Codependency and enabling... (alcoholism, effect, system, pregnant)

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by McGowdog

I think codependency and enabling all boils down to power and control.

If someone mistreats you, get away from them.

If you're a child and some adult mistreats you, to Hell with them.

That girl from Salt Lake City that was kidnapped and got free some 10 years later or so has written a book. She probably has some wonderful advice on breaking free and living successfully going forward.

I don't think one needs a pill or therapy to get well. They must at some point drop the rock. It's got a lot to do with being willful... willfully sick, entitlement to pain, etc.

Why would somebody not want to get well? Fear. Fear of the unknown... fear of the Abyss.

Yes, it often is fear of the unknown. You KNOW how to be a caretaker. You KNOW how to deal with a drunk or someone who is abusive. But you may have no idea how a two-way relationship is supposed to work.

Another problem is that you don't try to escape from a dungeon if you don't realize you are in one. I truly thought I had to put up with my drunk husband. That God or fate or whatever had assignedd him to me and I had to always forgive and take what was handed to me. Escappe was not supposed to be thought about. If you loved hard enough and waited long enough, change would happen.

I know differently now.

[McGowdog]

We have a saying in the rooms that might actually be of use for that situation... fire that God and find another One.

[CArizona]

Pawporri..I haven't heard the term "shunning" for awhile. But it sure goes on. My parents "disowned" me and other family members when we didn't do what they wanted...Families can sure get caught-up in the "image stuff." It's sad...Why is it so hard for some people to admit that they make mistakes? Or that they aren't "perfect?"...My son is recovering from brain tumor surgeries in a rehab facility now. Some of his possessions are "lost" and "missing." It's hard for the staff to file a report to authorize funds to replace his "missing items." Everyone "stalls" and gives us the "run-around." (Even at higher levels.)...Obviously it's hard for them to formally admit that they made any mistakes. I may have to file a complaint against the facility with the state...Guess this kind of "stuff" goes on in politics all the time and in workplaces and organizations etc..Crazy!

[CArizona]

Mightyqueen...Good for you for finally "breaking-free" from your ex and marriage...What was the catalyst that helped you look at things differently? Did it happen over time? Did you experience a "last straw?" I've had some "last straw" moments in my life. But I know it was all "building-up" inside of me over a period of time. It's like an "awakening" that happens in stages. At least it was this way for me.

[CArizona]

McGowdog...Religions teach their "flock" that it's a sin to question God. And this transfers over to parents too in many families. ("Honor they father and mother!")...Even though my parents were Catholic and even though they sent me to Catholic schools I still felt free to question God and my parents and teachers and other adults as a kid...Why? Well my parents were "questioners" themselves. (Not especially about religion but in most areas of life.)...When I was in 2nd grade (in a Catholic school) I felt that my teacher put me in the wrong reading group. I was bored to death! The students in my group seemed "slow" to me....Anyway I talked to my parents about it. And they trusted me. They talked to my teacher about it and I was put in a more advanced reading group after that...When I was in 5th grade I felt that my teacher (a nun) favored some students over other ones. There was a group of "kiss-up" students in my class and they got special treatment. This didn't seem fair to me. So I explained the situation to my parents and they "backed me up." They requested a meeting with my teacher and the principal to discuss my "findings." And the nun got in "trouble" and had to change her ways...My cousins and most of my friends were normal kids. They were afraid to question or confront their parents "out in the open." It was "taboo" in their families. And their parents weren't "big time questioners" (about all aspects of life) like my parents were!...One time I spent a few days with my Aunt and her husband and 2 kids at their house. The first night I was there my Aunt told me and my cousins to line-up for their nightly spoonful of "Castor Oil.".. This was all foreign to me and I felt free to question my Aunt about it. What was the purpose of taking "Castor Oil?".....I questioned my Aunt about the wisdom of giving medicine to someone else's child without talking to the child's parents about it first etc ..In the end no one got "Castor Oil" that night or the next night that I was there. My cousins and most of my friends didn't feel free to question their parents or other adults the way that I did. They were "conditioned" to be "silent" about most things.

[McGowdog]

Originally Posted by CArizona

McGowdog...Religions teach their "flock" that it's a sin to question God. And this transfers over to parents too in many families. ("Honor they father and mother!")...Even though my parents were Cathol...

Then fire that religion... or question it as your family successfully has.

I think there was once a Carpenter who said something to the effect that laws were meant to serve man, not the other way around.

You sound like you have a potentially healthy/potentially deadly resentment against religion and/or some peoples' interpretations of it. [ Obviously, no one is here to argue another's religion or non-religion.]

I, on the other hand, do not.

I'm quick to point out where religious people are right and make use of what they offer. Many of them are out there... "purposefully adding strength and direction to billions."

What does any of this have to do with codependency and enabling? Well for me, it's all about taking personal responsibility for my life and being fine with other's problems, tendencies, etc. It's not easy to do until you learn to recognize the truth of the given moment and learn to ask yourself... "What is it that people are up to? What are they really after in this given moment? "

[CArizona]

McGowDog...Thanks for posting. I think it's good to try to understand other people. And look at their "side" to things etc...Traditional religion can be too authoritarian for me. But I do have my own spiritual beliefs..Try to live by the "golden rule" most of all. Hold myself accountable for my actions and behavior.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by McGowdog

We have a saying in the rooms that might actually be of use for that situation... fire that God and find another One.

Hahahaha, I like that!

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by CArizona

Mightyqueen...Good for you for finally "breaking-free" from your ex and marriage...What was the catalyst that helped you look at things differently? Did it happen over time? Did you experience a "last straw?" I've had some "last straw" moments in my life. But I know it was all "building-up" inside of me over a period of time. It's like an "awakening" that happens in stages. At least it was this way for me.

Yes, it happened over time. I was a mess. Completely stressed out over living with someone with addictions and being abusive and feeling so hopeless.

It got to a point where I decided to tell him he had to go to rehab or he had to get out of the house. The house we'd been renting had burned down and we were living with my parents. My father had just had surgery called a "stump revision" - he'd lost both lower legs/feet in WWII and now at 78 had to have some more bone removed, so he was recuperating in the house and my husband was just wasted all the time and NUTS. He'd had shoulder surgery himself, so of course the doctors loaded him up with painkillers and whatnot, so now he was worse than when he was just doing coke and drinking.

I waited until one morning when he woke up and was sober, but naturally he got very angry when I told him he needed to go somewhere. He flipped and pointed at our daughter, who was 8, and yelled "I AM GOING TO TAKE THAT F***ING KID AND DISAPPEAR AND YOU WILL NEVER SEE HER AGAIN!!!!" And my daughter screamed and ran into the basement and locked the door.

At that point, my mother went to the phone and called the police. They came, offered to take him to a hospital and get him admitted into a program immediately, and he refused. They took him out of the house, though, and dropped him where he asked--at the bar his buddy owned.

Later he went to an out-patient rehab, only because he HAD to as a condition of seeing his daughter unsupervised, and then he tried to write me some fake "amends" letter that I knew was completely insincere and only an attempt to get back in the house. But, in the meantime, about a month after this event, my father died suddenly of a heart attack right in front of us on the kitchen floor. Between the immense relief of my husband being out of the house and having a restraining order on him because of his threats, so I began to feel human again, and then the loss of my dad reminding me how short life is and how it can end at any time, I had no desire anymore to try to fix that marriage. I was done.

[Pawporri]

Originally Posted by McGowdog

Then fire that religion... or question it as your family successfully has.

I think there was once a Carpenter who said something to the effect that laws were meant to serve man, not the other way around.

You sound like you have a potentially healthy/potentially deadly resentment against religion and/or some peoples' interpretations of it. [ Obviously, no one is here to argue another's religion or non-religion.]

I, on the other hand, do not.

I'm quick to point out where religious people are right and make use of what they offer. Many of them are out there... "purposefully adding strength and direction to billions."

What does any of this have to do with codependency and enabling? Well for me, it's all about taking personal responsibility for my life and being fine with other's problems, tendencies, etc. It's not easy to do until you learn to recognize the truth of the given moment and learn to ask yourself... "What is it that people are up to? What are they really after in this given moment? "

You nailed recovery. "We list People, Institutions, and Principals, with whom were were resentful at." If I hold on to my anger & fears then I will never recover. Those feelings are the luxury of regular earth people, not me. Religion is an institution, spirituality on the other hand is a personal relationship with a higher power.
The most inspirational book I have read about the life of Christ is the second half of the Urantia Book. Incredible