Empty Nests Support Group
Empty nest syndrome is a general feeling of depression and loneliness that parents/other guardian relatives feel when one or more of their children leave home. Empty nest syndrome has become more prevalent in modern times, as the extended family is becoming less common than in past generations, and the elderly are left living by themselves.
Just wondered if any of you believe you suffer from codependency... I believe that's a problem I have...
I found this definition on the internet: "Fear of being your authentic self, resulting in power patterns (controlling or compliance to manipulate) to get what you believe you cant ask or demand from others. Codependents fear abandonment and rejection. In giving up their authentic selves they perform the ultimate abandonment-that of oneself."
Just wondered since the empty nests thing is a feeling of abandonment.
I found this definition on the internet: "Fear of being your authentic self, resulting in power patterns (controlling or compliance to manipulate) to get what you believe you cant ask or demand from others. Codependents fear abandonment and rejection. In giving up their authentic selves they perform the ultimate abandonment-that of oneself."
Just wondered since the empty nests thing is a feeling of abandonment.
I have been meaning to post on here for a while but I have been going through so much stress because of a divorce that I was waiting until I felt better, but I realise now that because of my issues in exactly this area, codependency, that I may not ever feel better enough to post.
So here goes, sometime towards the end of my marriage I read a few books on codependency and began to see a lot of myself in them. My childhood was one of a lot of fear and uncertainty and I now realise how desperate I was as an adult for caring and reassurance, but also due to my background I went straight for someone who would repeat the patterns of my childhood. I am sure it was my fear of being alone that kept me with him until he left or rather until I caught him, shall we say, even then I cannot say for certain my fear would not have kept me tied to him but he wanted to leave anyway.
I so admire anyone brave enough to raise their children by themselves, I so wish now that I had been able to but thats another story.
My daughter first left home one month after her father did but my son was still at home and she made sure she visited regularly as she lived very close to us, but for the next few years it was him and me stuck in it together. I worry now that I may have done some damage because I struggled so much with having to face my fear of trying to go it alone, while at the same time trying to keep his dad from taking our home and also find some sort of work as I had been a stay at home mum for 20 years.
Fast forward a few years and although I am doing better I still have so many fears of being alone. My daughter came home at the same time as my son left and with every new change I struggle because I know where it is all leading. That one day I will be alone.
So I really do feel I have a fear of abandonment and rejection that causes me to, well it almost feels like I reject myself, so this is something I am trying to sort through with myself, trying to find out who I really am.
Anyway enough about me for now but I just wanted to contribute because many days I have sat here reading and re-reading peoples posts and it has felt like a lifeline to me when I felt myself drowning.
I do so hope to post again but if things in my life get too hard for me to handle I have a tendency to hide myself, so thank you to everyone who posts on here, you really are helping people even when they don't reply.