Responding

After yesterday's morning entry and last night's jolt, I am recovering from the awareness of what happened. It turns out that it is working out fine. The admission that I have lost my self, my true identity, is stage two of recovery. Yesterday I felt awfully depressed, and clueless; it turns out that this is a normal part of the grieving process, the remorse part, that signals the awareness of the loss of the true self. Any loss is grieved and requires going through the grieving process. So that by opening up to my true feelings yesterday morning, and picking up the Cermak book later, was just a propitious synchronistic "accident" to keep me on the path to recovery. Here's what I have to say so far: that being a male, and mostly left-brained, I tend to want to know how things work in order to understand them. Plus, believe it or not, it is the left brain that we all use to speak with, it houses words and their formation. The right brain is more about feeling values, and is more likely to be negative, hence, because women are traditionally more right-brained, they are more sustible to depression: a statistical fact. Unfortunately, my right brain hemisphere is too active too. And there's a good co-dependent reason for it to be. Here is what I was able to glean from re-reading Cermak's book last night: Co-dependence is a disease of denial; just like substance abuse. Denial of one's feelings, denial of one's needs, denial there is a problem, and denial of the limitations of control the co-dependent has with their willpower. These are Landmark issues of co-dependency. In John Bradshaw's book, he cited "SHAME" as the culprit. The way I interpret Cermak's explanation, shame is the result of feeling inadequate in controlling another person's actions and feelings. The way I see the process/system is that it starts with the denial of a problem, usually a family secret or problem; that may be generations old. In order to not be abandoned from the security of the family, the individual begins to deny the problem in order to survive, and to deny their real feelings about it, and as they deny their feelings they deny their real needs. Plus, they create a false self in order to deal with the denial (Lie). They begin to try to control the feelings and behaviors of the cause of the problem with this new false self. The more they invest themselves in the false self through the habit of denial, the further away they get from remembering their true self, it's wants, feelings, and needs. By this time the co-dependent is invested in sacrificing themselves, their feelings and needs, for an illusion of power; the power to control the problem, the person's behavior, and/or their feelings. It's a really filthy disease. It ends up where I think I am now: without a sense of self. Now my major problem is explained (I hope): without a self whose feelings and desires I am aware of and connected to, I don't know what I want. If I don't know what I want, I don't know where to go to get it. Does that make sense? I don't know yet where to go to look for work because I am not in touch with the habit of getting my true feelings and needs met, I don't know what I want or need. I don't know what would make me happy. By denying my feelings, I have denied ALL my feelings. Even happiness. My entire past is based on getting the feelings and needs of others taken care of, even in business. As I look back, I can see where I have sacrificed myself, my feelings, and my needs to help others get what they want. It was not an even trade, I abused myself in order to 'help' others with their problem. Solving the problem was the key, not getting my needs met. The conflict is in the choice of whether to take care of one's own needs, or the needs of other's; and choosing to not take care of other's needs is not possible for an active co-dependent. It's against the laws of being a co-dependent. As long as the co-dependent is terrified enough of abandonment, and the illusion of safety and security by continuing to be co-dependent, they will continue to behave co-dependently. One of the big problems as a result of denying one's feelings is that they become repressed, and they build up, and not appropriately dealt with. This stress causes anxiety. The anxiety can aid in the development of compulsions, such as chemical dependnecy, to deal with the anxiety. The symptoms can be expressed as Dependent Personality Disorder, Post Traumic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and Borderline Personality Disorder. As one succeeds and fails to control the problem with their willpower, the effect may look like bi-polar disorder, as they shift their feelings between one pole to the other, as their self-esteem rises and falls with the object they're trying to control. It resembles a mood disorder. One thing to note with the effects of recovering from PTSD is that the co-dependent may fear being overwhelmed by their repressed emotions if they are exposed all at once. They still need to have some control of how much they feel comfortable experiencing at one time. That's where I think I am at the moment: accepting those feelings of the waste of my past as a victim of the disease; just how badly I needed to feel safe and secure that caused me to deny me my own needs and feelings. That I now need to carefully reveal some of those feelings, as I learn to stop denying my feelings now, discovering what my needs are and learning to get them met, to stop denying there is a problem, and, MOST OF ALL, to stop trying to align my feelings and needs with other's in order not to be rejected or abandoned (including work).  My self-imposed isolation is a direct result of avoiding the pain of continued co-dependency. It's another form of denial. I so easily sacrifice myself for the needs of others, that my true self cannot take it anymore. My true self is desperate to survive. It's reaching the bottom of its well for sacrificing. Part of what brought all this up is this time off and the waiting for this next job to start. I need the income, but its a co-dependent behavior. I don't necessarily want to do it. I CAN do it; I've already figured out how I'm going to do it, but I'm not doing it to take care of my needs of self-worth. Someone needs to do it, I need the money, I have nothing else to do that I'd rather do, so I'll sacrifice myself one last time. This time it's a choice. Perhaps now I can begin to isolate my denials and begin to learn how to relate to my true self, its feelings and needs. The funny thing is, I don't know whether anyone is reading this or not. It doesn't matter, really; it's helping me. This whole process is about depth psychology. This is how deep I have had to go to get to the real problem in a way that I could understand what's happening; what I really need to change. Now it's up to me. Practice, practice, practice. I have met the enemy, and it is me; my false self. I hope Afloat does really well on her Bar Exam today and tomorrow. I hope Hoops continues to recover with her issues. I wish all who read this well. Rich