It is one thing to know about your dysfunctional habits but quite another to change them.
David W. Earle
Run!
Looks like a beautiful day out there. The sun is shining after a day of heavy rain yesterday. It is so healing to see the sun for all kinds of reasons. For one ...it means that my ceiling will not collapse in on us, at least not today. The roof is leaking big time. From where I am sitting I can see five circles of wetness...one of those was like a faucet yesterday nearly filling a pot. There is leaking in the room my son is staying in...that is more like a shower. And I look up at that ceiling...and I just want to...run!!!!
Just run from this house that feels so drenched, not only from a leaking roof...but with the negativity of circumstance and other people's emotions. I am as drenched as this house is...I feel it all and I am beginning to see myself in my ceiling. Any more rain and I am going to collapse. Then I hear it...RUN!!!
I want to go...I do ...but people need me right now. Some need me for healthy reasons...others for unhealthy and I am no longer seeing clearly what I can do to make this a "healthy" place used by people who genuinely want to get healthy...rather than a comfort zone for those who want to feed their unhealthy habits. Run!!!
The Trap of Co-dependency
I feel "trapped" and it is that trap I want to run from, even if I am the one taht created it.
I used to handle these types of things so differently. I was strong, assertive...knowing what had to be done and doing it. I would have made any 12 step sponsor proud. Now I feel like all that oompf was sucked right out of me. I was witness to and around so much co dependency and enabling...that I ended up seeing that as the problem that needed my help...I put sooo much of my energy into pointing out, trying to stop and fix the codependent enabling ...to absolutely no avail! It was so exhausting and so very frustrating. Then I went from there to agreeing in some unspoken way to "harm reduction" measures that never, ever felt right to me...giving up my space, my time, my energy and now I am realizing my health for this harm reduction that is not helping. I have become a codependent enabler!
Wanting to Help
When another loved one recently approached me ...genuinely and sincerely for my help and support...I thought I could be strong again but after I got sick yesterday ( from stress), I see now that I have so little left to give. I am too confused in this toxic environment that I have been in for close to a year....getting tough love, and harm reduction and assertivenes all mixed up in my approach. I am not strong enough to support this person in the way I want to support him. I have become an enabler of another...how can I help this person then without enabling him too? And this person...I want to support...loves me and cares about me ...he wants to get better for reasons of love ( not just for me) where as the other, I believe in his level of unconsciousness, could not care if I was dead or alive...as long as I wasn't in the way. He is just not there. I tell myself that ego gratification cannot be the point of my compassion, my loving and giving...it isn't about what "me" gets from this ...and all people are just where they are...love them from there.
Yet here I am all tangled up in a very unhealthy codependent triangle . I don't even know how it happened...how I got here. How it got to this when all I ever wanted to do was help and support and be kind. Now I haven't the energy to help, support and be kind to a person I really want to be there for...a person who needs me...a person (I was going to say who "deserves it more" but I see instantly how "unskillful" that speech and perception is.)
So, so much learning in this. I pray that I learn it all well so that I can go from being this confused mess I am now to being a valuable force in this world that indeed helps to end suffering. I want to learn what needs to be learned so I and all people wanting to be healthy can live in a house that is free of leaks and this drenching negativity.
I may not be able to "fix" others but what happens in my home is my responsibility!
All is well in my little world.
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