Codependent Relapse

Oh.  My.  Gosh.  I'm so sick of feeling so crazy.

First... I want to express a qualm.
Which I have.  Which I am going to express.  Because I have opinions.  Check THAT out - a year ago I don't think I would feel so comfortable even going there!  Forming opinions for one, AND expressing them without shame especially.

Qualm:  So there are the "addicts" and there are "loved ones of addicts."  Loved ones of addicts are also often referred to as the "codependents."  But.... aren't we like... all the same?  I hate separating the two.  I hate talking about them like they're different.  I've been full blown codependent since I can remember (now that I know what it means), and picked up a few ways to cope along the way, and those coping mechanisms then labeled me "addict."  I'm the loved one.  And I'm the addict.  And from what I hear, every addict struggles with codependency.  I've spoken with "loved ones of addicts" who also have a quiet history of sexual addiction.  And besides ... codependency IS an addiction.

Does anyone else ever think about that?  Or is it just me?

All it all, it doesn't really matter because we're all working the same program and on the same track and have the same goals and finding ourselves and finding joy through finding Jesus Christ.

But I know for me, I need to focus on recovery from codependency as much or more than my sexual addiction.

Anywho.

The Relapse:
I've detoxed from a couple people a few months ago which was grounds of hell at the time.  But since then I've been much better with these friends!  Much more peaceful and less obsessive and jealous.  Well... I thought so anyway.

This past week a previously unhealthy/newly healthy/currently unknown status of healthy attachment (aka best friend) started avoiding me, not responding to my texts or emails, and quickly dismissed me in person with shallow excuses when I'd try to simply chat as friends do, yet continuing to spend time with our other friends.  I think I'm normal in that I felt hurt and confused.  But the intensity wasn't normal.  Finally I asked if I did something wrong, I asked for clarity, and if I was overanalyzing and assuming irrationally, or if I was actually picking up weird vibes.  The response: "I just can't handle any one on one time right now, I can't handle other people's issues right now."  Where did my mind go?  ... Do I share this?  I'll share a bit...

"Am I that scary?  That awful?  Am I a monster!?  You don't feel safe being alone with me???  So much that you have to hide and avoid and ignore me like this?"

And then the anxiety begins.... yay.
(Remember, the top three characteristics of anxiety are overanalyzing, black and white thinking, and avoiding)

"So I guess she doesn't want to be friends anymore."
"So I guess I'm too dangerous for her, and we can never talk again.  I was too much."
"So I guess this means I'm not good enough for anyone!  I can't share who I really am with anyone!  I will have to wear the mask forever or else I'll always face rejection!"
"I'll never date again, because I'll ruin any marriage because I'll be too much.  Too overbearing.  Too attached.  Too clingy.  Too dependent.  Too needy.  Too demanding.  I hold too many expectations.  I'll never be able to stop wanting to punish people with my silent treatments and revenge tactics for ridiculous things."
"When she wants to talk to me, I'll tell her she can't, because I'm not good for her to talk to.  I'll just get attached.  And mad.  And I'll tell her I need to find better friends who can handle me."
"If she's having a hard time, and doesn't feel like she can come to me and talk, and instead feels the need to shut me away,... then that means I'm a bad person."
"Maybe I should move away."
"Maybe I should stay at the school from morning til midnight every day now so our paths can never cross."

(um... does anyone else detect the codependency in all that.... relying wholly on another's actions/feelings/words/behaviors to decide how I feel about and see myself and my life, and needing desperately to be needed in order to feel at peace... ETC)

My heart is pounding as I'm writing this... I still struggle with those thoughts.

My anxiety was SO bad, when she walked into a room or even a room next to me, or if I anticipated her coming my way, my heart would pound, I'd feel sick, light headed, and struggle to breathe.  THAT is how dependent I am on another person to feel at peace.  That's not normal.

Again.  I'm so sick of feeling so crazy.

I prayed and prayed.  I had gone to the temple.  I read some scriptures.  I even took what I read and tried to form a letter I felt Heavenly Father would want to write me, which felt nice.  Personal revelation.  I cried and cried and cried, and gave myself permission to feel.  I did what I could to keep myself away from the dark corners of depression.  To listen to uplifting music.  I didn't give in to any unhealthy ways of coping as much as I reeeally wanted to.

As Elder Wirthlin said, "Sunday will come."  And it did.

Tender Mercies
Sunday I received tender mercy after tender mercy after tender mercy.  Monday was the same.  Today is Tuesday.  I still haven't really seen this friend (roommate) face to face since Saturday, due to blessed (not coincidence, nope) circumstances of both happening to have stuff going on in different places.  Giving me time to heal, detach, refocus, remember what's important, reconnect with other people, have new experiences that bring me joy in groups of people who care about me, remind myself life goes on without this individual, and be able to think less harshly, less "black and white"/drastic, and especially connect with myself, my life, my wants and needs, and Heavenly Father.  I've been able to see things from her perspective, and recognize she's just having a hard time and is trying to set boundaries for herself, and whether that is healthy for her or not, I can let that be her problem to solve, not mine to fix. (trying to see things that way anyway)  Haven't made it past the avoidance stage yet... so it's not over.  But... at least there is peace.  For the most part.

P.S.  I just read this post from blog "His Prob is Not My Prob" titled "What is Wrong with Me?!" and it was AWESOME.   http://myhealingisaboutme.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-is-wrong-with-me.html

Let Him?

Last night I texted my sponsor "You won't be hearing from me much for the next little while." Because I will be SO busy, I decided recovery would just have to take a back seat.  In my mind I was just going to put it on pause in a way.  I figured I'd keep up the little things that matter (prayer and scripture study of course) and devote Sundays to working on Step 4 - which isn't a bad plan.  There was more going on that also wasn't good though.  I was reading through some blog posts this morning from a few of you other bloggers (cuz I haven't for a little while)... and stopped to ponder on "Let Us Let Him."

I looked back on my life when I felt most disconnected... and realized I have a certain mentality that probably needs to change.  Basically, when really major important things come up (which has usually been tragedies in the lives of someone close to me, or even when school and life have become very demanding, etc), I take a back seat in life and tell myself my needs don't matter and don't exist until this is over.  ...haha.  Funny now.  As I read Sidreis's paragraph, (my favorite part of her post):

He will sit with us, nurture us, guide us, care for us, bandage us, tend to us, minister unto us, teach us, counsel us, love us, lead us, heal us and cleanse us.  He will do this continuously as long as we will have Him.  And He will never ever leave us.

I heard my mind at first discount every part of it, saying 'I don't have time to have this right now.  I have to do other things.... but later!'  Then by the end of reading the paragraph I was like, "But ...I want that.  I want Him.  I need this.  I need Him."  I just sat there, and pondered.  Next I was like, "How could I have thought that I could let my heart take a break from Christ?"  (Duh)

In my mind, I planned to use whatever power and miracles and spirit I could muster and direct it toward everything "on my plate," but anything else, including feelings or wants or needs or mercy or love or consideration of the worth of my own soul.... in my mind, didn't exist anymore.  And I can look back and see when my mind had worked this way so many times before.

I don't know if this makes sense...  But there it is!

Stressed. I. Am.

(Sunday)

Streeeeessssss.

I'm still learning to navigate around stress and responsibility in healthy manners.  School started.  So did anxiety.  

I have a contract to finish a huge project for an important company in less than 2 months.  I committed to feed 14 people dinner Wed night.  I need to do my visiting teaching.  I avoided contact with my VT girls at church today because I feel overwhelmed, and when I feel overwhelmed I feel like I'm bad for feeling that way.  And when I feel overwhelmed and not good, I continue to wear a smile and do what I can to work hard... and suddenly I'm triggering and crying and jealous of other people and before I know it I have a hundred reasons why I'm a bad roommate, friend, family member, and I say to myself "see that's why I don't have a calling," and I can't talk to cute boys because I'm SO not good enough for them anyway and then I get mad at myself for having thought I had a chance before, but they talk to me and I talk back like all is great, and I feel like a fake pretend good-girl-wanna-be.  I carry on the typical conversations, I listen and laugh while inside I'm like, "If you really knew my thoughts on that... if you really knew my experience with that... if you really knew my story on that one..." "except that I would never actually say that to you" ...and then my roommates come home from having dinner with their really great (truly really great) families, and my other roommates say "Yeah me too... this is how my family is... etc etc etc" but the only thing I say is, "...."  Until I crack a joke, make 'em laugh, change the subject, and go to my room.  I've cried like 6 times in the past 2 days but nobody knows.  However... I'm celebrating the fact that I can cry.  So way better than numb and depressed.  And that I'm still praying.  And I worked my step 4 some today.  And.... I'm blogging about it!  And I did get a lot out of church today.  Even though I had SO much I wanted to share but didn't feel... hm... brave enough I guess, to share what I had to say.   And afraid of what people would think, and afraid because I don't know how much to share/not share.  I guess practice is the only way to go.  Step 4 today was hard.  I wrote down how I can use my Christ-like attributes for good... and now I want to delete it all because I totally didn't use the "super powers" I thought I had in my most recent interaction.  Was it wishful thinking?

Right now, I'm just feeling tired of the mask.  I can get over all the rest and recognize Satan's part.  Being real (aka honest) is the trick.  I've had my roommates convinced I'm "doing so much better," that now I feel like I'm not allowed to be anything but "happy and fine."  I set an expectation for myself and feel shame for being or feeling anything else.  I feel trapped.  Why do I do this to myself, lol.

But I know better.  I will let myself cry.  I'll let myself feel.  I'll thank Heavenly Father that I can.  And while I'm pretending for others, I can at least be real with Him until I find courage to share my "innerds" outwardly.  

I wish I could believe that sharing what's real inside me is healthy instead of bad.  I'll keep working on it.

This is probably the most open I've been on my blog IN the moment.  Good job, dust.

I know things will be okay soon.  I know my Savior understands this feeling.  All of the above.  I know He won't leave or consider me a failure or less than.  Believing what I know, however, is a struggle, but knowing is what keeps me pressing forward.  

And I am committed to pressing forward.

Try again tomorrow.

Good night! 

(Monday)

Either Satan or Heavenly Father doesn't want this published here.  My computer and our internet freaked out everytime I tried to publish this last night after I wrote it, and only when I tried to publish.  At first I said, "Okay guess I was right... Heavenly Father wants me to keep this inside like usual and figure out a way to be good."  Then I thought about it... and decided it was actually the adversary working against me.  

Today I went to my first institute class.  I raised my hand a couple times and shared a couple thoughts, and even brought up addiction.  I was feeling anxious about it until 10 minutes later another student brought up what I said and related to it.  Cool.

Back to work with me.

Shame, "I've always been this way," and Arms

So a few weeks ago I asked permission from one of my best groupie friends (One Heart Humbled) to share some thoughts I collected from a conversation we had at her house that night.  By the way, connecting with group friends in real life (outside of group) is really nice.  I recommend it.


Discouraged, she said, "I don't know how to get rid of this addiction.  I feel like it's like my arm.  How do I live without my arm, it's the only way I've ever known!  I've had my arm my entire life.  I need my arm to function."  (Ya know that moment when you say a word too many times, and it begins to sound strange?  Isn't "ARM" a weird word???.......arm.........)

So the sad thing is... I can't remember what I had to say about that!  Originally I had something REALLY cool to blog about arms!!!  Sigh.  Oh well.  However, . . . I do remember the sorrow in her voice, and the discouragement on her face.  The love I felt.  I also remember remembering when I had spoken and felt the exact same way.  I don't know if my friend felt this exactly, but I remember a time sitting in my room day after day, refusing to talk to anyone, because I didn't know how to behave or think or feel anything different than a codependent obsessive broken addicted ugly monster, thinking I'll never change, I've always always been this way.  How does one rewire 27 years of dysfunctional thinking and behavior??  I felt too ugly and broken and embarrassed to share how awful I felt inside, so how could I ever reach out?  Attempts to reach brought such horrid feelings of anxiety and "guilt."  (I didn't know about the word "shame" yet)  I was already hurting people, I felt like I would ruin anything or person I touched, and I wanted to die.  My therapist at the time didn't know I had a sexual addiction, and to be honest neither did I.

A few months ago, I'd become aware of my sexual addiction (thanks to Sidreis posting her story), and decided to tell my brand new therapist about my long lived bad habit.  I did NOT expect his response.  "Oh, that changes things.  That changes a lot actually, and makes perfect sense.  It explains a lot."  I wondered, what things?  What is different?  What could this possibly explain?  He announced that his treatment plan was changing, and our next whole session would be spent discussing shame.

"So this whole addiction thing has to do with my anxiety and depression?"

"Yes, it does.  Because it causes you to feel like there is something to hide.  Like you are bad.  Like you are two people.  Like saying, 'I'm one person when nobody is watching, and a totally different person when I'm around people.'  Like you're living a double life."

Our next session was a big eye opener.  He began with a story I'll never forget:

Two brothers, 16 and 18, were left home to tend the house and finish high school while Mom and Dad accepted a call to be Mission Presidents far away.  One day little bro walked in on big bro looking at pornography.  Not only pornography, but gay pornography.  "...Yeah...," he said, "I'm addicted to this.  And I'm gay.  I'm sorry."  A while later, big bro catches little bro looking at pornography.  Also gay pornography.  "Yes," he said, "I actually have this problem too.  And I'm also gay.  I'm sorry.  Don't tell anyone."  The stigma against pornography and same sex attraction is so harsh, and their parents being on a mission, they felt there was nothing they could do.  Eventually big bro said to little bro, "I can't live with this anymore, it's killing me."  Little bro responded, "You're not leaving me here alone."  So they both got in a truck, drove off a cliff, and died.

Heart breaking.  But we get it, don't we.  My therapist wrote on the board:

SHAME = DEATH X 3

He explained, "Shame, if left untreated, is fatal, leading to three types of death.
~Spiritual Death (we call Apostasy)
~Emotional Death (we call Mental Breakdown), and/or
~Physical Death (we call Suicide)"

Wow.  Right?  But, it makes perfect sense.

"Satan has certain tools," he went on, "Satan knows that if he can put a wedge between us and the Savior, the only source of true healing, it's over.  And his best tool/wedge is shame.  All he has to do, is get us to BELIEVE that we're bad.  He gets us to say, I AM a mistake."

He expounded upon the story of Adam and Even in the garden with Satan, of young Joseph Smith in the grove, and more, reminding me that not a single person or even prophet of God that lived could ever cast Satan away on their own, without calling upon Jesus Christ.

Neither can we.

He helped me see I'm not bad nor was I ever.  I was simply hurting and found a way to soothe.  He taught me that usually women turn to this as a comfort and soothing tactic, and men usually use it as a way to deal with stress and problems.  He wanted me to understand I'm not looking to do something bad.  I'm simply looking to soothe.  Though this type of soothing is addictive and will harm me deeply, which is why God has asked us so strongly to abstain-for our protection.  Soothing found in our Savior is the only way to truly heal.

We talked a while.  He sent a helpful print-out home with me, which I review on occasion.  I want to share it with you!

The Dangerous Tool of Shame
"And the people of the Lord shall not be ashamed" (2 Nephi 6:13) 

SHAME" 

I am bad/flawed"

• Embarrassed
• Fear
• Hide
• Distance
• Lonely/Isolated
• Anxiety/Depression
• Worthlessness
• Self-Medication  (addiction!)
• Hopelessness
• Death X3 (spiritual, emotional, physical) 

GODLY SORROW 

"I made a mistake"

• Regret/Remorse
• Humility
• Courage
• Repentance
• Change
• New Commitments
• Hope
• Personal Value
• Increased Intimacy
• Peace with God 

Jesus says to you and me: 

"I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.  Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."    

(John 14:18, 27)

Now that the shame tool has been exposed to me, I know to fight it!  And I'm still fighting, which is a post for another time.

So if anyone has thoughts on the "arm" inquisition for Humbled Heart and me, please comment!

.......Arm.......