codependents are attached to the people and problems

Most codependents are attached to the people and problems in their environments.

Attachment is becoming overly-involved and can take several forms:

* We may react instead of choosing how we will respond in a situation
(our physical, emotional, and mental energy is attached).
(Don't react, remove yourself from the situation if it is escalating.)

* We may become obsessed with and controlling of people and problems
in our life (our energy is directed at the object of our obsession).

* We may become excessively worried about,
or preoccupied with a problem or person
(our mental energy is attached).

* We may become emotionally dependent on the people around us.

* We may become caretakers, rescuers, or enablers to the people
around us firmly attaching ourselves to their need for us.

Overinvolvement of any sort can keep us in a state of chaos
and the people around us as well.
If we are focusing all our energy on people and problems,
we will have little time for the business of taking care of our own needs.

We forfeit our power, our ability to think, feel, and act and we lose control.

When we are obsessed with another human being, we cannot think objectively.

We not only have a problem or person that is bothering us, it is controlling us.

What is Detachment?

Detachment is not a cold, hostile withdrawl;
a resigned, despairing acceptance of whatever is thrown our way.

We are not unaffected by people and problems,
we cannot ignore our responsibilities to ourselves
and others by severing our relationships with others.

Detachment is releasing or detaching from a person or problem with love.

We find it necessary to mentally, emotionally, and physically remove ourselves
from unhealthy or painful entanglements with another person's life and responsibilities.

Detachment is based on the premise that each person is responsible for himself or herself
and that we can't solve problems that aren't ours, and that worry is not helpful.

We adopt a policy of keeping our hands off other peoples responsibilities.

We allow other people to experience the consequences of their actions.

And we stop trying to change things we can't fix.

We try to focus on what is good in our own lives.

Detachment is living in the moment; living in the here and now.

We cannot live in the past and we cannot change it.

We must learn to "accept the things we cannot change" and to "change the things we can".

Detaching does not mean we don't care, it means we care enough to
"let go and let God" take care of the details.

We learn how to make good decisions, and how to develop healthy relationships with others.

The rewards of detachment are the freedom to live our own lives without feeling guilty or responsible for others. We learn to mind our own business.

Many people who have chosen to live with serious problems such as alcoholism, drug addiction or a severely handicapped child have learned to cope with these problems.

They have grieved their losses and found a way not to live in resignation, martyrdom or despair but with a true sense of gratitude to the 12-Step programs available. They have learned to take care of themselves and have improved their self-esteem through the use of self-help books and programs.

We learn to detach by using a three-part formula from Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon: through Honesty, Openness, and Willingness to try to abide by the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions. Many different organizations use the Steps and Traditions.

"We need to detach when it is the least likely or possible thing to do."

Adapted from Codependent No More by Melodie Beattie, (c) 1987.

Why did he use me?

http://www.drdrew.com/Office/article.asp?id=1099

[note- I remember watching this on MTV long ago, I thought this applies to many love addicted people,
so I republished it here, and to remind me to write on this subject]

What you need to understand is that for some young males, a sexual experience is nothing more than that.

Just because this guy was intimate with you does not mean that he has true feeling for you or that he wants any sort of relationship.

Obviously, you had real feelings for him and now you are hurt and upset that he doesn't reciprocate those feelings.
You haven't done anything wrong and just because you misunderstood his intentions, it does not mean that you are a bad person.

Part of growing up is learning how to judge other people and understanding what goes into making a good relationship.

For now, I suggest that you surround yourself with the people who care about you.

Your friends and family can help you through this difficult experience

Here's our health editor Dr Garth to add his perspective on your question.
Dr. Garth:

This is a horrible experience and I know how painful it can be.

While you will probably be angry and hurt for a while, as Drew said, this is a learning experience.

I think it highlights one of the most important principles in relationships: the key element is good communication.

We can never presume to know how someone else feels or what they think. The only way to understand another person is to ask them.

While there is certainly a place for "gut instinct," I think that big decisions
(like whether or not to have sex with someone)
should be discussed openly and honestly beforehand.

http://www.drdrew.com/Office/article.asp?id=1099


more later

Dr Drew Pinskey of Love Line Once counseled a young woman in his TV show
who was feeling depression over a failed relationship she had with a young man.

The man was apparently using her for sex (a f**k buddy).

The woman thought they were a couple and was wanting to continue the relationship
at any cost, she was apparently willing to have sex with the man even if he clearly
wanted to see other women.

This would be ok IF she was telling herself the truth about what was happening-

She had tremendously painful feelings of loss, pain and wondering why he would do this.

She was ‘hallucinating’ that they were still a couple.

Dr Drew told her that just because she had strong feelings for the man didn’t mean he did.
A codependent does this often. She *hallucinated* that her feelings MUST also be felt by him (for her)

I used the term *hallucinated*, the way Tony Robbins uses it, codependents tend to add stuff that isn't there
to what they think, they *halluncinate* x, y or z

Gotta start a collection of articles on Withdrawal for www.victimbehavior.com

Withdrawal

excerpted © 1995 S.L.A.A.

What is Withdrawal?
A primary and critical step in beginning recovery from sex and love addiction is identifying our Bottom Line behaviors - those activities from which we must refrain in order to attain physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wholeness.
For guidance, we turn to our sponsor, our Higher Power, and other members of S.L.A.A. A change in our behavior - stopping the addictive pattern - one day at a time, marks the beginning of abstinence from compulsive and destructive acting out.

The physical, mental, emotional, and often spiritual upheaval which generally accompanies the release of our addictive pattern is called withdrawal. Whether our craving is for sex, romance, or relationships, whether this craving is constant or periodic, not satisfying such a craving often comes as a shock to our system.

Abstinence from acting out is initially followed by a period of withdrawal.

The word withdrawal typically conjures up an image of substance abusers dependent upon their "drug of choice" to alter moods and/or escape from the present moment. Like drugs, sex and love addiction can become all - consuming pushing us toward greater and greater risk to our physical health, our emotional well-being, our sanity ... our very life itself.

Times of withdrawal can be uncomfortable for many of us. Our bodies go through unexpected physical changes; our emotions hit highs and lows we never imagined possible. We feel, perhaps for the first time ever, the void which we have sought to fill with our addiction(s).

The Experience of Withdrawal
Abstinence from acting out on bottom line behaviors opens us to the vulnerability we have desperately sought to avoid. This vulnerability is experienced differently by each of us. The resulting withdrawal is sometimes recognized first by its symptoms:

a craving to act out

inexplicable aches and pains

physical illness or exhaustion

switch to a new addiction(s)

changes in eating or sleeping patterns

general self doubt

desperation and fear

suicidal thoughts

desire to isolate

obsessive thinking

sadness, depression, or despair

dreams of acting out

emotional highs and lows

irritability, anger, or rage

preoccupation with fantasy

confusion or trouble concentrating

questioning of our interest in S.L.A.A. or recovery


If we aren't acting out, then what are we to do?

Sometimes, we just breathe. It may be all we can do, for the moment. Reciting the Serenity prayer has helped many of us pass that critical moment when we are tempted by our addiction.

A phone call to a sponsor or other program member can help, as can reading an S.L.A.A. pamphlet, or Chapter Five of the basic text, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, where the experience of withdrawal is discussed in depth.
Reflecting on the Twelve Steps can help us bring the focus back to the solution, instead of being stuck in the problem.

We found that the most healing antidote to the gnawing pain of our struggles and doubts was to turn over any questions concerning the outcome of our withdrawal to God, or to whatever Power we felt was helping us to abstain from our old patterns.

We might be thinking, "No Way! ... It's not worth it!" But the truth is, it is worth it. You are worth it. And you are not alone.

From
http://www.slaafws.org/pamphlets/withdrawal.html

© 1997-2003 The Augustine Fellowship, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Fellowship-Wide Services, Inc.

==================
Those that are agnostic might find the folks at www.rationalrecovery.com more to their liking- I've just found it, some stuff there looks ok- taking responsibility... stuff like that
on the other hand I dislike the forum's clear anti God bias- to each his own

more later

Victim Behavior is about you not taking responsibility for what happens to you.
At its core, victim behavior is self destructive behavior. How do we fix Victim Behavior?

Sometimes people think taking responsibility is the same as taking blame.
Taking Responsibility is not about blame at all.

Victim Behavior equals Poor Me Syndrome

more later

quote from the verbalabuse.com message board
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Verbal Abusers's are VA's because of a need to control their environment out of a fear that if they don't something bad will happen. Their sense of safety and security is locked up in this irrational belief that the envrionment is threatening UNLESS they have full control of it. Vacations are totally unpredictable in terms of what is going to happen and the VA doesn'tknow yet how he or she is going to handle the new scene that is outside of their usual routines. Because it is all about fear they can't admit it. Saying you are afraid is admiting a weakness which would in their eyes, put them in a one down position in relation to you,so they do what will make them feel stronger - get angry.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this is useful stuff


there is much to be said about victim behavior and people who let themselves become
involved with verbal abusers...

and a lot more to be said about my posting to the verbal abuse message board and having
the very people who I try to offer help to get angry at me????

see my other blog

A snippet from a sexual addiction mailing list I belong to

This is a response to my question about 'giving your addict a name',

===========
My addict is RJ. He is completely self centered, has 100% zero frustration
tolerance, and lots more I won't bother to type.

"A problem is a problem because it causes problems" Auth. UKN. But when it
is no longer a problem to us, the we don't see it any more. And we work on
the next thing that is a "problem". So we learn to find solutions to our
problems. And the problems disappear. Or else remain a problem. For me often
because I (or RJ can't see) can't see how "no pain means no gain" and I
settle for the low yield default setting of lust.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Bruce Jr [mailto:davidbrucejr@comcast.net]
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2003 12:12 AM
To: astarttorecovery@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [A Start to Recovery] dave in baltimore

===========
note to self:
find more stuff on the idea of naming your inner addict, it's a kind of
separate the sin from the sinner concept
more later

Dysfunctional Behavior Rapid Repair Manual
A short report about an effective strategy to end
Dysfunctional Behavior Patterns.

Up till now you thought you were the voice inside your head
That voice is your Ego

You are much more than an Ego

See our newest Ebook here:
http://www.victimbehavior.com/dysfunctional/


The only real time expiriances we have are:

With our selves (our authentic self)
and with God

consider this:
All perceptions are in the past

When we look up at the night sky, some of those
stars are not there anymore... it took so long
for the light to travel here, that some stars
have exploded millions of years ago

We'd never know that by looking with our eyes

All sight, anything we see- light takes 186,000 mph
to reach us, then several milliseconds for our
optical nerves, cornea, retina as so on to process

All we hear, sound travels at 760mph at sea level,
anyway- everthing we hear is in the past


Even Sex, the closest we can be with another person
swaping bodily fluids and such...

tactile expiriances take milliseconds
for our nervous system to process

See more about this in our Ebooks:

"Self Esteem Takes Too Long"
http://www.victimbehavior.com/selfesteem

Self Destrucitve Behavior; Rapid Repair Manual
http://www.victimbehavior.com/boundaries/ebook/


======================

nope, the website was down because of a temporary server problem
at my host. They rebooted the server when they discovered the problem.

I freaked out for nothing.

I'm really feeling like sh** because I've not yet quit smoking...not only that
I've been substituting addictions- and rationalizing that it's not that bad
because I handled my major addictions- recreational drugs- almost 5 years
sex addiction 8 years
victim based behavior addiction *my really big one* year and a half

I've been pigging out on sugar, bittin my fingernails, letting stress creep up
on me, not excercizing (well down to every 3 days, till I noticed the physical
pain and loss of mobility and restarted my walking campaign)

I'm supposed to (or I told myself I was gonna) wrap all my addictions into one.

if I act out on one, I've acted out on all of em- one is not more socially more
acceptable than the other, or being a crack addict or heroin junkie

it's self righteous of me to see the heroin addicts in West Baltimore and think
more highly of myself when I'm still a cigarette smoking, caffine fiendish
addict...

more later

damn, our websites are down
I think it's because I changed the CC info to pay for the forum script install and didn't change it back

I'm pretty sure they'll (my web host) will fix it very soon, it was a self inflicted injury anyway.

On a more positive note, I got my cylinder head back, it's being re-installed as I type
will be mobile again

more later

Wow, trying to set up my Victimbehavior Forum to make it someplace valuable to go to for help,
advice, experience/ strength/ hope is proving to take up a lot of time.
I've been to dephiforums and getting to know the people there, the way I've gotten to know the people on
the yahoogroups email mailing lists will also take up some time.

The machine shop finished with my engine's cylinder head- $455
wow
I've got to either get a job driving a tractor trailer, or get the airport super shuttle franchise in gear soon
more later

Damn, I've just spent the last couple hours reading the weblogs.com mailing list and related sites.

There is a way to have others post (maybe), it has to do with RSS and possibly XML
(and I've not learned html enough yet, sheesh)

For now, while I'm learning about this blog stuff...I've installed a (well I had my web host install)
a forum (which also needs to be customized as well), more learning curve.

more later

Below is part of an email exchange I recently had that I think
would be useful to people, so I'm putting it up here:

At 03:08 PM 6/14/2003 -0700, you wrote:

Is there a difference between victim behavior and self-pity?

[my response]
hmm, maybe not...but to me:

victim behavior is having your motives be one of getting sympathy,
having that be almost unconscious, and the underlying premise
is that no one would want you on your own merits.

so maybe self pity can be both?

I'm thinking of John Bradshaw's definition of healthy shame vs
toxic shame.

self pity could be relatively healthy, if it's some where you go
occasionally and not where you live.

off the top of my head, anyway.

good question though...made me think about it for a bit.

Hey, are you familiar with the 12 step-ish concept of naming your
addict? I see this in the sexual addiction mailing lists- no one can
tell me who the original author is- someone suggested that it was
from the big book.

My addict is _____, he does the following ____ if I let him run the show

By giving that part of your personality a name, is classice NLP
dissociation technique.
it seems to be a way to separate the sin from the sinner
(and that's a good thing)

got any idea who that originated from?
I'd like to use it, being ever mindful of giving credit where credit is due.


Thanks
David Bruce Jr
Baltimore Maryland
http://www.victimbehavior.com/paradox/

Ok it appears that I can't set this up so others can post, well maybe if I buy the upgrade?
For now, I'll keep this-
What updates have I done?
For starters the navigation links at the top of each page has grown too large, it's unwieldy.
So, I'm moving many articles to a directory called /articles
duh
I moved a few today- look at them here http://software4yourmind.com/articles/

Noteworthy is the new one I added written by the nutritional gurus I follow, Dr. Ray Hinish and Dr. Brian Sanderoff
check it out here: Cholesterol : The Heart Of The Matter Once Upon A Time, There Lived A Lab Rabbit

And I moved the article on Habits, and my one of my Mom's articles on Self Love vs Selfishness

I'm adding an entire section on self esteem, because my thesis is that victim behavior is fixed by setting healthy boundaries,
and a boundaries purpose is to defend the self-

If your self isn't worth defending...then that would suggest that you have a self esteem issue
duh
The first couple articles I wanted to put up on self esteem, the author(s) are not returning my email
So, the one I have there now, while cute, isn't really a good intro, but it is appropriate for me to use
given my Tony Robbins theme of Emotions are in your body, not your head.

That's enough for now:
the sun just came out here in Baltimore- it's been raining for most of two months and I'm going outside:~(
more later

Ok, I just found the how to section of blogger.com
now I'll be able to see what this can do:~)

I just added a couple more pages to www.software4yourmind.com/boundaries/
And the machine shop that has my car's cylnder head might be finished with it today- that means I can rebuild my car's motor
over the weekend and be mobile once again- yeah me!

And I've just finished listening to the first two Tony Robbins "Get the Edge" CDs
I had Personal Power and my doing Tony's workshops (which is what they are, really) are responsible for the vast majority
of my growth and recovery over the past 12 years.
It kinda bummed me out to be selling Personal Power from software4yourmind.com/tonyrobbins/ and find out that I can't get it
anymore. So I'll sell Get the Edge- it is better in some ways than personal power- it's more condensed for one thing.
more later

I just tried to set up a mailing list so people could join and post questions and just share experience, strength and hope AND ask for advise AND not get slammed for cross talk...well it's too complicated for me right now. My webhost (which is very good btw) uses the ezmlm script and the config is more than I care to tackle at the moment.

As I type this I'm uploading the phpbbs script so we can have a bulletin board/ forum/ message board.

This is to set up an interactive place for people who want to recover from repetitive victim behavior to do just what I said above.

I've not yet learned all there is to learn about html, or cgi...this will be my first php install

we'll soon see:~)

more later

Notes to self:

I'm supposed to be trading articles with www.thehappyguy.com
remember to upload his very cool, short article on self esteem...
hmm, maybe I did already, wasn't he suppposed to look at it and give the final yea or nea?

remember to upload Dr Townsends excerpts to his boundary book
that's good stuff

more later

My Mom just left for the airport, it was very cool to have my kids and her and my Dad be together for Amanda's high school graduation:~)
About this blog...I'm beginning to think I should add a message board to www.software4yourmind.com since I want others to be able to post here. Not sure, I think there are blogs that let other people post, but maybe not.
For now, this is more like an announcement mailing list, where I'm the only one that can post?
When I do install a message board script, I will make it so I have to approve or deny posts to keep spam posts or flame posts or
assholes from posting frivolous stuff there.
Damn, I need a blog that has spell check, I'll bet there is one out there somewhere
will have to copy n paste into Word and paste it back here, cause I don't spell worth a damn

hmm, how do I set this up so others can post?
Lots of reading to do, and little time to invest right now.
more later:!)

As you can see I'm playing with this template, and learning about blogging...slowly.
Tomorrow my second oldest daughter is having her high school graduation- my oldest daughter just graduated from Towson U a couple weeks ago.

This weblog is for recovering codependents and other's that suffer from poor me, pity party, or the effects of victim behavior, or live with people that do victim behavior/ martyr behavior- can suggest remedies for and/or share about the pain associated with victim behavior. Whew, long sentence, I'm babbling because I'm still figuring out how to set up this blog...and it doesn't seem to have spell check