Codependency Avoidance Patterns
The root cause of codependency
Christopher's terrible story of abuse and neglect had a lasting impact on him. His way of coping with it was to shut down.
As a result, it had now become a problem in his marriage and his wife was about to leave him. She didn't believe that he loved her because he couldn't show it.
Do you know his reply when I asked him when he had cried last?
"The day I was ten and my mother killed herself. I told myself I would be stronger than her. And I am."
Some of us have developed a way of coping with painful feelings by not feeling anything. It has become unsafe to feel anything at all. We eventually become numb and incapable of feeling joy or sadness. We can only feel extreme feelings like rage and euphoria.
Codependence avoidance patterns
If you recognise the following behaviours you could be showing the codependent avoidance patterns. The behaviour patterns come from CodA.org and they have kindly given me permission to use them.
I act in ways that invite others to reject, shame, or express anger toward me.
I judge harshly what others think, say, or do.
I avoid emotional, physical, or sexual intimacy as a way to maintain distance.
I allow addictions to people, places, and things to distract me from achieving intimacy in relationships.
I use indirect or evasive communication to avoid conflict or confrontation.
I diminish my capacity to have healthy relationships by declining to use the tools of recovery.
I suppress my feelings or needs to avoid feeling vulnerable.
I pull people toward me, but when others get close, push them away.
I refuse to give up my self-will to avoid surrendering to a power greater than myself.
I believe displays of emotion are a sign of weakness.
I withhold expressions of appreciation.
Safety first
You may show all of these behaviours or some of them. You have developed a way of being that keeps you safe. Before you start changing anything you need to make sure you are safe. Mentally, physically and emotionally. There is much help out there for you if you don't feel safe. Here in New Zealand, we have Aviva and you will have local resources too. Get support now. You don't have to put up with anything - you have rights.
Feel all the feels
Ok, I'm going to assume that you are safe and ready to start feeling.
The first thing we need to do is acknowledge and claim all of our feelings. Not only the ‘positive’ ones. We need the ‘negative’ feelings also. Anger, grief, fear—these emotional experiences are not negative in themselves. They are part of us, and we need them as much as the positive feelings.
Anger shows us injustices in our lives. When someone swipes your lunch from the fridge at work and you go postal, “Hey that’s not ok, it was my lunch!”, you’ve defined an injustice; congratulations!
We need grief to deal with our losses, otherwise, we would be a big sad ol’ bundle of loss and pain that never goes away. We’ve all met people like that, and they’re uncomfortable to be around. Pain is going to come out whether you like it or not. Bottling it up to save for later to stroke it like Gollum, does not work. Trust me.
We need fear to protect ourselves from danger. It's a lifesaver.
It's ok for you to feel
Even if you think feelings are not acceptable, it’s vital to express them and then let them go. If you don’t have a safe place to do this, go and be alone somewhere, or write about it in your magical spellbook (journal). You can also download the worksheet to help you recognise them.
Remember we are not judging feelings but we are curious and want to recognise them. Eventually one day, we might even welcome them.
You might think that some of them are inappropriate, but believe me, they are not. They are your feelings and you have a right to them.
You have a right to all your feelings.
It’s so important that you take the time to do this. It takes a long time and a lot of therapy to be able to feel feelings, name them and be ok with them. Not only the easy ones, like happy and angry. But the more subtle ones too like disappointment and jealousy.
For me, the difficult emotions are disappointment and tension. I’ve discovered amazing women who have helped me be at ease with these emotions, like Pema Chodron, Brene Brown, Szifra Birke, and Kathy Mayer. See the reading list at the end of the post if you’d like to discover them too.
Often it seems like emotions come out of nowhere to mess with you, almost like they have lives of their own. But, they don't. They are all valid.
You have to learn how to recognise emotions so that you can understand what set them off, and also how to read them.
Feelings Diary
The easiest way to start recognising feelings is to write them down. You can use your journal or use the worksheet to identify your feelings throughout the day. Do this as often as you need to. One option to make it easier when you are starting out is to concentrate on one feeling and track that one only. Remember that you have had a spell cast upon you; this was not of your doing. You did not choose this, but it is up to you to cast off the spell. You are the only one that can do this. This is your task.
Throughout the day or at the end of the day, write down when you felt a certain feeling. Like anger, or sadness or joy.
Write down what happened just before it too.
Then write down your thoughts about this.
If you need help with this please reach out to someone today.
Avoidance behaviours
Now that we know it's ok to feel feelings, we can start to be curious about the actions we take to avoid feelings. Do we push others away? Or act in such a way that we cause others to treat us badly. We all know the dick of the office - is that you? Or do we withhold appreciation so people become resentful towards us? Then they will avoid us and we don't have to avoid them.
Continue to write in your magic spellbook (journal) about how you are with others. Or use the worksheet. Remember, please, do not judge yourself harshly. You have learned these behaviours through no fault of your own. You needed them to survive, but you don't need them any longer.
Fill in the blanks, I.............. to avoid people and feelings. This no longer works for me so I'm going to ............................... . Then record when you did it and what happened. Also what, if anything, you would do differently next time.
Then all you have to do is make a conscious effort to do the opposite of what you've been doing! I know, it’s easier said than done, but you don’t have to do it all today. You have time to take it at your own pace.
Your relationships will change. Some for the better and some for the worse. However, the important thing is that you keep going. Get support if you need it.
Christopher also has a big fight on his hands to defeat the head of avoidance but with support, he will succeed.
You can too.
Here's the reading list I promised you.
Black, C. (2019). It will never happen to me: growing up with addiction as youngsters, adolescents, and adults. Las Vegas: Central Recovery Press.
Birke, S., & Mayer, K. (1990). Together we heal. New York: Ballantine.
Brown Brené. (2012). The Power of Vulnerability Teachings on Authenticity, Connection, & Courage. Sounds True.
Let us know in the comments how you are going to stop avoiding life.