Checklist of precariousness, part five: Avoidance

I have gathered some momentum doing what has essentially ended up being a step 1 CoDA inventory, so I figure I'll just go through the last set of patterns.

The list:

Avoidance patterns:

Codependents often—

act in ways that invite others to reject, shame, or express anger toward them

judge harshly what others think, say, or do

avoid emotional, physical, or sexual intimacy as a way to maintain distance

allow addictions to people, places, and things to distract them from achieving intimacy in relationships

use indirect or evasive communication to avoid conflict or confrontation

diminish their capacity to have healthy relationships by declining to use the tools of recovery

suppress their feelings or needs to avoid feeling vulnerable

pull people toward them, but when others get close, push them away

refuse to give up their self-will to avoid surrendering to a power greater than themselves

believe displays of emotion are a sign of weakness

withhold expressions of appreciation

***
The recovery patterns:

I act in ways that encourage healthy and loving responses from others

I keep an open mind and accept others as they are

I engage in emotional, physical, or sexual intimacy when it is healthy and appropriate for me

I practice my recovery to develop healthy and fulfilling relationships

I use direct and straightforward communication to resolve conflicts and deal appropriately with confrontations

When I use tools of recovery, I am able to develop and maintain healthy relationships of my choosing

I embrace my own vulnerability by trusting and honoring my feelings and needs

I welcome close relationships while maintaining healthy boundaries

I believe in and trust a power greater than myself. I willingly surrender my self-will to my Higher Power

I honor my authentic emotions and share them when appropriate

I freely engage in expressions of appreciation toward others. 

***
Similar to the prior four categories (Denial, Low Self Esteem, Compliance and Control) these avoidance patterns are all over my life history in a lot of ways. I definitely avoid conflict. In particular, staying in the terrain of conflict for very long is difficult for me. I want most conflicts resolved as quickly as possible. I've gotten better at sustaining the discomfort of being in a conflict situation for a while, without trying to short circuit it, rage quit it or make huge concessions just to put an end to it. 

I have definitely intentionally acted in ways that would get people to react to me in negative ways. I wanted the outside mirror of how badly I felt about myself. I wanted confirmation, and I wanted to be right about how awful a person I am. I also a few times figured it would be a lot easier being hated than having to process any of the end of a relationship. Just pull some egregiously awful stunt and bear the outrage and contempt for a while and then be gone. So much easier than working through anything. 

Avoiding vulnerability is a big one. I think this has to do with shame and the fear of shame, since there have been few contexts where any sign of vulnerability on my part has been welcome. I have tended to become involved with people who are fairly steely and not comfortable with vulnerability, at least in my perception. My own functionality around my emotional life has more to do with "managing it" and "being fine" than it does with showing up respectfully for my feeling life and honoring it. I have known a great many people for whom "being strong" or even "tough" and "getting over it, dealing with it" were cherished values and points of pride. The same has been true of me, although less so since I got sober. I really wore contempt for my emotional life on my sleeve when I was drinking. 

It's ugly to look at pulling people in and then pushing them away, although it looks to me more like pulling them in and then disappearing. I have the repeated pattern of showing up in full force in the beginning of partnerships and then slowly or suddenly becoming emotionally unavailable, uncommunicative and distant. I think there's been something sadistic about that in the past, and it's a source of deep remorse for me. I don't tend to do this as much these days. 

I do believe displays of emotion are a sign of weakness. I often apologize for being emotional. I am working on changing that. I, like many of us, grew up in an environment where emotions were a problem to be solved, an inconvenience, an embarrassment and a trigger for anxiety around loss of control. One of the greatest gifts of sobriety is that there is no way around my emotional life, since I am sober. This has forced me to gain more acceptance and compassion or even welcome for my feelings. 

I don't withhold expressions of appreciation, but I can become resentful and shut down if I feel my enthusiastic appreciation is taken for granted. 

The process of writing through these lists has been painful. It's a step one experience for sure, to confront the powerlessness and unmanageability of my codependent relationship patterns. I feel a lot of bundled up grief, looking back at the ways in which these threads wove their way through many otherwise very fine relationships. I have been well loved by many people and it is a plain fact that the patterns outlined in the past five lists have poisoned the well repeatedly. I realize of course that this dynamic takes two and I am not beating myself up. I am simply acknowledging that I have played out unrecovered codependency in my relationships repeatedly, and the consequences are visible in a long list of formerly tender, loving, friendly, mutually supportive relationships strewn like wreckage across my past. The plain fact is that I have been the only person who was present for all of those. 

This grief feels old and stale. It reaches back to childhood stuff, dissolution of same sex friendships, conflicts with employers, fraught and painful romantic relationships and the entire panorama of my interpersonal involvements. While the recent love affair was glorious and exquisitely, poignantly beautiful, and was an unexpected gift for which I am thoroughly grateful, the fact is that this trip through Hades has continued unabated. Things there have taken a heartbreaking turn and I feel generally inconsolable most of the time lately. But I'm striving to just stick with my feelings and not exit that situation in destructive or unskillful ways. I'm feeling like I'm walking around with a bunch of rusty daggers in my gut, but I'm trying to stay present through it. 

Pluto won't deal in "solutions" that are rooted in distraction, denial, stratagem or "getting it right this time." The old man requires plumbing the depths and touching old, dark, shadow grief.  

image copyright noell oszvald