Many years ago, I was sitting across from a therapist who asked me to describe how a specific event made me feel.  To my astonishment, I was UNABLE to put a descriptor to my own feelings.  Then the look of shock on my therapist’s face made me feel like a disappointment, and somewhat of a freak.  But the bane of being a codependent and longing for approval and acceptance is for another article. 

Codependents, through childhood conditioning, learned to keep a strong pulse on the moods and feelings of those around them, as a means to securing their own safety.  But codependents are loath to acknowledge, much less understand, their own feelings and emotions.  Growing up the child of narcissistic parents or caregivers meant that expressing or having needs and emotions separate from the narcissists, resulted in punishment.

On one occasion I took myself to the doctor because I was having difficulty breathing.  It’s rare that I take myself to the doctor, as codependents suck at all things self-care related.  But the labored breathing had been happening for several weeks with no signs of letting up.  After a battery of tests, it was determined that I was the paragon of physical health, and that my struggle to breathe was caused by… ANXIETY.

I was prescribed some anti-anxiety meds and some more for sleeping.  They worked, but I was so drugged up as to not be allowed to drive or operate heavy equipment or to type a coherent sentence on social media.

The obvious long term solution was for me to face my own anxiety.  But first, I needed to understand what anxiety is.   This is the definition of anxiety according to Webster:

Anxiety:  A feeling of worry, nervousness or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. 

I have on several occasions, asked a person who professes to be suffering from anxiety, to put into words, what it feels like to have anxiety.  And I am apparently not alone in this quagmire.  Anxiety is difficult to describe from an emotional perspective.

I think Lao Tzu describes it the most succinctly with the fewest number of words:

If you are depressed, you are living in the past.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future.

If you are at peace, you are living in the present.

 

In other words, depression is an inability to move on from past failures and traumas.  Anxiety is a fear of having more failures and traumas in the future.  And while it is quite possible and common to be suffering from depression AND anxiety simultaneously, it is not possible to suffer from depression or anxiety while living in peace in the present.

I know this is easier said than done, but try this:

1. Acknowledge those people you feel you have grieved and offer them a sincere apology.  Whether they accept your apology or not is up to them.
2. Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know.  Life is a growing experience.  Everyone makes mistakes.
3. Recite the Serenity Prayer daily:  God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

 

Pamela MacDonald is a writer, author and co-host of Crazybusters. 

 

As a person with codependent tendencies, it is difficult to accept that the reason we find ourselves in dysfunctional relationships with personality disordered partners, is because of what we have in common, rather than our differences.  People who have been groomed since childhood into accepting unacceptable behaviors, and being caretakers for those who should have been giving care, adopt a number of unhealthy coping mechanisms, many morphing into personality disordered adults, themselves, of either Cluster C (Codependent/Anxious) or Cluster B (Narcissistic/Dramatic).

With the notable exception of those children who had a stable influence (outside family member, teacher, clergy, therapist) who provided a sane role model, most will fall into one of the above categories as adults, if the dysfunctional behaviors are not addressed intensively through therapy and/or various forms of education and self-care.

While it is true that being self-centered (narcissistic) or having a fear of abandonment (borderline), or being a natural caretaker (codependent), do not qualify as being personality disordered, having these traits predisposes the person to developing a disorder as an adult.  Think of a predisposition to a personality disorder as a cancer cell.  Enter an adverse combination of genetic and environmental agents, and the dormant cells become malignant.

Combine these factors with the likelihood that we, as adults, are subconsciously drawn to relationships with people who bear traits that our parents possessed, because there is comfort and familiarity in being the person you were groomed into being, the proverbial “cancer cells” are fermented and both parties devolve into worse forms of dysfunction.

Now that we know the “how” of the Cluster B/Cluster C relationship dynamic, I am going to focus on the “why”.  Specifically, why the codependent person stays in an abusive relationship with a narcissist or borderline.

Unlike the narcissist, who has a complete void of empathy and can’t comprehend what it means to put him or herself in another person’s shoes, the codependent has a granular understanding of the other person’s shoes, to the detriment of not knowing or caring that their own feet are bare.  This hyper-focus on catering to others and neglecting their own needs is the most obvious form of projection by the codependent, where they assign their own physical and emotional needs to another person.  But there is another form that is much more insidious.

I mentioned above that both codependents and narcissists have in a common an abusive, neglectful and dysfunctional childhood.  Because of the codependent’s strongly developed sense of empathy and a willful neglect of empathy for themselves, the codependent person understands and feels a strong need to nurture the narcissist’s wounded inner child, to the neglect of the codependent’s wounded inner child.  Because the codependent feels that their inner child is beyond redemption.

Ironically, the narcissist also believes that their inner child is beyond redemption, and has created a “False Self” (ego).  So in the codependent’s attempts to heal their own wounds by healing someone else’s wounds, the codependent ends up bolstering the narcissist’s ego.  And neither party heals.

 

Pamela MacDonald is a writer, author and co-host of Crazybusters. 

 

Those of us who possess the ability to empathize, find it difficult to comprehend NOT being able to put ourselves into other people’s shoes.  Much the same way that those of us who can see colors, cannot imagine being colorblind.

Transversely, all persons who fall into the Cluster B Personality Disorders, are incapable of empathy.  They do not, AND CANNOT, care or comprehend how their actions affect their victims.  They only care if and when their actions result in a consequence for themselves.  For instance, after a victim finally has enough of the abuse and calls law enforcement or just leaves.  Suddenly the disordered person feels very sorry for their actions.  But make no mistake, they are not sorry for how they hurt you.  They were enjoying your pain when it was happening.  They are sorry that they tortured the mouse until it died.

A colorblind person is never going to “see” the color green, regardless of how well or fervently you describe it.  Likewise, a disordered person is not going to become honest, considerate or develop integrity, regardless of how much you plead with them.  The window for the development of these traits has closed.

This is why it is labeled a “Personality Disorder”.  It is ingrained into their personality.  It is who they are.

The disordered person does, however, possess the ability to project their emotions onto others.  For example, if a narcissist or other Cluster B personality disordered individual feels inadequate in some regard (i.e. not good at remembering names), as the narcissist’s ego has no space for criticism of any kind, the narcissist will deflect his or her feelings of shame associated with this deficit, onto the person whom they feel is superior in this respect.  They will accuse the target of not being able to remember names, even if this means Gaslighting the target to achieve this deflection.

So in essence, Projection is NOT a process of the narcissist putting themselves in someone else’s shoes, but transversely, forcing another person to wear his shoes.  And then mocking the target for wearing ugly shoes.

 

 

Pam MacDonald is a freelance writer, author and co-founder of Crazybusters

 

Today I was walking my dogs through my beautiful neighborhood.  The sun was shining, birds were chirping.  Deer were rustling and I could see their white tails prancing as they leapt away. The winter temperature was a perfect 50 degrees.  And yet as I stopped to gaze and smell and take in all that was good around me, I felt a rumbling in the pit of my stomach.  A very familiar rumbling followed by a sinking sensation.  It is the eschewing in of the invisible, chain rattling angry ghost of my own invention, Anxiety.

I was recently reading the book, “Dispelling Wetiko,” written by Paul Levy, and in it he explains that in order to conquer an enemy (in the case of Wetiko, being the name given by native Americans to a viral-like infection of the soul, otherwise known as narcissism), even one such as anxiety, must be drug out into the light and identified, named.  It cannot be allowed to hide and grow in the shadows, unimpeded.  When ignored, it goes unchallenged.

Anxiety is one of those invisible ailments, much like narcissism, that can be hidden, not just from outsiders but also from the sufferer.  Those of us who have had anxious attachments since childhood, for instance, go through our lives in varying degrees of fight-or-flight mode, perpetually eluded from peace.  Anxiety feels normal.

While my intellect attempts to rationalize with my emotions, I feel this is a battle I might never win.  I have a hard time being happy.  And this is not to say I am the opposite of happy – depressed.  Depression has never really been something I have struggled with.  But anxiety is something else.  Anxiety is fear based, but depression goes a little deeper and seems more based on self-loathing.  I do not loathe myself but I do go through life in a constant state of expecting bad things to happen and worrying that I might not have the resources to handle it.

As my intellect is constantly pointing out to me, I have handled quite a bit of crisis and chaos in my lifetime, and managed to overcome and survive it all without developing disordered coping skills that harm others.  In fact, I am blessed (and cursed) with an abundance of empathy.  I feel deeply shamed if my actions harm others.  I’m grateful that, despite being surrounded by mean and selfish people, I didn’t become one of “them”.

Having self-identified with anxiety, named it and claimed it, how does a person divorce from it?  How does someone who has grown comfortable with chaos, learn to feel comfortable with peace? Perhaps instead of defeating anxiety, I can come to a stalemate.

Perhaps there is a balance between anxiety and peace that can be obtained – a solution that wouldn’t require me to give up my well-girded fight-flight defense mechanisms, but one that would allow me to accept peace without restraints.

One of my favorite philosophers, Lao Tzu, has this to say on the topic:

 

“If you are depressed, you are living in the Past.

If you are anxious, you are living in the Future.

If you are at peace, you are living in the Present.”

 

Maybe the Present isn’t such a bad place after all.

 

Pam McCoy is an author, writer and co-host of Crazybusters.