Codependency

Codependency

I received an interesting couple of comments within the last month or so.  Two of my dear and trusted friends told me that I have a problem with being “codependent,” and suggested that I read the book “Codependent No More.”  This diagnosis was a surprise to me, I had no idea that I have such a problem.   My first reaction was to say something like, “What? Who? Me? – no way.”  After exploring the issue for a couple of weeks I now have a much better idea of what the term means, but am not doing too well in seeing the problem in myself.  I am at the point of thinking that I really don’t have much of a problem along these lines, or I am doing a great job of denying it.  Obviously, more personal explorations are in order.

While in the middle of this exploration I was asked the question of, “what is it that makes me angry?”  I don’t get angry very often, but it does happen now and then.  That turns out to be an interesting question, one that is much less obvious than I thought.  My first response was that I get angry when people don’t do what I want, or when I am falsely accused of something.  These are close to the truth, but the real truth seems to be a bit deeper than that.  In addition, there might be more reasons, but I haven’t quite figured them out yet.

I do get angry when others won’t do what I want.  Actually, I get angry when others won’t let me do what I want.  It is a problem with them not doing something that prevents me from doing something.  I think what really is happening is that I get an idea of what I want to do, and turn it into an expectation of doing something.  Then, if another person thwarts my expectation I get disappointed.  If their reason for thwarting it doesn’t make sense (they tell me a reason that doesn’t seem right, but I suspect there is another “real” reason that I am not being let in on), I get angry.  My anger seems to have more to do about not being told the truth than it is about being disappointed.  

The second common reason for me getting angry is associated with the idea of being falsely accused of something.  In particular, it happens when someone insists that I am thinking or feeling something that I am not aware of, and then punishes me for thinking or feeling that way.  It is almost as if they are talking about someone else, but are punishing me for that other person’s thoughts or feelings.  I am willing to try to discuss these issues, but certain people won’t discuss it because they are so sure that they are right about my “hidden” thoughts and feelings.  I suppose they might be right, who knows, maybe my unconscious mind is working along those lines.  However, if I have no knowledge of them there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about them.  The insistence that I am doing, or thinking, something that I don’t think I am doing frustrates me.  Once I am getting punished for these unknown thoughts or feelings, I get angry.  From this point forward there does not seem to be an avenue to continue the conversation.

I find these two “reasons” for getting angry to be interesting because they are appear to be opposite sides of the same coin, the yin and yang of it as it were.  On the one side I get angry when I think other people have thoughts and feelings that they refuse to share with me.  On the other side, I get angry when other people accuse me of having thoughts and feelings that I refuse to share with them.  How interesting!  They seem to be closely related, and just keep going around in a circle like a snake biting its tail.

I wonder what makes other people angry.  I wonder if there isn’t a small set of issues that fire us off, and if there might not be a way to help us all understand the source of our anger so that we can learn ways of sidestepping the emotion.  The more I think about it, the more is seems like anger is somehow associated with thinking that our thoughts and emotions are in someone else’s mind.  I sometimes react, and act, as if my guesses about what others are thinking or feeling are true, even though I have no way at all of knowing that.

Is this related to “codependency?”  It seems like it might be.  I like the definition of a codependent person as being a person who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.   In other words, it is a person who “thinks” that the behavior of another is “causing” pain or unhappiness, and wants to make the other person change so that the pain or unhappiness will stop.  Maybe my reasons for becoming angry are somehow tied into this, but right now I don’t quite see the connections.