Two Follow up Blogs on Grief, As Promised

The Process of Grief

 

As I mentioned in my previous blog, in the realm of counseling, there is a commonly understood process of grief.  Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was a woman who spent much time researching those in hospice care who were in the process of dying, so that she could learn how we as humans approach death.  She identified 5 stages of dying which described those with terminal illness, who know about their impending deaths, and how they integrate that knowledge in their last days.  These stages have also been applied to those who are grieving a loss—with understanding the differences from those experiencing death.  It is worth reviewing these stages to gain some recognition that grief is a process—not one point in time but a process of accepting a change you do not want to embrace. 

Generally speaking, these stages are similar with all kinds of losses.  With sudden loss, however, there may be unique tweaking to these stages.  Sudden loss brings with it the potential for anxiety and trauma at a more powerful level than an expected loss.  Sudden loss enhances the feelings of the loss of perceived control.  I will discuss that in more detail later.

The stage of DENIAL is the first stage.  When you are confronted with something you do not want, your first response is to ‘push-back’.  Think about it.  If you are told something negative about someone you know and trust, your first response is likely to be something like: “Oh no, not him.  He’s a committed Christian and a good person!” That’s a push-back response.  The most common push-back to death is to deny the diagnosis, deny the loss, deny that your world has the potential to completely change at a moment’s notice.  We are creatures who like stability, homeostasis, and predictability.  When someone gets a diagnosis of terminal cancer, for example, those who love that person can insist on a second opinion in order to eliminate any doubt.  Of course, that is a reasonable request, but often this demand for another opinion is a push-back against the unsavory truth.  There can be a lot of ‘drama’ from family around these situations, because no one wants to hear a diagnosis of terminal cancer.  Finding the ‘right’ hospital, the ‘right’ doctor, the ‘right’ treatment, etc.—these can be ways of denying the diagnosis and ultimate fate of the one you are losing.  (I am not suggesting that it is unreasonable to consider alternative treatments; rather I am saying that often the pursuit of the ‘miraculous treatment’ is a push-back response.)

Another aspect to consider about denial is timing.  That is, you can act like you have accepted something, from an intellectual stance, but emotionally be in denial about the immense loss and how it impacts you, until after the death, after the funeral, at the point when life is supposed to get ‘back to normal’.  Often, loved ones manage through a funeral and all the preparations in a ‘zombie’ state, distanced from emotions.  It is often after the ceremony that the emotional denial lets go, and you ‘fall apart’ as the reality of the loss, and all its implications, hits you. 

The next stage is ANGER.  Anger is a powerful emotion, and at times, a very useful one.  When dealing with a situation you don’t want, anger is a terrifically useful push-back.  When you discover you really do not have control over the loss of someone—either through illness or sudden tragedy—the emotion of anger can give you a sense of power.  This powerful feeling helps you stand up against the loss of perceived control.  Very often when a family loses a loved one to cancer or some health issue, the family will try to bring suit against the doctor, the hospital, people who are perceived as responsible for the death.  Many challenge even God in anger.  His love gets called into question for many when faced with a loss.  And He is gracious enough to know that sometimes you will stomp your ‘spiritual foot’ and complain while in this process of grief.  Anger can also be funneled into a useful benefit: MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) was formed by Marie Tursi when her 20 year old son was killed by a drunk driver.  She became ‘outraged’ when she learned the drunk driver who killed her son received a sentence of 4 years of probation and a nominal fine for reckless driving.  The anger she had was the impetus to this successful national program which supports and advocates for families of those killed by drunk drivers.

The next stage is BARTERING.  This stage makes a lot of sense when applied to the one who is dying from terminal cancer, but can also be applied to those loved ones who are losing someone.  Bartering describes a tentative acceptance of death, but also a last hope against hope for a different outcome.  At this stage, people often ask God for a miracle.  As Christians we know that God is capable of miracles.  I am aware of a recent miracle in which someone’s tumor, which was clearly evident from scans, was not there when the doctors opened him up—a miracle indeed!  In the bartering stage, you look for this miracle to avoid embracing the diagnostic truth.  You often hear people promising God things at this point, like a total life-change for God—becoming a missionary, doing something specific and huge for God, etc.  Bartering suggests that the one experiencing loss is beginning to recognize he does not have control, and yet still might have enough control to tip God’s plan in another direction. 

The stage of DEPRESSION is all about giving up any pretense of having control.  This can feel incredibly defeating to both the one dying and those around him.  You can feel very deflated if you give up the push-back and realize you cannot change what is happening.  In your emotional and even spiritual frailty, you can swing to the opposite end when letting go of control, to a place of despair and defeat.  Most of us live with the ‘delusion’ that we have a lot of control over our lives.  Certainly you have volition and the ability to make choices; but the majority of factors in your life are way beyond your control.  You can work to be healthy by eating right, exercising, and taking care of yourself, but you cannot make a cancerous tumor go away no matter how many miles you run.  For many, this confrontation with limitation of control can reach a crisis level.

When you come to the end of yourself and your false sense of control, then you are ready to receive God’s strength in facing whatever you must face.  Now you are in the stage of ACCEPTANCE.  Acceptance comes with feeling ‘okay’ with what you cannot control.  Facing death, or the loss of a loved one, is not easy—grief is normal in these circumstances.  But once you accept what you cannot change, you can engage in ‘real time’ with the love you have with family and friends in the time you have left together.  In a way, it can even feel more intensely sad, yet rich in love.

It is important to know that these stages are predictable, but how they express themselves in your experience is unique to you, your family, and your situation.  Grieving takes time.  Even within your own family, people grieve differently, and it is important to allow differences in how you grieve.  Our culture presents some taboos about grief, which are gender specific—men are not ‘supposed’ to cry, so men feel compelled to suck it up and ‘be strong’.  In other cultures, crying and great displays of angst are the protocol, which in my opinion, allows a healthier response to the loss of a loved one.  What is important is to allow for each other in this difficult process, and give permission for the differences in expression of grief, and at the same time, receive support from each other. 

In my next blog about grief, I will address sudden loss and the trauma around it, and rituals you can develop to help process grief. 

 

Blessings,

Priscilla

 

How to Grieve

We all grieve in unique ways—even among loved ones, there can be differences in expressions of grief.  Our personalities have much to do with that, as do some cultural influences, including ‘family culture’.  This blog is not a detailed 1-2-3 step process of ‘how to grieve’; rather, I would like to suggest ways of marking your grief, as you move forward—even unsteadily.  Grieving well is important to the integration of your loss into your life.

When you start on the road of grief, one of the first reminders of loss you bump up against is facing the first holiday, birthday, or anniversary, without your loved one.  During the first year of your loss, these significant markers—times which you usually shared with your loved one—will confront your feelings in a profound way.  One of our human temptations (to manage feelings) is to minimize the importance of these feelings.  We tend to force ourselves to ‘buck up’ and face forward—as though allowing yourself to feel the sorrow will set you back, show signs of weakness, or whatever the taboo de jour.  Well, no.  If this is your first Thanksgiving holiday without your loved one, then it is not only acceptable but important for you to talk about how much you miss your loved one, and reminisce about previous Thanksgivings with him or her.  Some people fear that doing this will hold them back, make them feel worse, and prolong the grieving process.  The truth is, without doing these things, you are more likely to not only prolong the grieving process, but even short-circuit it, so that every holiday, birthday, anniversary, will confront you with fear for how you will be impacted.  The irony is, the more you ‘give in’ to the grief, the healthier the process.  But you want to ‘give in’ in appropriate and healthy ways.  Marking the special day is one way. 

Another way to process your grief is one of practicality: going through the articles which belonged to your loved one.  This is a highly emotional process, and it is reasonable to do it in small doses, if possible.  Those who lock away a room of a loved one, as a memorial of sorts without changing it, not only ‘freeze’ time, but stunt their grieving process.  Holding up the beloved stuffed toy, or worn sweater, and crying through the memories it elicits, is helpful to your grief process.  It brings intense feelings, but you are only expressing what is already there!  This is good.

Photographs are always a wonderful part of grieving.  We use them at funerals, but we can also use them to help the grief process.  One way you can do this is to make a special photo album—or, if you are technically savvy, make a thumb drive or electronic photo frame of pictures of your loved one.  You will find yourself viewing these regularly during your initial stages of grief.  As time moves forward, your need to process with these photos will diminish little by little.

If it is possible, spend time together as a family processing your loss.  This is important to do with young children, with say, the loss of a parent or significant family member.  You can make a special ‘book’, with photos and written memories of the lost loved one.  I have often suggested a special box—there are so many beautiful storage boxes you can get today—in which you can place drawings, photos, written stories or memories, etc.  Young children can easily access these articles to use as talking points in recalling their loved one.  It is especially important for kids to have opportunity to do this.  Children can shut down their feelings if they intuit it is too painful for grown-ups to do so.  And sadly, then their own grief process becomes stunted.

Some people choose to make a permanent marker to remember someone, like planting a tree or a garden bed of roses, for example.  What you choose to do can be a special way to honor your loved one.  You can also start a tradition on a particular day (his or her birthday) for anyone to participate in—like going to a park, or somewhere particularly memorable for your loved one.

These are some suggestions for creatively walking the path of grief.  I surely have not exhausted all possibilities, but I hope this has stimulated your creative juices, and has given you ‘permission’ to step into your sad feelings and not run from them.  Finally, there are some things I’d like to cover as possible complications for grief.  These include sudden loss, family disagreements, and ‘complicated’ bereavement. 

Sudden loss brings with it a jolt of the fragility of life we typically do not acknowledge in our day to day existence.  When you lose someone precious to a horrible accident or sudden heart attack, you are not only faced with the loss, but with the intrusion of a major change in your life and your expectations.  You then have to face two major shifts you had no plan to face: the loss, and the confrontation of the fact that life can change so quickly in ways you never planned.  For some, the suddenness of loss can bring with it anxious feelings: sleeplessness, fear, and emotionality not previously encountered.  This can feel terribly frightening, and can interfere with the grieving process.  Almost like dealing with a traumatic event, symptoms can become severe, and impede the normal progression of grief.  Sometimes people around you may not comprehend your reactions, and you may feel unsupported.  Counseling may bring some perspective to feelings of trauma and fear, and offers techniques to deal with it.

At times, the loss of a loved one can bring conflict in a family system because people deal with loss in different ways.  If someone is more internal, and tends to cry alone rather than in front of others, or even tends not to cry, this person may have low tolerance for another family member who is more expressive with grief.  The one grieving more openly may want comfort from the other, but not get it because her tears make the other uncomfortable.  The consequences of these differences can bring great struggle, from frustration and anger to hurt with each other.  This is part of the reason why some couples eventually break up after losing a child, whether newborn or older.  Loss can also bring any underlying conflicts within the family, to the surface in an ugly way.  If there were disgruntled feelings between the loved one who died and others in the family, these will resurrect even unwittingly as the family struggles with the loss.  Without bringing these conflicts to an acceptable resolution, your grief can be suspended, or, you may need to ‘protect’ yourself from others’ ‘issues’ while you grieve on your own.

Finally, there are times that the loss you experience is so devastating that the normal sadness you feel can grow into a depression.  If you have depressive tendencies anyway, or have a history of major depression, a loss may cause a severe reaction of withdrawal and disengagement from life, making your experience that of depression rather than actual grief.  This is called complicated bereavement, and needs to be treated in counseling, with possible psychiatric intervention (medication). 

This has been a quick ‘guide’ to grieving, which I hope has been helpful.  I welcome your stories or questions, if you are so inclined! 

 

Blessings,

Priscilla

 

Priscilla Ortlip, MSW, LCSW

Founder & Executive Director

The Christian Counselors Collaborative
www.cccpgh.org

Disclaimer:  I am a professional, licensed clinical therapist in the state of PA, but this blog is not a therapeutic venue—anything I state here is not for treatment or to address anyone’s specific emotional or mental health need.  If you are experiencing immediate distress, call 911.  If you would like to consider counseling with the CCC, please call CCC Intake at 1.855.222.2575.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking Codependent Patterns (The promised follow-up post!)

One of the challenges to breaking your codependent patterns is the fact that your codependence does not only involve you, but the dependent you are codependent with—and sometimes this involves entire families.  When you decide to make changes in your behavior, you need to be prepared that your changes will also cause changes—usually unwelcomed—in others, especially the dependent in your codependent relationship.  Because of this, breaking your patterns of codependence has unique challenges, and requires preparation for what to expect.

A main task in changing your behavior is to learn about boundaries—especially, learning about responsibility and the lines between people in responsibility.  For example, we have talked in previous blogs about a wife’s codependence with an alcoholic husband.  Before trying to get free from her codependence, she walked on eggshells around him, placating and even assisting him in his alcoholic stupor: it was the easiest way to deal with him, but it also kept her in a codependent position. Now, she is determined to cease being codependent in her behavior.  She decides areas of responsibility that belong to her husband, and not to her.  She decides she will no longer: call his boss to make excuses when he is still drunk in the morning; purchase his cases of beer when she goes shopping; pretend to his mother and family that everything is ok; cushion the disappointment his children feel when he never comes through with promises; save a dinner for him in the oven when he comes home drunk in the late hours of the night; try to get him up in the morning for work or for an appointment; etc.  She has been a caretaker for her husband because of his addiction.  If she stops her behavior, he will suffer the consequences of his addiction, and despite how ‘mean’ that may sound, it is a good thing. 

 

A temptation for a codependent in making these changes is to let loose an anger which has been submerged for many years.  The tone with which you stop codependent behavior must be without anger—even though you might have a lot to be angry about!  It would be easy to become belittling and accusatory when the dependent starts to react to your changes.  At first he will be angry—that takes courage to handle.  But eventually, if you maintain lines of responsibility, he will become helpless and try to appeal to your kindness, or try to make you feel guilty.  None of us likes to see someone suffer, and dependents suffer when you draw the boundary lines.  You have to see past the immediate results to the desired end results—the fruition of which lies in the response of the dependent.  That is, he can get worse, quit his job, stop eating meals, drive when he’s drunk, etc., trying to get you to shift back to your old patterns of rescue and resentment.  If you do, you have relieved him once again of any responsibility for his functioning.  If you hold the line, then he may have to hit rock bottom before he realizes HE must do something to change his life. 

 

Another challenge to holding your boundaries is how other people will react too.  In this example, his mother might accuse you of being a terrible wife.  Or your pastor or church friend might accuse you of not being gracious or forgiving toward your husband.  It helps if you have prepared a way of describing your new responses to those who care about you and your family, such as, “I’m trying to help Joe take responsibility for his issues,” or “I’m learning how not to take on other’s responsibilities, even those of the people I love.”  But the most articulate explanation may still confound even your loving friends.  Our human nature is to not rock the boat, but keep things the way they are—even dysfunctional family patterns!  When one person makes a shift, everyone must shift in response—and no one likes to change especially when it is consequently foisted upon them.  But these changes are the natural consequences of your embracing a non-codependent way of life.  It is not mean, ungracious, or unforgiving to make these changes.  And here again is where you want to have the right tone—because if your tone is mean and deriding, then your response is more retributive than lovingly boundary-setting.
 

I think this new way of living is even more challenging to do when it comes to your children.  Parents want to protect their children, no matter how old they are, and will often do anything to prevent their children from suffering.  This can be a complicated picture especially when there are grandchildren involved.  How do you hold the line when your dependent adult child might end up losing her job, losing her home, or even losing her children?  How do you hold the line when she might stop talking to you, not let the grandchildren visit, or threaten to leave town?  No one can make these hard decisions for you.  That they are so difficult might cause you to relent, give in, and lie low with your new expectations.  But it is not without sacrifice.  Because the sacrifice is huge, no matter what you do, it is really only you who can make the decision, and only you who knows when you are ready to stand firm.  Sometimes it takes a few tries.

Letting go of a codependent lifestyle is freeing and powerful:  you learn that it is okay to love with boundaries, to address your own needs, and to even disappoint or upset those you love in the process.  Most codependents do not willingly step into conflict, and if you decide to change, you will face conflict!  I would heartily encourage anyone who sees himself in this situation, and who wants to get free of codependence, to seek counseling for direction and support.  Certainly Al-Anon has great support for those who are codependent with addicted loved ones.  I often refer people to Al-Anon.  But if you want personalized direction, counseling will help you process through all the benefits and challenges to a non-codependent way of life!

 

I hope these blogs have been encouraging to you!

 

Blessings,

Priscilla

 

Priscilla Ortlip MSW, LCSW

Founder and Executive Director
Christian Counselors Collaborative

www.cccpgh.org

 

Disclaimer:  I am a professional, licensed clinical therapist in the state of PA, but this blog is not a therapeutic venue—anything I state here is not for treatment or to address anyone’s specific emotional or mental health need.  If you are experiencing immediate distress, call 911.  If you would like to consider counseling with the CCC, please call CCC intake at 1.855.222.2575.

 

 

 

 

 

Back on Board...

Dear Readers,

Well, if you have read these blogs historically, you will have noticed that I haven't blogged for over two years on this site.  No, I didn't fall off the ends of the earth, but my focus surely changed from what I was doing (this blog, among other responsibilities) to more urgent concerns.

But now I'm back.  This writing won't be an official 'blog' but rather, an announcement that blogs will start coming again.  As I reviewed my latest entries (oh so long ago) I realize on the last two blogs I promised further discussion on the topics of Codependence and Grief, and on both those points, I failed to produce what I promised!  So, the next couple of blogs will be the follow up to both of those topics; the blogs following those will be new (at least to this site) offerings.

So, welcome to the renewal of this blog site.  I'm glad to be back.

Blessings,
Priscilla

Priscilla Ortlip, MSW, LCSW
Founder & Executive Director
Christian Counselors Collaborative
www.cccpgh.org

Disclaimer:  I am a professional, licensed clinical therapist in the state of PA, but this blog is not a therapeutic venue—anything I state here is not for treatment or to address anyone’s specific emotional or mental health need.  If you are experiencing immediate distress, call 911.  If you would like to consider counseling with the CCC, please call CCC Intake at 1.855.222.2575.

Grieving

Grieving a loss is a universal experience.  We all suffer pain at the loss of someone we love.  And no matter how ‘prepared’ you might be (illness, service in war) you are never really ready for the actual experience and ‘finality’ of death.  Why does death affect you the way it does?  Although you cognitively know about death, you react to the emotional ‘cut off’ of the relationship—that reflection and exchange of love is no longer there.  And it feels devastating.

Even animals react to death in surprisingly emotional ways.  There are examples of elephants and gorillas showing incredibly ‘human’ attitudes towards a deceased infant or parent.  In one case I saw on a PBS special, a mother elephant risked losing the herd (because they moved on) by staying 2 days with a dead baby.  In this case, a sibling of the dead baby elephant went back and forth, trying to decide whether to stay with the mother and dead baby, or move forward with the herd.  You could actually see the indecision, the looming sense of loss, and the battle within.  The mother elephant was restless and ‘lost’ in her behavior.  She nudged the dead baby, and behaved in what I would call a ‘distressed’ way. 

If animals are capable of these kinds of behaviors, it should be no surprise that the death of someone you love would have a tremendous effect on you.  Life changes completely.  The closer someone is to you—the more intimately connected you are to him—the deeper the sense of loss you experience.  It is no wonder then, that the death of a parent, a child, or a spouse can feel devastating.

The intimacy in a relationship affects the depth of loss you feel.  When we have emotional intimacy with someone, the exchange of love and life experience gives you a predictable, safe, and positive reflection about yourself—who you are, who and what you love, what you experience in life.  A certain amount of your own significance is found in the person who will no longer be in your life.  Naturally you will miss that person.  But involved in that ‘missing’ is also the reflection of who you are.  This is why people can feel ‘lost’ and disoriented.  You have to learn a whole new way of ‘being’ without this person in your life, understanding who you are without that particular exchange, without your role identity with that person.  This is why this task can feel so overwhelming for a spouse who is widowed: after so many years of being ‘connected’ and sharing life through the lenses of a spouse, learning to see life without the ‘other’ feels totally foreign. 

There is a fairly predictable process of grieving you experience, because you are part of the human condition—being a fallen creature of God.  In this world, when a connection with someone you love is disconnected, you must find a way to live in this world without that connection.  A ‘standard’ in the therapeutic community for understanding the process of loss comes from the studies of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.  This theory of loss was actually intended to describe the steps for someone who is dying, someone diagnosed with a terminal illness, and whose task is to accept what is happening beyond her control.  Therapeutically, these stages have worthy application to the process of grief for one who is losing someone to a terminal illness.  I will save the actual description and process of these stages for another blog; right now, I want to explain that there is a process, and some generalities about that process.

The process of loss involves the task, over time, to integrate the loss into your life.  One theory describes it this way: prior to the loss, your life is Organized; with the loss, your life becomes Chaotic and Disorganized; over time, through the grief process, your life will become Reorganized, returning you to a homeostasis of being.  Note that your world after you process your grief is Reorganized.  That is, it is and will not be, the same as it was prior to the loss, but it will be reconfigured so that your world is ‘stable’ despite its being unhappily different.

So how do you process through grief?  I will speak to this on the next blog.  But let me say this to start: you confront in depth how you relate to God when you go through a deep loss.  As I have shared in a previous blog, I held God at arm’s length in my experience of a sudden loss.  I was so hurt and angry, I couldn’t (or was it ‘wouldn’t’?) even talk to Him.  I withdrew from instead of reaching for Him, which made my sorrow prolonged and isolated.   And when I finally confronted Him in helpless desperation, it became clear that I had made it harder, because He was there all along.  That didn’t change the hurt, but it allowed me to lean on Him and cry my heart out.  I discovered He could be trusted, even though something had happened in my life which broke my heart. Those two things don’t feel right together, but as your love and relationship with Christ grows, you realize no matter what happens, He is the same trustworthy God, and He sustains you through it all as you allow Him.

In the next blog, I will talk a bit more about this process of grief.  May He bring comfort to you if you are suffering a loss.

Blessings,

Priscilla

Priscilla Ortlip MSW, LCSW, ACS

Founder and Executive Director
Christian Counselors Collaborative
www.cccpgh.org

Disclaimer:  I am a professional, licensed clinical therapist in the state of PA, but this blog is not a therapeutic venue—anything I state here is not for treatment or to address anyone’s specific emotional or mental health need.  If you are experiencing immediate distress, call 911.  If you would like to consider counseling with the CCC, please call Tom Laird at 1.855.222.2575.

 

When Does Grace Become Codependence?

Discerning between a gracious attitude and a codependent one can be very challenging.  Codependence can mask itself as grace.  It is gracious to comply, gracious to be giving, gracious to ‘go the extra mile’.  But it can also be codependent to comply, be giving, and ‘go the extra mile.  How do you know the difference, especially as a Christian who wants to be selfless, not selfish?

 

It is desirable, as Christians, to give grace, to offer forgiveness, to give another chance, in situations in relationships.  When a spouse name-calls, when a child disobeys with an attitude of disrespect, when an adult child needs your support—these are reasonable situations in which to offer grace and forgiveness.  But how do you know if and when the grace you offer is really grace and not codependence?

 

A general rule of thumb is this:  if your gracious behavior is a pattern of behavior which inhibits the other person’s ownership of responsibility which really belongs to him, then you are acting in a codependent way.  Whatever your conscious motivations might be (“He’s had a hard day, I want to support him”, “She doesn’t really mean disrespect, she’s just frustrated,” etc.), if your behavior prevents the other person from owning his behavior and taking responsibility for it, then you are being codependent. 

 

So for example, if your spouse calls you an unsavory name once in a blue moon, grace is in order.  If he calls you names regularly and belittles you daily, your tolerance prevents him from taking responsibility for his unhealthy—if not abusive—behavior towards you.  And there is no motive for him to change his behavior, because you are not holding him accountable for it.  If your child is disrespectful once in a while because she wants her way and doesn’t like your rules, a gracious response can show her that we all feel like rebelling sometimes, and we make mistakes.  But if she ‘rules the roost’ with her disrespect and attitude towards you, and you hold off because you are afraid, or because you do not want to raise her ire, or you make excuses for her, then your behavior is codependent.  Not confronting her and giving her consequences for her behavior and attitude towards you gives her permission to do it again, with impunity.  Finally, supporting an adult child who cannot hold a job, or who is struggling with the responsibilities of life, is a righteous parental response.  You always want to offer support and love, especially for a child who has unique struggles.  But when does helping your adult child hurt you and him?  If your ‘support’ keeps him from learning to handle his struggles himself, then you are not helping, but hurting him.  Your behavior can fix the immediate problem, but in the long run, unwittingly debilitate him from functioning in this world on his own.  Is that grace?  I would suggest not. 

 

In looking at lines of responsibility, I sometimes consider how our Lord responded to people who approached Him.  He always gave truthful answers, directing and confronting even, but then usually left the response to the one who approached him.  When the rich young ruler came to Him, Christ told him what he needed to do to be saved.  And when the Lord told him about the needed heart change, beyond the ‘head knowledge’ of the Pharisees (in response to a question, mind you), the young ruler turned, crestfallen, clearly struggling with the answer.  Now who would want this man to embrace the truth more than Christ would?  But did Christ follow after him, trying to convince him, suggesting ways he could help him, and ways he could pursue this truth?  Nope.  He handed out the truth, and it was up to the rich young ruler to embrace it.  The line of responsibility was clear.  The codependent has a difficult time ‘allowing’ the other person to fail, fall apart, suffer, struggle, and feel pain.  But if you don’t let that happen, you cut off growth for that person. 

 

Life is not very clear-cut.  Sometimes we struggle with the people we love the most!  Intimate and meaningful relationships can be so messy.  But it is very important to try to understand where responsibility begins and ends, so that you and the other person can both grow to your full potential and responsibility.  This is easier said than done, of course, but not only is this do-able, but the freedom released allows a full development of yourself and the other (if he also embraces it).

 

In the next blog (and final one on codependence) I will address the challenges in changing codependent behavior. 

 

Blessings,

Priscilla

 

Benefits for Codependents

When you look at the typical codependent, you often see a life of sacrifice and giving.  The codependent role is a sympathetic one.   Generally, you are drawn to her grace, steadfastness, and loyalty to the dependent—above even her own needs.  We have sympathy and even empathy for the codependent who often martyrs her life, and tolerates great distress, for the sake of focusing on and caring for someone else. 

In truth, codependence is an emotional trap, and if you want to grow into who God created you to be in the fullest sense, you need to understand your emotional paralysis in being codependent.  Let me unfold some concepts so my meaning is clear, because I want to be an encouragement to you who may not even know you are in a codependent relationship.

Codependence has a lot of hidden benefits for the codependent.  In the last blog, I described a variety of relationships which might be fertile soil for codependence.  In those relationships, the dependent and the codependent share benefits—different ones, but nonetheless, benefits.  How does someone who gives and gives and gives, who fashions her day around an abusive drunk, for example, have benefits?  On the surface, it looks like she is the one suffering.  And she does suffer.  She is stifled, frightened, often anxious, and lives a life of constriction.  But there is another side to codependence.

At a subconscious level, codependence is a safe place to live.  You receive sympathy, you are usually right when the dependent is usually wrong, you have a position of righteousness, and you actually have a level of control despite the felt lack of control (given the addict’s behavior you cannot fix).  You have a certain command of the situation you have to deal with, no matter how difficult and challenging.  You have a role you know how to play, and you are in reality, the ‘good guy’, while the addict is clearly in the wrong.  You have an identity you are familiar with, and it is comfortable despite its stress and often sorrow.

Codependence loses its benefit (using the abusive alcoholic spouse example) when a woman stuck in this relationship is so focused on her role, she does not realize how restricted she has made her life.  She cannot develop herself, but rather, spends much of her life building up the dependent—or sometimes focuses her codependent behavior towards her children.  Instead of focusing on self-growth, she ‘sacrifices’ her life to focus on her children.  She doesn’t have to struggle with her own issues, but stays put in her role as the sacrificial martyr, and never grows beyond what she learned in her family of origin.  She often settles into a pattern of exasperation with the dependent, simmering on the surface, but ready to explode just under the surface, because of his ‘bad’ behavior.  Her attitude towards the dependent can be resentful and even disrespectful —evident to those around her.  Her own capacity for being stretched and growing is rarely felt because she spends her time and energy worrying about, caring for, and being angry at, the dependent and perhaps her children.   Codependents can be seen as nagging; they can come across in almost a self-righteous way, always pointing the finger and always correcting or complaining about the one in the wrong.

Codependents get so stuck in this role, they usually do not acknowledge their own needs.  Since their focus is elsewhere, on the dependent, it’s no wonder then when you ask a codependent about her needs, she looks at you blankly, as though the words have no meaning.  As Christians, we often judge the idea of having needs as selfish.  The assumed righteous position is that you are not supposed to put your needs over another person’s needs, ever.  Really? 

The concept of sacrifice does of course apply in love, most obviously with your children.  Parents should put their children’s safety and well-being above their own needs.   New mothers and fathers know this right from the beginning of parenthood, living the first number of months after a new birth with little or no sleep during the night!  Spouses too, should sacrifice in areas which support or build each other, in reasonable measure. 

But there is selfishness and refusal to sacrifice ever (which is sinful), and then there is self-nourishment and placing responsibility where it belongs.  This is boundary talk.  The self-effacing modis operandi of a codependent may be more about staying in a realm of predictability and control than being truly humble or modest.  I speak as someone who has lived as a codependent in the past, so I’m not trying to be critical—just real.  I see these issues all the time in counseling.  This functions at such subconscious behavior, that it is often my privilege to help someone see –for the first time-- the full picture in the full context of his/her life.  There may be angst and gnashing of teeth upon understanding your codependence, but at the same time, there is great rejoicing and relief in learning that there is a different way to live.  Taking on only your responsibility as appropriate (that which really belongs to you) and not everyone else’s may initially cause distress to relationships (rocking the boat, upsetting the apple cart, changing expectations); but the long term effects are positive, in the very least for you, and for all, if all share in the desire to be who God created them to be.

Next blog I will address further indications of codependence, and discerning codependence from grace in relationships.   Meanwhile, if you would like to read more about codependence, there are a few good books about it, from a Christian context:

• From Bondage to Bonding—Nancy Groome
• Love is a Choice—Hemfelt, Minirth, Meier
• Boundaries: When to Say Yes, When to Say No, To Take Control of Your Life—Cloud & Townsend

Blessings,
Priscilla

 

How Do You Become Codependent?

Does anyone choose to be codependent?  In all my years of counseling, I have never met someone who consciously chose to be codependent in a relationship.  I have known people who chose not to change their codependent behavior once they became aware of it, but they never chose to be codependent.  So how does codependence happen?

Typically, we learn how to be in relationship through the families we grow up in.  In other words, if your family of origin had codependent dynamics, you likely learned those dynamics too, and brought them into your adult relationships.  Sometimes people develop codependent behavior as a means of tolerating a difficult situation in their family of origin.  The codependent tools become a means for survival or management, and usually these tools are not exchanged for healthier ones until you hit a crisis—which sends you (hopefully) into counseling, where you learn about your codependent dynamics.

Here’s a fictitious example.  Jane grew up in a codependent family:  her father was an abusive alcoholic, and her mother ‘walked on eggshells’ around him, so as not to upset him.  If her mother complained or tried to stand up for herself and the children, Jane’s father blew up, throwing things, breaking things, and even at times pushing Jane’s mother physically.  He was a ‘mean drunk’, demanding and critical, and all the family members just kept the peace by not confronting him in any way.  Once in a while, Jane’s mother would yell back, but the penalty she suffered for this only reinforced keeping her mouth shut.

What does Jane learn in this situation?   Here are some probable lessons learned, which are not typically learned at a cognitive level, but rather at an emotional level, unstated:

• Confrontation is dangerous, so don’t do it.  Keeping quiet is safe.
• Jane father’s needs are the priority; your needs are not important, so don’t have any needs because they won’t be met.
• If you are hurting, just handle it.  No one can do anything anyway.
• Emotions are hard to handle, if not dangerous, so just pretend you don’t have any so you (and your father) stay under control.
• Your role is to support and keep the peace.

There are more perhaps, but you can see what is ‘inherited’ in this family situation.  How you react also depends on your personality tendencies.  Many people react internally, and so are more likely to become codependent in the typical fashion.  But some are more external in their reaction, and rather than comply (codependently) with this horrible scenario, they act out and become belligerent, in an effort to change the dynamic.   They might become a ‘competitive’ problem in the household, causing distress along with the addicted father.   When you are a child, you are powerless, and have very few options open to you to make a bad situation better.   Because of this, if a child responds by complying, doing his best not to stir up trouble, this response can become roots for codependence.

So when Jane starts to date, what kind of boy will she respond to?  What will her choices be?  She will likely not even know she has choices, first of all.  And when someone is codependent, it isn’t magic that makes a man (in this case) who is demanding find a woman like Jane.  She doesn’t consciously choose him anymore than he consciously chooses her—but a man similar to her father will see in her the compliance and malleability he needs in a woman, and she will see someone who needs her support, so the two connect.  And the cycle begins again.

There are many ways codependence works in relationships; the usual addiction (drugs/alcohol) does not have to be present.  Here are a few examples:

• A domestic violence relationship is codependent.  There is enough ‘love’ expressed between the two that the victim believes it is worth staying for it, but the victim typically cannot express needs.  Her focus is on him.   
• Mental illness can create a codependent scenario.  If the family walks on eggshells around someone with mental illness, there is a codependent dynamic which constrains everyone’s way of relating.
• Control can mask as religiosity in a family: a husband who demands strict obedience and uses the Bible as a bat to subdue any opinion other than his own, creates a codependent response in his wife and children.  He may look God-honoring, but his behavior dynamics are about controlling others who obey in fear.
• A family in which there is someone who is helpless for valid reasons—like someone with chronic illness, or someone who is disabled or unable to work—can create a codependence in a relationship if s/he needs the focus on him/her at all times.  The spouse becomes the support and ‘do-er’ in the relationship and takes no time for his/her needs.

Please understand these examples are possible situations for codependence.  Not all families with disability or mental illness, for example, have codependent dynamics.  But these situations create a fertile ground for such.  The issue is imbalance in the relationships—where one person’s needs, legitimate in their roots perhaps, override everyone else’s needs.

What you can see in these examples is the basis for the dynamic the codependent has with the dependent—or the person of focus.  In drug addiction, the alcoholic is the dependent, and the codependent is the spouse, parent, or child.  In this and the above examples, the codependent is as ‘addicted’ as the target addict:  the codependent has a compulsive connection to the dependent in the relationship, and often struggles to get free, once aware of this dynamic. 

Next time, I will address what perceived and subconscious benefits the codependent has (the basis for the codependent’s addiction), and what she gains in this relationship.

Blessings,
Priscilla

Priscilla Ortlip MSW, LCSW, ACS

Founder and Executive Director
Christian Counselors Collaborative
www.cccpgh.org

Disclaimer: I am a professional, licensed clinical therapist in the state of PA, but this blog is not a therapeutic venue—anything I state here is not for treatment or to address anyone’s specific emotional or mental health need. If you are experiencing immediate distress, call 911. If you would like to consider counseling with the CCC, please call Tom Laird at 1.855.222.2575.