September 9, 2011

As you know, I have been blogging about the meanings of codependence as well as its importance as a topic. I usually like to write in linear ways, one writing naturally following from the other. That is not the case as I am finding things I want to say on my blog. Maybe that’s how blogs go anyway – a burst of thought and meaning.

I will be writing more about codependence as a sleeper topic, as I promised, but today I am winding back to my call for efforts by all of us to further understand what we mean by codependence.

Recently I was speaking with someone who is new to the word and meaning of codependence. As we were talking, they said, “Well I am not codependent. I am very independent.”

Aha! A very useful comment.

This person is, in fact, very independent and has been so since a young age. They had to learn to take care of their self and then others as well. They do function well independently. Often this is the case with codependents, we are the ones earning the money, paying the bills, keeping the calendars, maintaining our home. So what’s so wrong about that?

To respond to the person’s comment about being independent and not codependent, I explained to them, and to me once again, that the dependence in codependence is about us acting in ways that make the other person dependent on us. We are not necessarily even aware of our doing this as we offer and give, but as we continue to do such things, our own independence and strengths enabling us to do this, the other person becomes less and less empowered and more and more dependent on us and perhaps on addictions of their own.

And if we are not additionally mindful, we can become dependent on their being dependent on us: a heap of dependence with any hint of independence eventually being lost.

Last week in my blog I referred to codependence as a sleeper topic. I have said this before and realize I want to say a bit more about what I mean by this.

I call codependence a sleeper topic, because it does not receive the time and attention that many other topics related to addictions receive. When I look through the brochures and booklets listing sessions offered for addiction and mental health conferences, there are not many sessions on codependence, if any at all. There may be a few sessions offering information for helping families living with addictions, but the deeper issue of loss of self in someone else is seldom addressed.

I have even had someone say to me in reference to conference planning, “Oh, we did codependence last year.”

Would we say that about offering sessions on helping the substance addict to recover or on strategies for relapse prevention? - “Oh, we did that last year.”

I know that codependence remains unclearly defined and can be over-used. I also know some academic work is being done to develop assessment tools to better define codependence and thus be able to study it better.

In the meanwhile, loss of self in someone else remains an important clinical dynamic which I believe needs consistent, valued attention from each of us in these fields of mental health and addictions.

We can encourage people to “do something for your self” or “just tell them ‘no’”,  but the individual being coached to do this probably needs some deeper work within their self in order to be able to make this profound change.

Yes, this is a profound change, to be able to consider and assert self in the face of someone else’s addiction, dysfunction, or neediness.

Untreated codependence can lead to many things, including anxiety, depression, and relapse. I will write about each of these topics in my next blogs.

In the meanwhile, I will continue to help wake us up on this topic. There are some strong voices in our fields that have gone before me and sounded the alarm to wake us up to codependency. I applaud them and join them.

Barnes & Noble on the Duke of Gloucester Street, Williamsburg, VA

, 2011

I know I am not blogging very often. And I know that when I do blog, I am often writing about the importance of understanding and offering help for codependent behaviors.

I am not doing this to sell books. I am doing this because as I am out in the world talking to people and as I am at home functioning as a wife and mother, I keep seeing many of us struggle with questions about how much to help others and when to stop helping; when to step back from my involvement in someone else’s space/life and into my own world/life; when to move away from my preoccupations with others and back into attending to things I need to do for my self.

Since I last blogged, I have had two wonderful opportunities to do book signings: one at the William & Mary Bookstore/Barnes & Noble in Williamsburg, VA on the Duke of Gloucester Street and the other in Washington, DC at the American Psychological Associations annual convention. Both were powerful times with many conversations about tangles and disentangling with people talking about:

raising their children.

adult children returning home.

helping friends.

sibling problems.

workplace conflicts.

leaving job.

living with addictions.

their own recovery.

their own over-functioning.

Both the general public and professionals in our fields of mental health and addictions have been eager to talk with me, often not necessarily about Disentangle, itself, but about their own situations and stories.

These are very important questions for us each to be willing to bring into our awareness and then see what we want to do about our self and our role in entanglements. I still maintain that codependence is a sleeper topic in our fields and that ironically, it is quite a fundamental problem that feeds the more predominant problems such as anxiety, depression, and addictions.

So keep your questions and stories coming. The more we look at codependent behaviors and what we can do about them, the closer we can get to good mental health.

Thanks to those of you who have been talking with me about your experiences with the word and concept of codependence. As you know, I am writing another book on this topic and invited such talks through my last blog.

I have heard from people in person, by email, and by blog comment. So far, the responses tell me that the word and meaning of codependence are useful to you and that you don’t mind the word, are not “ashamed” of it. Several responses tell me that understanding the meaning of codependence helped individuals to make sense out of their behaviors and life in a way that they had never been able to do before.

So I want to keep on talking about this.

Today I am narrowing our focus to the question of what you think codependence means. I would like to hear from you whether you are a person recovering from codependence or a person who has heard the word and has only a general idea of what it is supposed to mean or a person who has stayed away from anything that has to do with codependence.

Last blog I mentioned that I think of it as loss of self in someone else. Others responding to my blog stated that their codependence came from never having had a self at all. I believe both of these can be the case.

What do you think codependence means?

I am writing on a second book, as you likely know. It, too, is about codependence with new views and thoughts about it gleaned from the past 20 years of my personal and professional work. I have had the book in mind for a number of years, and it is quite wonderful to be so fully into this project now.

As part of that this work, I have been looking at both self-help resources as well as academic writings on this topic. Most are supportive and knowledgeable about codependence and the importance of our understanding it better and knowing how to help those who want help with it.

And as I am doing this work, I realized that I would like to invite you to send me your comments through this blog about your understanding of, feelings about, experiences with codependence. I like to think of codependence as loss of self in someone else. Please let me know how you think of it, how you experience it.

My preferred mode is conversation not lecture or monologue. Sometimes I have trouble with blogging, because it is not as conversational as I like. I am a therapist. I work through conversations. When I teach in workshops, I talk and then encourage discussion and sharing. I believe this is a great way to move into greater understanding and growth.

I hope to hear from you.

Book Exposition of America, 2011

Lucky Me

I’m back again to blogging. I have been away with many things both personal and professional. My tweets have attempted to keep you updated on some of what’s been going on for me, but its time to really jot you more than a line.

Today I pick telling you a bit more about being at the Book Exposition of America (BEA) in New York City, NY, USA. You have probably already seen some of the photos from this incredible book event at http://www.facebook.com/Disentangle. When I was invited to come to BEA by my press, Central Recovery Press, I had no idea what to expect. Here’s some of what I found:

Without really knowing what business was being conducted at BEA, I have been informally describing it as the stock exchange of book publishers, distributors, and sellers. The Javits Center in NYC where the Expo was held is enormous. Hundreds of book publishers were there, some with exhibits that qualified as small book stores. Nearly everywhere were people gathered in small groups actively exchanging information and doing their book jobs – networking, promoting, educating, and selling.

Many of us authors were invited by our publishers to come to autograph copies of our books and give them away. This was happening all over the Expo. A catalog listed all the autographing opportunities – hundreds of them – and I was lucky enough to not only get some free, autographed books but to also be an author signing and giving away my book.

It was a wonderful experience to meet the people who came to get signed copies of Disentangle. They represented what seemed to me to be very varied professional backgrounds, including librarians, therapists, other authors, radio interviewers, and who knows what else.

What I also noticed about these people was that regardless of the professional work that brought them to my booth, most of them seemed to have intentionally selected getting a copy of Disentangle because of the title/topic itself. How encouraging to hear people say: “I need to read this right away.” “No, this book is not for my job. It’s for me.” “This is the perfect time for this book to come out.” “What do you mean you are out of books? I came to your booth especially to get this book. Will you send me one?”

Now I am not really into self-promotion, so telling you all of this makes me a bit self-conscious. But as I write, I realize that what I am also really saying to me and to you is that this is an important topic for us to talk about and work with. We are not alone in our tangles and desires to have more serenity. Strangers-to-me are wanting to openly join in these conversations and work that helps us to not lose our self.

In Disentangle I have an essay entitled Don’t Go This Alone. I am pleased to say that many of us are not alone in our work. We are meeting and reading and conversing and understanding new things together at local, regional, and, now I can say, national levels.

A true cause for gratitude and celebration!

6.     What can a mother do to prevent getting too entangled in her children’s lives?

A mother can help her self to not become too entangled in her child’s life if she is able to keep in mind these circles that I speak of representing the child and her self. Healthy development overall involves each person’s circle growing strong and clear and being able then to interact with others in ways that respect both the other person and our self.

Much of what I have spoken of above is about helping to foster the development of the child’s individual self. Being aware that that is part of our task as a mother over the lifetime of the mother-child relationships can help to reduce entanglements which can come from not acknowledging that the mother and child are, in fact, separate and different people.
 
And preventing entanglements is helped equally by us mothers remembering to foster our own self-development as we are raising our children. Even when the child is very young and very dependent on us, how can we get a little time for our self? How can we pause and listen to our self and find out what we need for us? How can we assert our needs to others who may need to help us? Losing our self in our mothering is ultimately no help to any of us

And as our child gets older and our circles are sliding further apart, there is even more space in our circle of self for our own strengthening and growth. As you move into this new, open, and perhaps empty space, know that your learning to listen and respond to your self, creating your own life, is one of the best things you can do to keep your relationship with your growing child well and strong.