Let's have a deep conversation...

[Naza Sutera]

I'm a little bit shy about this. But I want to get it out there. I usually do these kinds of conversations to try and help others because I might be experiencing something and the way I try to fix it might be the answer you need. But in a way, I mostly do it for myself because someone else might have then answer that I need. So its a two-way street. But anyway, onto what I want to talk about.

Does anyone know what "codependency" is? Have you ever been in a codependent relationship with a significant other, friend, or even family? For those of you who don't know, codependency denotes a type of relationship where one person enables another's dysfunctional behavior, often with the person "enabling" looking to the other person for a sense of identity or worth. If you watch Dr. Phil, you may have seen, for example, an abused wife who "loves her husband more than she loves herself" or wants to "love him out of it" or something to that effect. More often than not, a typical dynamic of the relationship would be that one person has something like Borderline Personality Disorder (where there is a lack of self-love, self-worth, and self-identity and the person is looking to fill the void) and the other has something like malignant Narcissistic Personality Disorder (where s/he is basically looking for a person or situation where their ego). One person gives, the other person takes.

Allow me to use myself as an example. I have to say that I identify with this very well, and it is kind of scary. I suffer from both Major Depressive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, and for most of my life, I had been always trying to please everyone else in order to have a sense of self worth. That opened me up to a lot of dysfunctional relationships with family and so-called friends, and I am still trying to come to terms with that. Anyone remember that whole thread about me putting my brother out of the house and trying to come to terms with it? That was me trying to break the unhealthy cycle, and I regret to admit that it had been with little success. I'd been angry at myself for a while, but this is not something that can just be ripped off like a band-aid or just quit cold turkey. It is this whole process of establishing things like that self worth I keep talking about, establishing boundaries, and just... knowing how to do it. All that advice I gave in that thread is taking some time to apply in my own life. 

Right now, he has someone with whom he's had a child, which is nice because he's found someone else to embed his nails in. But he still comes by the house at his own discretion and lets himself in. Sometimes he brings his child. But I don't engage him or his son. I know it's unfair to the baby, but my brother is a dysfunction person, to put it frankly, and I am not trying to get entangled or enmeshed in his life any more than I need to.

For me, at least, ending the cycle is a hard and tumultuous process, as you are assaulted by all kinds of conflicting emotions and ideations. It is kind of hard to sort through and separate the good and the bad. One thing that has helped me was getting a therapist to sort out many of my own personal problems that had a factor in my dysfunctional codependent relationships. But if you don't have insurance for therapy or something, the least you could do is get on Google or Youtube and just look things up. Knowledge is power.

But anyway, I've rambled enough as it its. Do you guys have difficult relationships with with anyone, be it friends or family? I'd love to know how you guys deal with them.

[Snys93]

Actually I do know where you're coming from on this, trying to make everyone within your circle of influence can be damaging for yourself. Personally I like doing nice things for people but I always draw a line. For example there was this homeless guy I found out in front of a 7-11. He asked me for some change, $1.50 not much. I told him I didn't have any change on me but that when I left the store I would give him what he asked for, cause all I had were big bills. I gave him his money and on this rare occasion he actually went inside. Maybe I felt like being nice that night, I don't know.

I've been burned so many times by people that's taught me to not help them, even by members of my own family.

I don't know if this helps you or not...

[Rusakov]

Codependent and living with the other five members of my family.

They annoy me to hell.

[Naza Sutera]

I wanna thank you guys for responding to my topic. It means a lot.

Like I said earlier, it's kinda hard to quit the codependent thing cold turkey. There are a lot of feelings involved, and it could create the drama we try to avoid in the first place. Drawing the line and making ground rules is a good place to start, from what I've been told and from what I've googled (don't judge me, everyone does google lol). But its hard because you don't want to hurt his feelings, you don't want to hurt her feelings, you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But then, thats one of the ways this codependency thing works, we want everyone to like us--and its even worse if we are financially dependent on top of being codependent.

Say, Rusakov, is that the situation you're in?

[Rusakov]

On 5/1/2017 at 3:59 PM, Naza Sutera said:

Say, Rusakov, is that the situation you're in?

No.

It's difficult for me to "survive" on my own (if you catch my drift). If I could get out of this madhouse I'd totally do it.