Interlude Six—OCD: Overly Concerned with Dirt

OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

It’s a common trait among co-dependents.

That’s not to say that anyone who feels more comfortable with neatness and order is co-dependent, but there is a line that is crossed at some point for those who are.

Like me.

Out of six boys, I got two who are neat freaks. They’re easily irritated with their messier siblings and seem to relax when I spend the day cleaning.

Two out of six doesn’t sound like good odds, but I take into account that they are boys, after all, so I think I’m golden.

The older of the two often goes through the house announcing messes as if he’s announcing a boxing match.

Cheetos! In. My. Sock!

I got out of bed like a fruit roll-up this morning. I hate the heat!

What the…? Popsicles in the toilet and toilet paper in the sink?! Who lives here?

The younger one never says a word. But I’m constantly on the hunt for items he’s stowed away to keep our paths clear. And those items are often things I need on a daily basis…car keys, soap and the many, many shoes that pile in odd corners.

Of course, then the older one would have his say.

My shoes! There they are again…gone!

I don’t think they’re as bad as I was, but I know they watched me all those years obsessing over cleanliness. So I try to keep an eye out if their stress level rises, and get them into the kitchen to make something that requires intense messiness. Desensitization therapy or something like that.

My mother used to tell me I would rearrange the dust, rather than actually remove it.

So I know I didn’t always have a compulsive need to clean.

I had my first five children while living in various apartments. And because they were often older buildings, I never had a sense that I was getting out of control. How could I tell if something was too clean?

But when we bought our first house, it was brand new with white walls, appliances, tile and bathtubs…an OCD dream until it turns into a nightmare. I forgot to take into account what actually happens when you live in a clean, white house with five little boys.

At some point, probably when I’d spent four hours cleaning the microwave vent with Q-tips and bleach, I began to realize something wasn’t right. Especially when someone used it for popcorn and the butter leaked all over it…and I wept.

The laws of Entropy did not exist in my house. And when you try to deny a physics law, there are consequences. Atoms and molecules don’t acknowledge OCD.

As Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurassic Park said: “Life will not be contained”.

It took me awhile to recognize my problem.

I had to first recognize that I acquired this obsession through years of living with someone who had the same issues. I had always thought my husband put up with my need for clean.
But after my illness, when most of the workload fell on him, what I saw was a person who reacted with unreasonable anger to the everyday messes of life.

Anyone with children knows that laundry is the Neverending Story.

I understood that from the get go, so I don’t think I ever really obsessed over keeping my laundry basket empty. But laundry was the one domestic skill my husband was good at.

And when I was unable to keep up during my recovery, he would do it.

And he kept that laundry basket empty.

And then he rubbed my face in it like a naughty dog.

Whenever someone would ask the “laundry question”…how did we keep up with the laundry having six boys? My husband would say he did the laundry.

It’s alright. I would have been envious of any woman whose husband did the laundry too.

And I was in enough denial to believe that he was doing it to help me.

But my heart would sink whenever I heard the washer going early in the morning.

Whenever I tried to get back in the laundry room and find he’d folded every article of clothing and hustled the boys in to put their things away.

I would ask him to give me some time to get it done, and he would respond with a litany of his accomplishments in laundry. It appeared to be his territory now.

The subtle sarcasm he used to let me know I was inadequate; the increasing annoyance whenever he found someone’s dirty clothes in the hamper…it made me angry at his mother for teaching him how to do laundry.

Because of course, I couldn’t get mad at my husband for it.

And I understood later why he treated me that way.

It was a competition.  

The same with cooking.

He had a job as a chef for awhile. But he is not a chef and never will be. He’s a cook.

He was fortunate enough to work for a company that didn’t require him to be creative with food.

He just had to work hard and fast and follow a formula.

And he was perfectly competent to do it.

But he couldn’t accept the title of chef when he knew he had no passion for food.

And worse…I knew it too. And he knew I knew it.

I love food. I grew up in California with an abundance and variety of food, and my mother was a gourmet.
Food became an inspiration for me the same way charcoal and paint and words did.

But that inspiration proved a problem when my husband became a chef.

And instead of enjoying my cooking, he competed with it.

When my obsession with perfection spilled into my cooking, things got worse.

I imagine from his point of view, the effect was a bit like what his laundry efforts did to me.

I thought I was just trying to make the best dinner ever, but the harder I tried, the angrier he became.

Cause and effect, of course.

Because co-dependency doesn’t operate on a conscious level, I didn’t realize I’d painted myself into a corner. Everything I did was subliminally motivated.

If he needed to believe he was an authentic chef so he wouldn’t quit and leave us destitute, I took pains to invite people over for a feast and give him all the credit. Even when I did ninety-nine percent of the work.

If he needed people to think his wife was a good cook, I’d spend hours on a new recipe and let him take samples to whomever he wanted to impress.

But at home, I’d watch as he dumped hot sauce or ketchup all over my dinners and wonder why I kept trying.

I kept trying because OCD is the saliva of Pavlov’s dog. It was the response to a potential reward.

Sometimes I got that reward, but more often I just drooled.

Everything in my marriage turned into a competition.

And I had to compete like the original “Running Man”. I had no choice in the matter. At least that is what my mind told me.

Until I figured it out.

Then the competition ended…and nobody won.

When my husband and I separated, I didn’t pick up a single sock, or make my bed, or clean the toilets for almost six months.

I just stopped.

Cold turkey OCD.

It was like a miracle cure. One day I’m weird and the next I’m not.

I felt absolutely no pressure to make someone take a bath, or pick up their clothes.

The first night I left the dirty dishes in the kitchen, I slept like a baby.

In the morning, I pushed the dishes aside and made some coffee…and I didn’t even wash out the coffee pot first. I just rinsed it.

I knew I’d swung the pendulum back to the far side. But that’s how it often is.

The middle ground is a nebulous place for me.

But I’m getting there.

I made my bed yesterday…and washed the coffee pot.

Progress not perfection, friends

Interlude Five--Netflix Therapy

Six weeks ago, I sat at my computer and cried as the last door shut. 

My efforts to find a place to live for me and my kids had come to a complete stop. 

If something didn’t happen soon, I would be homeless.

I had been searching in Oregon and California for rentals I could afford.

I wanted to go home to California, but no matter how I searched or what help my family and friends offered, my ability to support seven kids and two cats…well, the cost of living there had reached beyond me.

I was barely making it in Utah with its low rent and still-reasonable taxes.

My good friend tried to find resources and connections for me to make a move to Oregon, but I couldn’t seem to meet all the requirements for renting.

Too many kids, not enough income, not employed…two cats? Forget it.

Desperately, I filled out the last application and got an e-mail back telling me I couldn’t qualify unless I had a job in the state already.

I tossed all my Al Anon training out the window and had a good, panicked cry.

Alone. In my garage. Completely alone.

But sometimes being alone has an advantage.

For me, that advantage was being forced to confront a problem that only I could solve.

To put it another way…I needed to do be able to solve this problem.

Decision-making…not my forte, as you remember.

Every time I found myself in this place…alone with an insurmountable problem, I would pray.

Every time.

Sometimes I would get a phone call from my dear friend to help me through.

Oftentimes, God would say: wait, the answer will come…and it did.

But this time I clearly heard: Go back to your computer and look again.

I sat there for a few moments. Seriously?

(I’m a tough nut to crack. But God already knows that)

Yes, dear daughter. And this time…look closer.

I realized then I had two choices: give up and look for a shelter…or get back to the computer and look again.

I started looking for rentals closer to Orem.

But the rental requirements had gotten a lot more restrictive since we moved here four years ago.

The panic began squeaking again…making its presence clear.

I pushed it away and kept searching through the lists of homes to rent.

Then I saw a HUD home on the rental list.

I saw the words “See if YOU qualify!”

It must have been the exclamation or the “you” in capital letters…but something stopped me short.

Could I actually buy a house?

Through the generosity of my same dear friend who was working as hard I was to find us a place to live, I’d managed to save enough money for the move.

Could I use it as a down payment?

What if my credit was no good on my own?

So many questions avalanched when I opened this home-buying door, like an over-stuffed closet.

But I knew in that solitary moment in the garage, that this was the answer God had provided.

I retrieved my Al Anon program from where I’d tossed it and started on “First Things First”.

I searched the HUD websites.

I found a community service center offering homebuyer’s educations classes for people looking for HUD home loans.

That meant, if I took the certified class, I would have a better chance at getting a loan.

I signed up for the class…it was six hours on a Saturday.

Six hours of learning about mortgages, predatory lenders, state homebuyer’s programs, revitalization projects, self-help mortgages, etc.

I thought my brain would explode.

The mediator seemed to understand this, as she often gave us breaks so we wouldn’t go into a coma and miss something important.

…like opening our mail.

Out of six hours of home-buying information, I came away thinking about opening mail.

You see, she explained that the number one way new homebuyer’s get into trouble with their mortgages is because they don’t open their mail.

They don’t check on their mortgage status, or periodically review their insurance costs, or ever look to see if they are late in their payments.

I think I recognized my fellow ostriches. We are very comfortable with not knowing certain things.

But as with everything else in my life…these issues ran a little deeper than procrastination or even kicking the can down the road a bit.

My sister got the stomach flu once when I was with her and she kept repeating over and over how she’d rather ‘bleed out her eyeballs’ than throw-up.

It was the most succinct description of loathing that I’d ever heard.

And whenever I thought of something I hated, but was forced to do, I hear her desperate gasping and the words she repeated over the toilet bowl.

I hate to throw-up too.

Almost as much as I hate opening my mail.

I’d rather bleed out my eyeballs.

It’s just one of those many habits of thought I’ve developed over the years to help me survive.

It may have taken root when my husband brought the mail in with a scowl each time.

It may have escalated when he opened the bills and began his campaign against air conditioning (we lived in the desert).

There are certain things I cannot live with and being pregnant in the desert without air conditioning was one of them. But oh…the price. And I don’t mean money.

I remember tensing when he walked in with the mail in his hand.

On occasion, I remember hiding some bills until I could handle his reaction.

But that often made things worse.

So I would try and just cook a really good dinner, or keep the kids quiet, or arrange a golf date, or let him buy something he wanted…pretzel-making time.

It didn’t matter if there are good things that came in the mail.

I’d rather have nothing.

Of course, when I was living with an alcoholic, ‘nothing’ was always a relief.

When I realized just what was at stake with this mail-avoidance issue, I had to make a conscious decision to change things.

I had to find a way to change this loathing to something resembling grim determination at the very least.

Recently, I’d let go a subscription to Netflix in an effort to save money. I was trying not to be frivolous.

I’d thought that was the most important thing…saving money.

But sometimes there are more important things.

Like learning to love opening my mail.

Because when we received those movies, my kids would jump for joy and make a parade out to the mailbox to see which movie they’d gotten.

It was fun.

And the first thing a co-dependent gives up is fun.

They would grab that movie (along with the bills) and hand it to me (along with the bills), and wait anxiously while I tore along the perforated edge. Sometimes I did it torturously slow…for fun.

Sometimes I ripped it open and jumped for joy with them.

And I would open the bills after they left, while the glow of their smiles still illuminated my heart.

And I knew that the loathing had begun to mellow into resignation.

It wasn’t so hard anymore.

I'm still in the process of buying our own home. Opening that door did more than give us the opportunity to own a home...it gave me a process through which I'm learning to take care of the most important things first.
And it's giving me the practice to learn what exactly is the most important thing.

I re-subscribed to Netflix after the class.

Behavioral therapy for ten dollars a month isn’t a bad deal at all.

First things first, friends.

Interlude Four—Hope and Expectations

A long-time Al Anon member often tells me that hope will give you life, but expectations can kill you.

I thought I understood him the first time he said it.

The second time…not so much.

I was finding out that I didn’t really know the difference between the two.

Al Anon, like AA, tells its members to put their trust in a power higher than themselves.

The second step says: “I came to believe a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity.”

Every person needs something greater than themselves to believe in.

I cannot imagine going through this life thinking I am all there is.

It’s nihilism at its core.

For the co-dependent, the only way to work the program is to acknowledge a Higher Power.

In the beginning that Higher Power was called God.

But as the program grew, the members discovered that alcoholism and co-dependency crossed the boundaries of culture and religion.

Who might not seek help if they didn’t believe in the Christian God?

What would God ask us to do to reach the desperate addict or traumatized loved one?

So the decision to call God a “Higher Power” was not done to diminish Christian belief, but to allow the broken and hurting a chance to recover.

To me, that is grace.

And as I discovered grace, I discovered that acceptance without expectation gave me hope.

I don’t hope alcoholics won’t drink.

I pray they won’t, but I don’t put my hope in it.

I hope God shows me how to love without judgment. I hope God opens my eyes to the truth.

It’s work to change my thinking, but I have hope when I see it change.

Because I cannot control other people…or often control the circumstances I find myself in.

Expectation is not hope.

My life was hell when I lived with expectations. Not just the alcoholic's but mine.
We were both habitually disappointed in the other, so our expectations became unreasonable.

Expectations almost killed me.

Everyone has expectations. And for the most part, they are reasonable.

A healthy-minded person would think about the expectation and make a judgment on whether or not they could manage it. 

But I couldn’t make those kinds of judgments. So, my mind would find a way to either meet that expectation (even when it wasn’t reasonable…which defined my marriage), or try and get out of it and still keep the other person happy.

It’s a lot like twisting a pretzel…but with your body and soul.

When I first walked into Al Anon and realized nothing was expected of me, the relief brought tears to my eyes. I kept going back because I knew I didn’t have to fit into anyone’s view of anything.

Nothing was expected of me.

It was nirvana.

Until, I saw just how out-of-whack my own expectations had become.

I’ve since worked the fourth step, which is to make amends to the people I expected too much from…namely my children.

They immediately forgave me.

Not because they had to, but because I let them know they didn’t have to.

Grace again.

And though they are witnessing the change in me…I can still see the fallout from all those years of legalistic thinking in their fears and habits and yes, their own expectations of me.

So, I put my hope in God to keep changing my thinking until it lines up with His.

And I hope when that happens, this messed-up life will turn it into gold for my kids…and maybe if there’s still time…for me.

Think, friends.

Interlude Three--Hereafter and Thereafter

     I watched a movie the other night called “Hereafter”, directed by Clint Eastwood.

    “Hereafter” didn’t get much buzz. I didn’t even know it was in theaters. But, I saw the trailer on another Netflix movie I’d ordered, and it was intensely intriguing.

      The movie begins with a French woman taking a stroll through a marketplace to buy gifts for her boyfriend’s children. Most people will recognize the scene before she walks down the road as the hotel where the devastating tsunami in Thailand was captured on someone’s video camera.

      The tsunami is re-enacted with terrifying clarity through CGI, and the woman is drowned.

      She comes back to life, rescued by some men who perform CPR on her.

      But during her experience with death, she “crosses over” to the hereafter long enough for it to change her views on life.

      The movie slows down after the initial intensity of the tsunami scene.

      It changes dramatically into a more character-driven, thoughtful story. That was fine with me. I didn’t feel frustrated with the change, so I paid attention.

     It intersects the lives of three people.

     The French woman, Marie, is a journalist who goes back to her job after the drowning and tries to find a way to cope with her experience.

Then there is a young English boy named Marcus whose extroverted twin is tragically killed, and he can’t find a way to live after his brother’s death.

But the story really begins with George, a reluctant psychic, who tries desperately to live in anonymity after he realizes that living with death is no life at all.

      My assumption about the movie was I’d find out what someone else believed about the afterlife.

 (I’m sure I’m not the only one). And I have my own beliefs about that, so I was prepared to be deeply skeptical.

      But I came away with an entirely different take on the story itself.

      I didn’t think it was about death, or the afterlife.

      It was about communication.

      To be more exact, it’s about connecting with people we love…or want to love.

      This becomes apparent in a heart-breaking scene between George and a young lady he meets in his cooking class. She is beautiful, sweet, and very available. You can almost feel his need to connect with her.

But when she discovers he’s psychic, she foolishly presses him to do a reading for her.

And this is where we find out why George sees his gift as a curse.

Against his better judgment he agrees.

Sadly, the first real connection he makes with the girl of his dreams is through her dead father, and he finds out something about her past which makes it impossible for the girl to connect with George.

    And as the movie progresses, we see how fine the line is between connection and complete exposure.

      All through the movie, my throat closed whenever I saw the desperation of people trying to connect with their dead loved ones. They felt so alone. I understand that.

 And I understood why George had such a hard time.

He is not God and he doesn’t want to be.

No one can fill that need the way God can.

It is too overwhelming. It drains our poor human hearts of all feeling.

When death breaks that connection…that communication, the hole is too huge.

I suppose that is what grief is for.

And everyone has their own time and way of dealing with it.

    

    When I became a believer eighteen years ago, I made a connection with God…or rather God made the connection with me. I met Him when I believed He became human and experienced death.

Why would God experience death? Why would He need to? He’s God.

And somewhere in my lost and broken spirit, He answered that question in a way I could understand.

He did it to rescue me.

And I needed rescuing.

He did it to connect with me.

And I needed that connection.

It was like spiritual CPR from God…it brought me back to life and changed my view of everything.

I think that’s why I related to Marie in the movie.

When she came back to life, she had to adjust her thinking in a world that, for her, looked different.

Some of the people in her life rejected her views, but it opened her eyes to other things.

Important things. It helped her make a real connection…with love.

And I too, have walked in the valley of the shadow of death.

I knew Jesus walked with me through that time, but the changes thereafter were difficult.

Surviving the pancreatitis wasn’t the hard part.

The hard part was surviving it while living with an alcoholic.

I don’t pretend anymore to understand what drove him to leave me to die.

Neither of us was aware at the time how sick I was. But my pain should have moved him to some compassion...and it just didn't. He refused to call an ambulance or take me to the emergency room. I finally had to do that.
It was not the first time he had issues with illness or hospitals. And it certainly wasn't the last.

My co-dependency excused his behaviors and the pain meds took care of the rest.

Thereafter, I had moments when my mind would take me back to that hospital room, and I felt a guilty wish that things should have turned out…differently.

I longed to know what the real connection felt like.

But, I survived.

And there were six reasons for me to understand why. And a seventh a little later.

                  

One of the things I remember most about my hospitalization was the constant questions from the medical staff on whether I drank alcohol. I found out later, pancreatitis is a common disease stemming from alcoholism.

They thought I was an alcoholic.

What could I say?

No. I just had my sixth baby. I was too…um, busy?

But my husband drinks. Maybe it was second-hand drinking?

Turns out…it was a long-neglected gall bladder.

It had been infected for years, through two pregnancies.

I still can’t imagine how it was missed.

I saw plenty of doctors during my pregnancies.

But I think I’ve mentioned before my awful timing.

I’ve come to my own conclusions about how closely related the physical is to the spiritual.

That is…I know why my gall bladder rebelled.

The gall bladder is responsible for making bile.

When it produces too much bile, gallstones are the result.

I swallowed too much bile in my marriage.

Bile is gross.

But, I also remember some good things from the hospitalization.

Really. That’s how I knew the Lord was there.

The doctor who operated to remove my gall bladder (after I had stabilized enough to go into surgery), was Hindu, I believe.

I was on heavy, heavy doses of morphine, so I babbled extensively about whatever was floating by on those drug clouds: the clearance sale I was missing at Linen’s and Things; the price of parmesan cheese; how dirty the toilets in my house would be when I went home.

Before the anesthesia shut me up, I remember talking about my two-month baby boy, about his red hair, his five brothers, and how even though I knew his oldest brother would take care of him, I still had to go home to make sure he didn’t put a Lego in his mouth.

In recovery, I found out this Hindu doctor was so astounded that I’d given birth to six boys, he repaired, at no extra cost, an umbilical hernia I’d had gotten from my third son.

You know…the wrestler.  

But thanks to my doctor’s cultural proclivity towards male children, my belly button was an “innie” again.

(Not that “outies” aren’t adorable…my daughter has one. A hernia is anything but adorable)

Even in the midst of death…we are in irony.

Or something like that.

How can I go from death to belly buttons?

…I do it all the time.

In conclusion (and I think I’d better conclude this), I’m beginning to understand that being co-dependent is not a connection with another person.

It’s a gaping need that drove me to fix my marriage, fix my life, fix someone else’s life, fix the broken toys, fix the microwave, the lawn, the grody stuff in the tile grout. Fix it.

Some things can only be fixed by God.

And some things weren’t meant to be fixed.

At least not until the hereafter.

Let go and Let God, friends.

  

Interlude Two--Another Brick in the Wall

I want to talk about boundaries.

Boundaries are those metaphorical walls we build for protection over a lifetime of learning what is good for us and what is bad for us.

I don’t think they should be moralized. That is, no one can tell you the wall you build for protection is good or bad. It is your wall.

Can you imagine not having walls around your bathroom?

Neither can I.

I have six boys.

Every house or apartment we lived in attests to the power of boys, no matter their age or temperament, to knock an awesome hole in the wall.

I finally gave my sons an official moniker to celebrate the biggest hole ever when one of my sons backed the other into the drywall and the resulting hole matched the exact shape and size of his hind region.  Unfortunately, this was my largest kid. He wrestled in the heaviest weight class in high school.

After that gnarly hole, I dubbed my boys “The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang”.

(and yes…there were a great many jokes about “holes” and “butts”. I just took the high road as moms are supposed to when boys and butts are involved)

Butt…since Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was before their time, they didn’t get the inference, anyway.

That’s okay. These titles are strictly for parents’ use.

So, yeah…walls get holes. They get knocked down. Sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose.

All that can be done is to rebuild.

Or, as in the case with co-dependency…just leave a hole.

Now to use the analogy of a bathroom wall inside a house--you have your house wall, but all the interior walls have been knocked down. So anyone you invite into your home gets to see EVERYTHING.

Not such a good idea. We all have parts of our lives we don’t want (or need) to share with the world.

So after a time, I stopped inviting people into my house.

And that house was me.

I had allowed all my walls to be knocked down and I didn’t know how to repair them.

Of course, at the time, I didn’t realize I needed to repair anything.

Denial can be very comfortable…very safe. There are times when denial should not be messed with.

It’s a tricky thing to deal with hurting people because of it.

That’s why Al Anon became so valuable.

At first, I didn’t understand why each meeting repeated the rules and traditions, or why the constant reminder of anonymity and no “cross-talk” (no responding to another person’s sharing). I didn’t get any of these rituals. But rituals are necessary for the co-dependent.

I had to have predictability, or I could not function.

After the first month of meetings, the truth began to seep in.

Yes. It was seepage. That’s how these things work.

(bathroom metaphors aside...forgive me, I do have six boys after all)

These were the boundaries of Al Anon.

And within those boundaries, the truth could work its way into my heart.

No one could rip the blanket of denial off and expose me.

I felt as if I would turn to ash in the brightness.

But in the safety of Al Anon boundaries, I peeked out from under my blanket began to see that others had blankets too. And the boundaries provided a safe place to inch the denial out of our lives.

No one expected anything from me.

No one confronted me.

No one even knew my last name.

And when I unknowingly made a mistake and knocked against those walls, there was someone there to gently remind me…without judgment…the rules that kept us all safe.  

My walls were intact.

It really was a new way of thinking.

As a co-dependent, I lived and died each day by someone else’s response to what I said or did.

…and we haven’t even touched on the facebook issues yet. Oy!

This is not to disparage facebook in any way. It has been lifeline for me in my isolation. But there is always learning curve, isn’t there? I’ll write a post about my adventures (and misadventures) with facebook another time.

To sum up my thoughts about boundaries, let me just say every day I find another brick to put in my wall.

Still, there’s always someone who knocks a hole in it.

Sometimes it’s an accident, sometimes on purpose.

But I’m learning how to do the repairs.

…and I’m also learning where to leave the openings.

Easy does it, friends.

Interlude One--Know Thyself

When I was about eighteen years old, I decided I wanted to be an artist.

This was after I gave up trying to be a journalist. Community college took care of that aspiration when the teacher kicked me out of class the first day for being two minutes late.

Yes. I gave it up. I knew I wasn’t cut out for the hard-hitting world of reporting when I broke down in uncontrollable weeping for three days over a straight-forward rejection.

    I figured if I had a talent for drawing and worked hard enough, recognition and money would start flowing in. Hey…I was eighteen.

   So I practiced my craft with zeal. I bought charcoal, graphite and heavy bond sketch pads, and I began by copying from photographs; concentrating on faces I was familiar with, namely my family.

   I found a picture of myself and my two sisters, my brother and my father, and set to work on it.

After days of intense concentration (and the heavy use of art gum), I presented it to them for their approval (and applause), but alas…they broke into snorts of laughter as they pointed out something I was not even aware I had done.

   You see, drawing other people means seeing them differently then you see yourself.

Drawing yourself is a bit like writing about yourself—you look a little, um…better than those in the picture with you.

And that was the problem.

I had drawn what I thought was a very realistic picture of my family, but because I had drawn myself in there with them, the comparison was glaring.

   One thing that stood out was my hair.

   My sisters especially, laughed themselves silly over the long, glowing, Breck-girl locks I had given myself and wondered why their hair looked more like straw hats.

I can’t blame them. It was the brutal truth.

And I had long carried about an unfortunate tendency toward vanity when it came to my hair.

   However, as Jerry Maguire said to his fiancé when she was reminding him about their agreement to have “brutal truth” in their relationship…Jerry responded: “I think you were the one who insisted on ‘brutal’”.

   So for the record, I think the brutal truth is overrated.

Unless I have to use it for smelly, teenage boys who insist the bar soap has gone missing and a hefty dose of “Axe” will eliminate my discomfort.

  

Which brings me to the title of this post: “Know thyself”.

I reckon if I can know myself better, it’ll save me some embarrassment such as my experiment in drawing.

Though I didn’t give up art…I just switched to drawing lions and gazelles.

Which brings me a little farther to the reason for this blog, and what “An interlude from co-dependency” means.

This isn’t an exercise in narcissism. I debated for weeks on how to approach talking about my experiences.

Then it hit me…this is the 12^th step.

“Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”

This is my message. These are my affairs.

I’ve been going to Al-Anon for almost four years now. It is a 12-step program for anyone who has lived with someone who has a substance-abuse problem, usually an alcoholic.

It is an anonymous program for good reason, so I won’t be revealing any names or personal information on other people in this blog. That is why I’ll stay focused on myself.

It’s basically how the program operates.

Which is why people often misunderstand the “me” part of it as some form of navel-gazing.

It isn’t.

I’ll explain.

“Co” comes from the Latin word “with” or “together”. Of course that sounds like you’re just trying to get on the same page with someone else.

That’s not it at all.

I guess psychologists couldn’t find the Latin for “Trying-to-read-someone-else’s-freaking-mind-24/7”.

But there it is.

Co-dependency is a habit of thought. Once that habit is ingrained over the years, you lose the ability to think your own thoughts. You lose yourself.

And over time, you lose all ability to make decisions.

Decision-making is something most people take for granted.

For example:

You go to the store and buy toothpaste.

You might buy the cheapest brand when you're low on money, or you may buy something for your sensitive teeth, or you may just like the taste of one, or you may be adventurous and try something new.

For the co-dependent, it’s not so simple because my mind is always on what will keep the alcoholic happy.

Which brand of toothpaste does he want this week? Has he changed his mind? Is it too expensive? Will he become angry, or worse, not speak to me for days? Will there be some other form of retribution for buying the wrong toothpaste?

Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?

It is. But not funny. Not for the co-dependent.

I’m the proverbial frog in the pot. It takes time to build up this sort of habit of thought, so the water slowly heats while I’m thinking it’s just a warm bath.

And before I knew it…I was cooked.

But there’s something I know now.

I am not a victim.

I made my own choices in the beginning, and this is where those choices led me.

Habits of thought are not easily changed. It took years to get me here and it will take years to change.

It took a huge crisis to make me walk into my first Al Anon meeting years ago.

Within three meetings, I had an epiphany and realized my autonomy had disappeared.

I had simply lost all ability to think my own thoughts. I couldn’t make any decision that did not involve the alcoholic in my life.

I was, in short, helpless, and if I wanted to survive, this program was my only hope.

I want to clearly state that this blog is in no manner a substitute for the Al Anon program and isn’t affiliated with it in any way. This blog is my own journey out of co-dependency, and while I offer it as an interlude for others to read and contemplate, it is not a replacement for the program itself.

Because of this addendum, I’ve turned off comments.

Just think of this as the self-help section of the bookstore that you browse through with a latte in your hand.

Writing is what I left after the long burn.

And I’m still not sure if I’ve timed this right. My timing has always been awful.

But, I’ll never know unless I give it a try. So here it is.

I’ve come to believe this place, this interlude of thought, is where God meets me to deal with the wounds…to help me think differently about people, life…Him.

To think for myself about those things.

I don’t want to draw a picture of how I want others to think about me…that’s a hallmark of co-dependency.

And I guess that’s where the brutal truth rears its huge head.

But in Al-Anon, the brutal truth is for me to figure out…no one gets to tell me.

Except God.

And He isn’t brutal about it.

One Day at a Time, friends.