Codependency/CPTSD

[Starfish]

This is an excerpt from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney.

It so beautifully describes what I experience that I wanted to share it. I double-checked the "rules" for sharing quotes and feel it fits within guidelines. It is a bit long but it SO hit me this morning as a reminder of the depth of the experience of our childhood abuse. It reminds me that I am not making this up and it is a condition I will be daily, moment by moment trying to live with, learning tools, accepting......

Here goes:

"Codependency is a vicious form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder"
"Codependence is a very vicious and powerful form of Delayed Stress Syndrome. The trauma of feeling like we were not safe in our own homes makes it very difficult to feel like we are safe anywhere. Feeling like we were not lovable to our own parents makes it very difficult to believe that anyone can Love us.
Codependence is being at war with ourselves - which makes it impossible to trust and Love ourselves. Codependence is denying parts of ourselves so that we do not know who we are.

Recovery from the disease of Codependence involves stopping the war within so that we can get in touch with our True Self, so that we can start to Love and trust ourselves."

"The war we were born into, the battlefield each of us grew up in, was not in some foreign country against some identified "enemy" - it was in the "homes" which were supposed to be our safe haven with our parents whom we Loved and trusted to take care of us. It was not for a year or two or three - it was for sixteen or seventeen or eighteen years."

"Instead of blood and death (although some do experience blood and death literally), what happened to us as children was spiritual death and emotional maiming, mental torture and physical violation."

[hummingbird]

Starfish,

I'm so grateful to you for this post. I've wanted so long to "stop the war within." Thank you for sharing this quote as an expression of your own painful experience. My heart goes out to you, and I send you every healing wish. To me, not being loved by our parents and then not being able to trust that anyone loves us, is the most painful thing ever!

Robert Burney's books have been such a help to me, especially about the energetic emotional release work of grieving that allows the wounded inner child to unload her pain and heal.

The quote you posted brings home to me again what we're up against: the very environment which was supposed to be our nurturing beginning was hostile and toxic to us.

I have so much respect for you and your courage on the path you're traveling. This is very hard work. Sending you comfort, support and caring.

hummingbird

[recover]

yes starfish.

[Starfish]

thank you hummingbird for encouraging me on this journey..... it is so easy to think I am just making a big deal about nothing and I need to get over it and not give it much attention. thanks for the reminder that it is worth sticking to it... so often I want to quit...and do what????? start drinking again??? that did not work before, why should I think it would work now?

Nice to hear from you recover also...always happy to "see" you.

[hummingbird]

((((((((((((((((((((((Starfish))))))))))))))))))))))
Your post inspired me yet again to not turn away from my own pain. Last night I lay in bed after a particularly nasty emotional flashback to a beating I endured at age 6 by my sadistic dad. I got up and came downstairs and worked with The Tao of Fully Feeling again. Pete Walker is saving my life!

I'm here to tell you that for me it did not get any better by distracting, dissociating, ignoring, minimizing, etc,. the emotional and physical pain I split off. As I turn toward myself with compassion and process, feel and release the pain, I am finally beginning (just beginning!) to heal. I can really feel it, and my husband says I'm getting better.

My biggest regret is that I was unable to do this years ago. But I have to forgive myself for not knowing what I didn't know until I learned it. I was doing the best I could, but I want to share my experience if it saves you one second longer of suffering.

The main evidence I have that I'm healing is that I FINALLY feel warmth and love toward myself, and I can feel love and compassion for others too! Decades ago (1985) I read the affirmation "I feel warm and loving to myself" and knew then that I had no idea what that felt like, but that I wanted to feel that. I obsessively repeated the affirmation and was bewildered when there was no change. The cognitive aspect of recovery is very important, but the missing piece for me has been emotional recovery.

Working with my inner child and grieving through her emotional flashbacks has been the way for me: following my feelings and crying and angering out the pain. Pete Walker's work is my "therapist."

Sending you love, encouragement and support.

[hummingbird]

Hi Starfish, I want so badly for you to know that I see and hear you, and I care about your pain. I think that sometimes I don't "listen" well here at isurvive because I'm hurting and want empathy for my own pain.

Here on your thread I want to offer you that empathy. My own experience does help me empathize with you, but I care about YOU, your suffering in childhood and now. I'm so sorry that you've had to go through all this. I'm so sorry that it can be so hard. I'm sending you thoughts of healing and compassion as best I can. You're important, you're of great value here to me, you matter and all you've been through matters.

-hummingbird

[Starfish]

wow, hummingbird, thanks so much for expressing your empathetic feelings towards me and my experience. I realize you have been doing this for quite sometime and explaining in detail of your experience is truly helping me. It gives me much hope to stay with myself even if I feel it is a waste of time and I should be "doing" something that looks to everyone like I am a normal person doing normal things rather than feeling like "what are they thinking about what I do with my time?" Crazy stuff cuz "they" are probably not even thinking about what I do with my time.

The fact that you use Pete Walker as your therapist tells me that you experience the depths of this condition, as I do....... as defined and described by Pete Walker.

I think you understand the depths of not wanting to be on planet earth to feel these feelings and having this 24/7 experience..... especially when it is apparent most of those close to us are not experiencing this and the challenges involved in relating with them and spending time with them....not having all the typical bonding feelings and language that they are experiencing and yet not wanting to be alone all the time either.....I try to accept myself where I am and trust that they accept me and see me in a totally different light than I see myself. Weird stuff.

Taking care of myself needs to be my #1 priority.....which means I have to "get" I am worth it.

Thanks for helping me believe I am worth it.

I think it says a lot that your husband sees some progress. I do not have a husband to noice such things since I have not had a good "picker" nor had the skills to keep a healthy relationship going without "getting rid" of the man who was not so healthy anyway.

I am reading my codependent anonymous book along with Pete Walkers book and am starting this week with CoDA to share with others in my community the codependent aspects of cptsd that are really keeping me from focusing on my life. It was pete walker who motivated me to join the group as well as his advice to do isurvive. Yes, he is my T also!

Thanks again for your support, hummingbird. It means a lot to me...funny how that works!

[GrowingTree]

Starfish, are you still around on isurvive? i would love to hear more about your recovery from codependency journey

[Starfish]

Hi Growing Tree! Funny, I got an email from isurvive yesterday.....the first in years........ amazing to think you just thought of me recently and reached out........made me feel so good...........yes, still hanging in there.......the depths of this journey is beyond my wildest imaginings as to how long it lingers and the many webs it creates.

I am understanding more and more why us humans choose suicide ........ and yet, the strong human spirit that keeps a person on the journey is truly remarkable. So much of this experience is out of our hands as it is the product of improper developmental as children.

I continue using various "tools of recovery" on a daily basis. I have become way more of a recluse .... a few years ago I recognized that human contact triggers me. So, I don't abuse myself by forcing myself to show up places where other are gathering just for the sake of "trying to appear normal". I am keeping my son, his wife and their 3 children as my main contacts as they are pretty healthy emotionally, have a good relationship and appear to enjoy having me in their lives plus I volunteer to have kids overnight and take them to classes and fun adventures so that helps me from getting too endrenched in the chaos within for a short period of time.

I re-read some of my posts from 5-6 years ago this morning and realized I missed some of the names I was seeing who I "saw" regularly . Anyhow, thanks for reaching out.......this is a good little community for those of us who are "off grid" with the norm of societal interactions.

Thanks again for reaching out, Growing Tree and hope you are well and maybe i'll see ya around

[GrowingTree]

Hi Starfish, welcome back! Good to see you here. I am glad that you have found what works for you with human contact.

I have some strange dysfunctions in my life that i am trying to work out how it is related to codependency and how to heal. As I figure it out, I may reach out to you, if okay.