Truth = Freedom

I've spoken a lot over the years about the scourge of the codependent relationship lifestyle.  Without appropriately addressing this uncomfortable truth about "us" as people, I believe that it is foundational to explaining "why" we keep seeing upticks in mental health-related disorders with each new generation of "us".  It also helps explain how people get involved with other people that end up alternately controlling and abusing them to the point of utter insanity.

In case you forgot, codependency is people addiction.  Not to "all" people mind you, but to those you select---or who select you---to be or become "addicted" to.  If you can't remember anything else about codependency, try to remember this truth.  When our relationship life gets reduced down to who is addicted to us, versus who we are addicted to ourselves....does it surprise you that such a relationship lifestyle choice could lead to some very serious and disturbing interpersonal dynamics that make no sense to the rational mind?  It does not surprise me.  Just saying....

Just the other day I heard about a young mom whose baby daddy sent some very explicit photos of her to everyone on her contact list.  Why she agreed to pose for such photos is beyond me, but she claimed to her people that "he" made her do it against her will.  He also has been allowed back into her life in spite of being intermittently physically violent with her in the presence of their minor child.  Oh by the way, he is currently on probation and has spent time in jail because of his domestic violence history with her.  He claims she is a part-time prostitute to support her opioid habit.  She says he "made" her get into that life to support his own heroin habit.  Wherever the truth lies, this is NOT an interdependent relationship match made in Heaven.  Instead, it is a toxic and malignant codependent relationship from the depths of Hell.  Last time anyone checked, her people were working to get the child out and re-homed with a member of her extended family.

I can remember a classmate from my middle school years who met and married a guy from another high school on the right side of our city's railroad tracks.  However, over the years, the "updates" on their lives together were not promising.  Word on the street was he got her addicted first to cocaine, then opioids, and then had her prostituting herself to support her drug habit.  He also was a violent offender towards her and their two kids.  She ended up in a nursing home and died before she was 50 years old.  Their codependent hot mess of a relationship kept her under his control....and taught her she was utterly powerless to properly care for herself and by herself.  Just like any toxic codependent dynamic, someone is always in charge.  In this case, her giving up her personal power and letting her husband rule her life is what ultimately ruined it to the point of death.

Why does reading this shock you?  It shouldn't.  This goes on all the time, we just don't want to notice when it involves people we claim to love and care about.

Codependency is the way our world interacts with each other most naturally.  We function to either "impress" someone else...or to be impressed by someone else.  Rarely do we treat each other as true equals.  It takes only seven seconds to form an initial first impression of someone when we see him/her/them for the first time.  When we are on the receiving end of instant dismissal, rejection, and/or invalidation of our very existence, guess what?  It stings!  That deep sense of "I am not o.k.!" comes from repeated encounters with others who respond to us as if we are a bother, a problem, an annoyance, of no perceived "use" to them,  and/or a nuisance.  Am I lying?  No, I am not lying.  Your task now is to figure out whether you, yourself, have now become one of those people who do NOT treat your fellow human beings as "equal" as you move through your own life's journey.  And don't rely on the excuses of being introverted or shy or socially awkward or too busy as a reason to justify human inequality which YOU have instigated by your own action---or inaction.

Love is not codependency.  Love is not transactional.  The codependent relationship lifestyle is extremely transactional.  Love = equality, mutual respect, HONEST and APPROPRIATE exchanges of information and care between any two people or groups, mutual understanding, ongoing negotiation and compromise, compassion, empathy, and the ability to demonstrate mercy and forgiveness to others whether our perpetrators have asked for that mercy and forgiveness---or not.  Love is patient.  Love is kind.  And actively loving someone does NOT have "strings" attached to our giving.  Codependency always has "strings" attached to our giving to one or more others....

When we are codependent, we struggle with the same chronic and repeated feelings of HURT, ANGER, GUILT, SHAME, LONELINESS, and CONFUSION.  Secondarily, we may find ourselves drifting in and out of feelings to do with deep despair, sadness, and powerlessness.  This is not surprising.  After all, all the work we are doing in our relationship life is primarily to achieve the following self-gratifying purposes, depending on what "mindset" we are operating from:  (1) to get acceptance, (2) to get approval, (3) to feel the "like" or the "love" from the other person/group, (4) to feel "powerful", (5) to feel "pleasure", and/or (6) to avoid our own personal responsibility(s) at the expense of one or more others.  When we are in "giver" mode, we are most motivated by our need for acceptance, approval, and like/love.  When we are in "taker" mode, we are most motivated by our need for power, pleasure, and to avoid personal responsibility.  Period.  End of.

These are the "strings" that we attach to our giving and/or to our taking/receiving from those people in our life that we "pick" for these purposes!  

Next post, how to start breaking the chains which bind you to your own codependent relationship life...

Trauma Bonding 101 (Part II in a series)

The other day, I heard about a horrifying incident involving a small child being mauled by a family member's dog.  He didn't understand that not all dogs roll over or run away when antagonized.  Hearing about it reminded me of the time when a grandfather told me about his grandson's incessant curiosity about "everything" when in grandpa's presence.  This grandfather told me, "So I says to him..go ahead and put it in your mouth...taste it!" as his three year old grandson popped an extremely hot chili pepper into his mouth.  Then grandpa started laughing like a hyena, "...that was the last time he ever ate a hot pepper for the rest of his life! Woo Hoo Hee Haw!"  

Back when I was in my 20s, I got to know the owners of a local business.  One night we were sitting in back of their store drinking some wine.  The couple who owned the business was there, along with their two teenage kids.  The conversation drifted to the time when the one kid was having difficulty with being potty trained.  "So you know what I did Mary?...", the "dad" asked me.  His daughter started to get red in the face and looked like she was becoming visibly upset.  Me being me, I said..."Well, whatever it was, she's still upset about it now!"  He then told me that he had her climb the roof of their garage and ordered her to jump off.  Say what?!  Yes, that's what he did.  His daughter, still upset, told me how scared she was and how she thought she was going to die, etc.  Of course she did!  When she stopped talking, her dad looked at me and said, "Well, guess what?  She never pi**ed her pants again after that so it worked!"  

Indeed.

Trauma and trauma bonding begins in one's own family of origin.  Period.  Deflect, deny, and distract as you might...every family has its own form of "hot mess parenting" and "hot mess lifestyle" that occurs.  Every one of us has a handful of the "Worst Five" stories from our childhood past.  "The time my baby brother was too close to the fireworks and got his eye shot out.."  "when I got locked in the bedroom and then I heard everyone leave the house---for hours!"  "..when my older brother's friend raped me in my own basement.."  "...when my father went to prison.."  "when my little sister ate the weed on the counter by accident and nearly died.."  "When the dog got out and got killed by a car right in front of our house.."

Wow.

We are a very under-responsible bunch of bananas when we choose to be.  Why does this surprise you?  I can recall dropping in at a beloved grandma's house as she was babysitting her six very young grandchildren.  There was no way she could "attend" to each one of them with any degree of competency, so she didn't.  They were herded, not unlike a bunch of cats, in the same room with a child's gate set up to block their entry into the kitchen area.  As would be expected when the adult in charge isn't paying attention, the kids began getting physically rough with each other.  She was fine to ignore it and "let them play it out.."  Play it out?  

How is biting, kicking, hitting, and slapping each other "playing it out"?  Yet...in this particular family system...physical violence was and remained an acceptable means of communication for the bullies  within the family.  As these kids grew up without proper boundaries being taught or practiced, they functioned more like feral animals without learning genuine compassion, empathy, or respect for self and others.  For the children here who were victimized repeatedly by their brother and/or sister and/or cousin, they grew up to believe that active abuse is normal and, as a result, selected friends and boyfriends they could trauma bond with quite comfortably as they grew older.  

At last check, the most vulnerable child out of that bunch has been in and out of rehab countless times, is HIV positive, is living now with his pregnant girlfriend, and has been tatting himself up like a billboard over recent months.  Not to go off on a bunny trail, but have you ever sat and asked about the tats on someone who does present like a human billboard?  It's an extremely fascinating means to observe a person's life story through their chosen words and pictures, that's for sure.  Everytime I see him, I am reminded of that sweet and peace-loving child who couldn't help but "morph" into what he is today given his inconsistent, erratic, and chaotic childhood upbringing...

A history with trauma bonding creates lifestyle choices as we grow out of childhood that we don't even notice.  "Oh, you mean you think that because my parents were both alcoholics, that this is why my boyfriend and I don't notice how much we are drinking like we should?"  YES THAT'S RIGHT.  (Duh!)

"Oh, you mean that maybe the reason why I let my bully son control our family is because my mother let my bully brother control ours when I was growing up?"  YES THAT'S RIGHT.  (Double Duh!)

Clearly, a history of neglect, invalidation, rejection, active abuse, trauma, and other catastrophic life events does have an impact on how we think, how we feel, how we behave...and how we choose!  

Choose wisely.  Don't be dumb.  Easy to be dumb.  The current state of our country is evidence enough of that.

Therapy is available to us all for a reason.  Make the call.  Join the group.  Do your work.  You won't get better from the impact of your history with trauma and your own trauma-bonded life just because you are thinking about it.  

Until next post...

Trauma Bonding 101 (Part I in a series)

Trauma and trauma bonding happens to everybody.  Nobody escapes it.  Trauma is one of those unfortunate facts of human existence given our own personal experiences with rejection, invalidation, neglect, covert and overt abuse, and other various and assorted forms of catastrophic life events.  As a result of our history with all things traumatizing, we learn many things we would rather not.  Life isn't fair.  People can't be trusted.  No one is truly safe.  Life's a struggle...and then we die.  Yep, stuff like that.  Not that we always share these core beliefs of ours comfortably and often with others;  however, they are deeply held and rarely challenged by us when---we truly believe them!

Trauma bonding happens when we find other people who we feel "connected" to without fully understanding why.  Instead of effectively communicating in order to understand one another from the inside out, trauma bonding teaches us that love-bombing (yes, it's a term!) is how we typically and initially bond traumatically to one another.  "Oh really?!  Me too!"  "I feel the exact same way!"  "You're my soulmate and we just met!"  This love-bombing is a strategy more than it is having found "my person!" completely by happy accident.  After love-bombing, for however long that lasts, the next phases involve devaluing...and then finally discarding.  In other words, the pattern of Idealize-Devalue-Discard is the trauma-bonding method that creates and then destroys any trauma-bonded enough relationship between any two people or group.

Our experiences with trauma and trauma bonding teaches us how expressing "love" to others is rarely about practicing equality, mutual respect, honesty, mercy, forgiveness, and loving sacrifice.  Instead, how we choose to "love" others has more to do with our own conscious or subconscious attempts at avoiding pain and getting what we want from him/her/them as often as we choose.  How come?  Well, because of our history with trauma and trauma bonding, that's how come.  

Ultimately, we lose our empathy and compassion treating each other in this way....and we don't even notice.  By the time we select our own "people" to bond with, the chains which link us together are more trauma-based in nature than they are love-based.  This is how trauma and trauma-bonding germinates over time.  We grow up believing we have to manage our own deep wounds and damage alone.  Nobody is there for us in the ways we need him/her/them to be.  As time continues to pass us by, we find ourselves feeling more "connected" and more "understood" by others who have also been dragged through the muck by their own family members, past love interests, former best friends, classmates at school, etc.  Rather than challenging ourselves by becoming involved in friendships or romantic relationships that are LESS chaotic, abusive, crisis-driven, and/or unpredictable....we go the other way.  We are used to it.  We accept it.  We trauma bond as our preferred means of developing "into-me-you-see" emotional, spiritual, and/or physical intimacy with other people.  And when we do this, another whole new level of the "Trauma 2.0 Experience" repeats itself for its newest generations of humanity.

I have met a whole lot of people over the past 20 years I have been a practicing LLP psychologist.  Just when I think people couldn't be any more clueless about their own familial history with trauma, trauma bonding, and current dysfunctional patterns of behavior---I meet yet another client, couple, or family who breaks new ground with their astounding levels of denial mixed in with their pride/ego and envy.  

Of course, being in denial as a coping tool is easy.  This is because it is easy to gloss over the impact that our trauma histories, trauma-bonded lives, and codependent lifestyle choices have had on us---and on our family system.  It is much easier to say "I don't remember.." or believe "It wasn't that bad..." when we are being asked to face that which we would rather not face.  Without facing what happened to you and how it affected you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and/or physically---you'll just keep doing whatever it is you are doing without any real insight(s) attached.  

If you haven't yet watched the youtube series "Soft White Underbelly", maybe this would be the right time for you to check it out.  Here, individuals are interviewed about their lives which reflect the soft white underbelly of our western culture.  These interviews spotlight the most vulnerable and exploited aspects of our human nature and the associated suffering that nobody wants to look at close up and personal.  These folks have survived what many others do not.  Interviewed by youtube series founder Mark Laita, the interviewees include prostitutes, active drug addicts, fetishists, current and ex gang members, survivors of childhood sexual abuse and incest, survivors of sex trafficking...you name it, their lives and their voices are featured here.  It's a powerful means with which to break stereotypes regarding what "those" kind of people are like.  They are not unlike you and me.  Why?  Because, just like you and me, we all have a history of trauma, trauma bonding, and certain "toxic" codependent personal relationships in common.

Trauma and trauma bonding.  There is no escaping it.  Unless of course, we come to learn from our mistakes so we don't keep repeating them.

Until next post....