evile

This seems to be coming up a lot in conversation and I think it's a pretty common codependent sticking-point. We don't want to be disliked. We don't want people around us to be angry or sad. We feel responsible when people don't like us, when people are angry, and when people are sad. We try to do and say things so that people around us will not be angry or sad. There's a fine line here, and I think a lot of us miss it. We speak and behave in ways that are attempts at communication with others. We try to conform ourselves to a person or group that we find admirable and want to belong to/with. We are human, I think it's human to want to belong and fit in, to find our person and our 'tribe'. But as codependents, we take it too far and do damage, both to ourselves and to the people in relationships with us. We enable people we love to make bad decisions and not face consequences. We allow people we love to become lazy, infantilized, and less than they are capable of being, because part of our sickness is to do things for people when they're perfectly capable of doing for themselves, or they need the challenge of figuring out their own problems and solving them. We want to help, and we help too much. 

All of which fits in perfectly with the Narcissist/BPD/Cluster B tendency toward a Facts=Feelings mindset, to be selfish and self involved to the point of missing out on reality completely. 

I have run across a few disordered people in my life, maybe not all of them were pathological, but at some point this conversation always seems to take place. They tell me: "When you say ____________, It makes me feel you are saying __________."

I got into this twice as a result of being child-free. (I do use this term, and apparently it's offensive to some. I don't apologize for using this term. It is shorter than 'childless by choice,' which is also a term I use.)

One person said something like this: "When you say 'child free' it makes me feel as though you are calling me an animal for breeding," I didn't say this, I didn't think this, and I had no response for this person because I could not make the leap from her 'what I said' to how she felt. It made no sense to me. We were not close friends, this basically ended our being on speaking terms as 'friendly acquaintances,' I retreated in confusion. I don't know how to fix a misunderstanding like this, because the offense was not at what I actually SAID, it was about how she FELT, which I had no control over and had not deliberately tried to offend her feelings....

Another friend, a woman I'd known since childhood, a mother of 3, made a similar complaint at one point in our friendship. I had happily attended every baby shower, kindergarten 'graduation' ceremonies, talent shows, birthdays, etc. I had taken the kids to museums and movies, theme parks, book stores, parks, swimming pools, etc. I took care of them while she went through various medical issues, and I was on the list of adults for the school to call in case of emergency. I loved her, I loved her kids, I was part of their lives as a loving auntie....but for whatever reason, she also took offense to my "child free" status, telling me "When you say you're child-free, it makes me feel like you are calling me a bad person for having kids," (Now, in hindsight this person is a total CB; she was allegedly diagnosed as infertile --I was there the day she came home from the Dr office and I cried with her when she told me she couldn't have babies--and yet she has 3 'miracle' children, timed just far enough apart that she wouldn't have to go to work. The family had financial problems since only the husband was working, they were always on the verge of having utilities cut off or being evicted--and I helped with all that--so, yes, probably she should not have had kids she couldn't afford but...I never said that or even thought it back then)

Incidentally, it's a really great CB detection device when a person tells you "When you say ___, it makes me feel ___."...If you refuse to take responsibility for their feelings, but only for the words you actually said, a CB will melt down, freak out, and decide that you are the devil. And then come the flying monkeys! (Mother of 3's husband came to my house and told me I had until ___ time that evening to say goodbye to his children forever. Broke my heart.)

My Honey and I are both codependents. One of the healthiest, and scariest moments of our relationship came the night he told me "I'm not responsible for your feelings,"....I hated it. It scared me. It felt like a physical gut-punch. But I took the time to think it through and realized that he wasn't saying what it FELT like he was saying. I think that CB's don't have the ability to parse that out. Facts = Feelings. Always and forever. "If I feel bad, it's your fault, and now I have to make you feel as bad as you made me feel!" It's a sick, sad way to live. 

When I took the time to think it through, I realized he was being absolutely truthful with me, and saying something totally healthy and non-codependent....and once I took the time to process through everything that was happening and my feelings, our relationship has only gotten better and stronger. It is such a burden feeling responsible for someone else's happiness; and an unfair burden to put on someone else to make them responsible for yours. There is a wonderful freedom in a partnership that exists because each person is taking care of their own emotions and chooses to be together, doesn't "NEED" to be together in order to fix a problem or fill an emotional hole. Slow going, but totally worth it.

So that's what came together for me today!