A Checklist of Precariousness, Part One: Denial

At the weekly CoDA meeting last night, I was reminded of the fairly exhaustive list, "Patterns and Characteristics of Codependence." It's a powerful aspect of CoDA that they never officially diagnose what codependency is. They just put out a list of the usual features and publish a bunch of personal stories and let a person decide for themselves. If you are the type of person who wants certainty, you won't get it from CoDA until you hang around for a while and get real. 

Mammillaria blossfeldiana in habitat, San Andres Canyon, Baja California. Cuteness on the rocks. A pretty picture before we head into some tough stuff. 

Anyway, the Patterns and Characteristics list is broken down into five major categories:

1. Denial patterns
2. Low self-esteem patterns
3. Compliance patterns
4. Control patterns
5. Avoidance patterns

I feel like I hit all five of the major categories some days before I finish my coffee. 

Anyway, the specifics under each heading are rather detailed, and you can take a look here. 

Fortunately, CoDA also publishes a handy little compare and contrast list that includes many of the patterns and characteristics but then lists recovery patterns next to those items. This is also worth looking over, if you're interested. 

And if it all is just too painful and dreary, there's also the 12 promises of CoDA, which seem pretty fucking far-fetched to me most days but hey what the hell. 

Codependency is a weird one for me. I never had shame around being an alcoholic, after I got sober. I carried my Big Book with me everywhere and didn't care who knew. But, the other night, I was at my favorite Indian restaurant with my Codependents Anonymous book and noticed I was turning it over so that people couldn't see the title. I resist identifying myself as codependent. It's taken  me more than a year of going to meetings to begin to get comfortable with it. I still don't fully understand why there is so much more shame around it than there is around alcoholism, for me. I have some ideas related to masculinity and "toughness," but I think there's more in there. No doubt it will emerge as I do the steps.

HAHA, what? this??? no, just reading this for a friend. you know, to be helpful, to my pal. who is fucking codependent as hell! hahahahaha.

Anyway, here's the details under the "denial" category:

Codependents often:
-have difficulty identifying what they feel
-minimize, alter or deny how they truly feel
-perceive themselves as completely unselfish and dedicated to the well-being of others
-lack empathy for the feelings and needs of others
-label others with their negative traits
-think they can take care of themselves without any help from others
-mask pain in various ways such as anger, humor or isolation
-express negativity or aggression in indirect and passive ways
-do not recognize the unavailability of those people to whom they are attracted

I've been practicing some new behaviors to trick myself into breaking through denial. They are very simple and derived from imagining the opposite of each item in the above list.

-I know what I am feeling or if I don't, I take the time to discover it
-I take my feelings seriously and speak them fearlessly
-I don't do anything for others that is primarily motivated by feeding my ego, getting validation or polishing my look good
-I practice having empathy for the experience of a person I am feeling resentful or demanding toward
-I own my own shortcomings
-I ask for help without shame or self-hatred
-I keep it simple and get next to simply having hurt feelings
-I examine my motives and behavior carefully for passive aggressive hostility, talk with other people about it and stop behaving that way
-I am honest with myself about the behavior of available people and what that looks like

Since I am incapable of magically changing my inner landscape and age-old defense mechanisms and learned survival strategies, I have been taking a behavioral approach. It often works for me to change the behavior, no matter how awful I feel. New behavior causes new results. Then my inner turmoil can latch on to that shift, rather than having to be recast before I behave differently. 

I have some questions written out that are on my desk:

What would it be like to not be in denial?
Will you respect yourself enough to take your feelings seriously?
Do you trust yourself?
Are you overly available for anyone who is not available?
Are you expressing anger sideways?
If your feelings are hurt, can you be honest about it? 

These help me take spot check inventories throughout the day. 

One thing is certain: peeling away the layers of denial is painful. In particular, in this phase, I have been noticing my tendency to engage in distracting behaviors rather than "taking refuge in the present." Cultivating a gentle, kind, patient and meditative attitude toward myself helps. Having a non-caustic, light sense of humor and acceptance also helps. 

The ferocious anger bordering on rage that is rising up as I refuse myself the oblivion of denial has been something, though. God fucking damn it, is the basic prayer. It's not necessarily a bad prayer. 

But it is what it is. And it's like removing armor, except I've worn the armor so long that it fused with my skin, so each layer of armor that comes off takes strips of tender skin with it.  

After a Death

Tomas Tranströmer, 1931 - 2015

Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales.