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Understanding Your Obsessions |
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I believe that the root of most relationship problems is codependence.
The term is occasionally misused, sometimes made light of, and generally
misunderstood, but it is a useful concept. Simply put, codependence
is a pattern of painful dependence on people and their approval for
one’s self-esteem. It is caused by failure on the part of the home,
church, or school (or all three) to provide the affection and affirmation
that a child needs. This causes him or her to feel emotionally needy
as an adult.
Such people tend to do everything to excess – working, eating, spending,
risk taking – in order to satisfy their insatiable need for affection
and affirmation. They use people, substances, or activities to fill the
emptiness within themselves. This is risky business, because the very
intensity of their emotional neediness drives them to excess in whatever
helps them feel good about themselves. They can’t get enough alcohol,
food, sex, achievement, etc., to fill the aching void.
Emotionally needy people often suffer from unstable relationships. A
Russian joke illustrates this point rather well:
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Son: “Father, now that vodka is more expensive, will you be
drinking less?”
Father: “No, my son. But you will be eating less.”
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My first reaction to this “joke” is to laugh. My second reaction is
to weep. All addictions and compulsions deprive children of something
vital that they need.
At one time I associated the idea of addiction with drugs and alcohol.
But I now realize that there are a great many “clean” addictions
practiced in respectable families that have long escaped the notice of
the general public – such things as excessive eating, shopping, or
working. Even religion can become an addiction when it is practiced
compulsively, to excess.
I find it helpful to think of my own behavior in terms of preoccupation
or drivenness rather than addiction. Another word for it is
obsession. And the impact of these compulsive behaviors on
families is as serious as the impact of alcoholism or drug addiction.
If we were to watch the children of an alcoholic for a week and then
watch the behavior of a workaholic’s children for another week, we would
find that their emotional problems were almost identical.
It doesn’t mater whether a child’s parents are preoccupied with alcohol
or work; they are unavailable to their children. Whether Daddy is at
the bar or at the office makes no difference. He isn’t at home. Whether
Mommy is passed out on the couch from exhaustion or from sleeping pills,
the consequences are the same. She is not there for her children.
How do the addictions and compulsions that our parents and other
caregivers had when we were young affect us? Children who don’t get
adequate nurturing don’t grow up. Their emotional and social growth
is stunted. They don’t learn what they need to know in order to have
healthy, mature relationships.
Often, when they grow up, they use marriage and parenting as a way to
feel good about themselves, as a means of repairing their damaged
self-esteem. They seek identity and meaning from their family instead
of giving meaning and identity to others in the family. They use their
spouses and children like a drug. This, in turn, sets their children
up to do the same when they grow up. It’s a vicious cycle.
If you, as a child, were dependent on someone who wasn’t dependent, you
are codependent. This is not an indictment of you. To acknowledge that
you are codependent is not a statement of weakness or unworthiness. It
simply means that someone else’s preoccupation or drivenness has shaped
who you are today.
I am firmly convinced that the scars we carry on our hearts from childhood
affect our ability to have healthy adult relationships. If you did not
grow up in an alcoholic family yet still feel emotionally driven or empty,
ask yourself what “clean” addictions in your family may have had a
detrimental effect on your social and emotional development as a child.
How is this affecting your emotional stability today?
This doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your life blaming the
adults in your childhood. They did the best they could, given the
neediness they inherited from their parents. To the contrary, you will
only recover when you stop blaming your parents and other caregivers in
the past of your problems and take responsibility for your recovery in
the present.
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Call Us Toll Free : (877) 866-8661 |
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