develop before we just react and blow it all to hell.
darling, you are so right where i was when i started. i see so much of myself in you.
i will say what was said to me (that i eventually came to understand)
everything is unfolding in a perfect way for you. you are right where you need to be.
feeling what you feel, thinking what you think, it is all part of a process. it is predictable, almost, in recovery.
i went through some black days, tough days, but it gets better. it really does.
the only way out of this muck is to go straight through it, experience it and move forward.
truly i tell you.
take a deep breath and resolve to be patient, loving and kind.
the words and thoughts that are in our minds influence our actions.
i wish the best for you!
when we can get out of our own way there is a feeling of peace that is a pearl beyond price---wisdom.
but it don't come easy, it don't come soon and it don't come cheap.
but if you are willing to work for it, it comes!!!!
((((((((((huge hugs))))))))))
love, light and strength!
i'm with ya!
blessings.
LOLOLOLOL
Okay, I was in denial. I called mine justification. I had to prove I was right...always right. It finally hit home that I could give up being right and just do my best to do the right thing.
I also had a problem with people ignoring stuff going on...other people's denial totally drove me crazy. When someone was doing things to harm me, I wanted to confront them...express my feelings. I would become enraged that someone could do something and in the next breath act and say that they'd never done that particular thing to me. Drove me crazy! And they'd be nice...and I'm thinking that it was very dishonest and if I played along and was nice...if I witheld my feelings that I would be dishonest, too.
It would feel like there was this giant pink elephant in the room and I wanted everyone to admit that it was there, you know?
Sometimes we can't get justice in this world...we can't get validation from others. Sometimes the only thing to do to save ourselves is to show mercy to others...and I realized that letting it go...smoothing something over...is an act of mercy.
Sometimes you have to stand up for yourself. Sometimes you have to let it go. I'm still trying to figure out which are which.
I'm still learning that its okay to want other's approval
or validation if the motive is pure. And as I read above in another response, trying to figure out "what's my payoff in this?" Do I really need another human beings approval for this circumstance or situation? Are you going to Coda meetings? I like them when I get a chance to go, but my schedule lately has just been obnoxious and so out of wack. I don't know what I'd do without you all here. *hugs*
Vranka...'hit the nail on the head'...for me. That is exactly how I think/feel...
love to you!