Codependency as My Mother Puts It

Please consider, if you read my blog, reading this post, Enacted Codependency, by my mother. It was started (or written) some years ago, so the events alluded to are in the past.

Both my mother and I are working on our codependency issues. For whatever reason, we're very similar, and no- 'like mother, like daughter' is not logical here; my sister is not the same, and I may have had less proximity to my mother than my sister did. I, being like I am, tried to learn from my mother's example, both in emulating, and not emulating, certain things. I felt bound to her fate, in a sense, and wanted to avoid that, though I felt it was inevitable (found out over the years that it's not, and I'm plenty different, too).

The codependency for many years seemed normal to me; thinking and behaving like that, so concerned with how I relate to others and worrying about it, was something I thought that everyone must go through. Of course, it was also evident from a distance that they don't. Some things other people do fly right in the face of codependency: what they do excludes the possibility of codependency. So I also tried to learn from them, to discover their secrets.

But it may be that my deepest problem is not codependency, but rather something that makes it far easier to be codependent. I already have the inclination towards enabling people with the mantra of 'love thy neighbour as thyself', and my deeper problems with relating to others make it so much easier to fall into codependency as a way to connect with people. But trust me: it is no connection. There is only alienation and distance in codependency, and it can never, ever even look like true friendship. It's a perfectly clever way for Satan to twist our goodness and godliness, and to create distance between us and others while all the time whispering to us that we are loving others, and will be loved in return. It is a false hope that consumes you; it has just enough truth that you don't realise it's all a sham (that's an interesting topic for another day, if I can ever write it well!) until you're so fully trapped in habits and ways of thinking that you can't see the light anymore.

The Spoiling of Good Things

[Edmund] had eaten his share of the dinner, but he hadn't really enjoyed it because he was thinking all the time about Turkish Delight--and there's nothing that spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food.

 from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Joyful Stillness

And Lucy felt running through her that deep shiver of gladness which you only get if you are being solemn and still.

from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis