I think I’m having more trouble with the Twelve Traditions of my program than with the Twelve Steps. Maybe I’m still stuck at the “trust and have faith” stage? Because I’m not able to come up with answers for a lot of the questions.
Or maybe this is kinda the point of having a sponsor. I’ve gotten a couple phone numbers. Maybe I’ll call someone tomorrow.
I spoke yesterday with a trusted friend who has worked through so many of the same issues as I face. I asked him about “the Third Step” which, for codependents, is:
We…made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.
I told him that I was coming at this “turning over to God” thing from a background where that meant “do as you’re told, no matter how much you don’t like it”. This friend already knows that I have a background of being altogether (and often unknowingly) willing to do as I’m told. But this has almost never been to my benefit.
He pointed out that surely a loving Higher Power would not want me doing things that harm myself or others. I had to agree. So, he said, this suggests that part of submitting to God is the act of ceasing submitting to other people, especially those who direct me to do harm. Part of submitting is doing what is good (though this will often not be easy, fun, or comfortable) for myself.
I’m not sure I “get” this, entirely, but I think I can work with it. And that’s good enough for now.
Twelve Step programs are spiritual at their base. They don’t specify the god one should worship, and I’m not even sure that “worship” is the right word for the relationship these programs espouse.
I grew up with my mother telling me repeatedly, “God is going to get you for ruining my life!” Praying seemed only to guarantee that whatever I’d asked for came back to hurt me, or seemed specifically to be damaged or destroyed. The highest ideals (chosen by others for me) were submission and obedience. “Surrendering one’s life” to God meant doing whatever those in power told one to do, no matter how detrimental or even illegal.
Understandably, I have issues with the whole idea of surrendering my “will and life” to anyone or anything. Granted, I have a tendency to do this anyway, but I’ve rarely ever meant to.
But back when this was required, at least the expectations, some of them, were clear, because I was told what I was supposed to do (or think or feel or believe). I might not have done it, but I knew what “it” was.
How would that work with one’s “Higher Power”? What does it mean to “surrender control” in the Twelve-Step context? What would this Step look like in practice? Because it sounds to me like I’d just be sitting there with my thumbs up my @$$, waiting to hear voices. And I’m pretty sure that this isn’t what’s meant.
Part of any Twelve-Step program involves agreeing with the statement that one is “powerless” over whatever is the problem at hand, whether alcoholism, codependency, or something else. This presumed powerlessness may be presented within a “disease” framework, such as calling alcoholism an “allergy” or referring to codependency as “Borderline Personality Disorder”.
I objected to this “disease” characterisation because it seemed to “blame the victim”. My parents and spouse abused me, and the results are my fault?!? Sure, I’m damaged, but I’m hardly “diseased”! But I’ve rethought the issue.
Imagine a child who was born perfectly healthy. While he was still just an infant, he was “shaken” to the point of having his retinas detach. It doesn’t matter that the child did nothing wrong; the fact is, he’s blind, and always will be. He will always have “issues”; the effects of the damage will always be present.
And if he tries to live his life without taking that damage into account– well, that’d just be crazy, and his life could easily become unmanageable.
Similarly, my sisters and I never did anything to “deserve” what was done to us. But that doesn’t matter; the fact is, we’re damaged, and always will be. The effects of that damage will always be present.
I need to start taking account of that.
My sister and I were recently talking about how those termed “codependent” are viewed as being either subservient (“doormats”) or controlling (“control freaks”), and sometimes both (by veering between the two). We agreed that this makes quite a lot of sense, when considered within the context of childhood abuse.
We spent our formative years being required to do whatever we were told, no matter how much we didn’t like it. “Obedience” and “submission” were the primary ideals of our parents and their supporters; there was no greater sin than “rebellion”. So of course we got good at being doormats; it was explicitly required of us, and necessary for survival.
But we were also held responsible for everything that annoyed or upset others. Somehow, no matter how little power, influence, participation, or even knowledge (or physical presence) we’d had, the outcome was our “fault”. So of course we got good at frantically attempting to anticipate every outcome, desparately trying to steer things in less-damaging directions. We were going to be punished when things went south. We’d have been stupid not to try to steer things north. This was implicitly required of us, and greatly enhanced survival.
Why do we veer between the two? Because these are the only two options we knew growing up. In addition, anything in that vast middle ground of moderation and balance was decried as “phoning it in”, “doing things half-assed”, or other, more critical terms. If we did something, we were supposed to “do our best” and “give it our all”.
What the healthy world calls “moderation” was a punishable offense in our world.
When I first read about “codependence” two or three years ago, I had problems with it. While I certainly recognized the patterns of my own life in the stories and illustrations, I didn’t accept what I saw as the blaming aspect of the term.
The codependent seemed, in what I read at the time, to be blamed for “her part” in the dysfunctional relationships. If only she hadn’t tried so hard, or been such a control freak (in trying to control situations for whose outcomes she would be punished), or cared so much, or supported so much, or whatever, then her abuser wouldn’t have abused her. It smacked too much of my husband’s self-justification: Whatever he did to me was okay, because “you’re not perfect either!”
But I don’t accept the equation. Intentionally causing harm is not the same as accidentally making an innocuous mistake. Attacking the victim is not the same as apologizing for one’s blunders. Blaming the victim is not the same as owning up. Requiring others to clean up one’s own messes is not the same as trying to make amends. There was no “my half” to his unilateral actions.
Maybe I’m reading different things now, or maybe I’m reading similar things in a new way. But now I conceive of codependence as a suite of behaviors, rather than a co-equality of any sort.
While I didn’t seek out what my marriage eventually devolved into, my background of childhood abuse left me “broken” in ways that certain types of people find attractive. In slowly and unwittingly falling back into the patterns of my childhood, I enabled dreadful behavior to succeed — if it can be called “success” — for way too long. It’s not that I helped, per se, but I certainly did nothing to stop it, or even to point out that there were problems.
I’m coming to think that codependence isn’t some knowing cooperation in dysfunction, as much as a psychological / emotional inability to recognize dysfunction, let alone attempt to fend it off or otherwise deal intelligently with it. It’s a form of revictimization, or at least the entre to retraumatization.
This does not absolve the abuser in any way. But it does offer hope that the victim can learn to heal, or at least learn how better to protect one’s soft underbelly.