|
Shout Box
Healing becomes possible when all parties in a relationship come to see each other as co-creators of the relationship rather then attacker, and victim.
|
|
Can't start a new thread. (Host Only)Can't start a new poll. (Host Only)Can't add a reply. (Host Only)Can't edit your posts.(Everyone Registered) | Register :: Log In :: Steering Committee
The time is now 19:41:07 Thu May 23 2013
|
| Welcome, Register :: Log In | | | Friends of Narcissus active in this forum: | | Friends of Narcissus active in this thread: Beloved and cherished GUEST(s) of Narcissus |
5 human beings online in the last 15 minutes - 0 Friend(s) of Narcissus, 0 covert NPDers and 5 Beloved and cherished GUEST(s) of Narcissus. (Most ever was 57 at 01:37:31 Fri Sep 11 2009)
|
Balbrenny 
Offline
444 posts
Mood Now: 
Post Mood:
Reply
| |
Re: Co-Dependancy ( 08:43:08 WedJan 14 2004 ) | |
I've been thinking about this thread during the last couple of days. And about the definition of co-dependancy. There is an interesting discussion here CODEPENDENCY REFRAMED on whether codependancy is a mental health issue or a gender issue. A few quick quotes: "Peter Vesgo, President of Health Communications, Inc. estimates that eighty five per cent of the codependency market is female (Kaminer, 1990)." "Thus women not only define themselves in a context of human relationship but also judge themselves in terms of their ability to care. Women’s place in man’s life cycle has been that of nurturer, caretaker, and helpmate, the weaver of those networks of relationships on which she in turn relies." "Based on Gilligan’s research it becomes evident that from a very early age girls are taught to value relationships over the self and to consider the needs of others first." "If the child ... grows up to find herself in a relationship with an abusive and/or alcoholic husband, to survive she will first rely on her early training, nurturing, caring, cleaning, (it’s your responsibility to fix it and make it nice). When her fruitless attempts to control the uncontrollable makes her life miserable, she views the failure of the relationship as her personal failure." "Placing codependency in the next version of DSM, and defining it as a disease with a prescribed treatment, will do a great disservice not just to women but to the whole of humanity. Concern with relationships is a human strength, to “treat” women for this “disorder” by “teaching” them masculine boundaries and sense of self is to devalue the feminine role even further. A more effective response lies in social change and empowerment. By giving real power and status to the role of care taker, nurturer and child-bearer (instead of just paying it lipservice), women will be able to exercise more control over themselves and their lives and relationships." Much of my anger over what has happened in my life is to do with the fact that I feel angry at myself for being such a "doormat". After all, as a women's libber, I would never have believed that I would have got myself in such a position and put up with the erosion of self that I succumbed to for years. This article summed up much of how I was feeling - that I do not have any issues (hey - apart from being bipolar!!) - that I was responding as a normal woman with a caring disposition to somebody she loved. From my experience in domestic violence, I would say that co-dependancy does exist. I have seen women who go from one abusive relationship to another. Yes, I went from a relationship with an alcoholic to a relationship with somebody who suffered from NPD. But, at the time that I entered the relationships, those traits were not evident. In fact, I was so concerned about co-dependancy issues, that I mistook the walls that my NPD ex had erected (he presented as a very together guy) as a strong sense of self-esteem. By the time I realised how needy he was, we had 2 kids (I got pregnant the first time we had sex, despite precautions. We lost that one due to an ectopic pregnancy and an emergency op - I almost died - but that experience greatly influenced our relationship - he seemed very caring, etc.) As for my first ex, I was 19 and he was 20 when we first started living together. Everybody I knew was into drugs and alcohol. The difference was that most of us grew out of it and got our lives together - he kept on going. So I left. Anyway, my psych keeps telling me that I'm not co-dependant but I'm still scared to enter a new relationship. At the moment I'm feeling that I'll just concentrate on myself and on my kids. Read the article and let me know what you think .... Linda
| | Mood: | Mood Now: ( Optimistic ) Post Mood: ( Optimistic ) |
hestia
Offline
423 posts
Mood Now: 
Post Mood:
Reply
| |
Re: Co-Dependancy ( 16:40:35 WedJan 14 2004 ) | |
Linda, I loved it, especially her proposed book title for men: Beyond Independency... It is so true. And the rock and the hard place thing is a real mess. Even when women are independent, economically and power motivated, it's not as though the male dominated psychological institutions (i.e., the APA in this country) says, "Wow! What healthy human beings!" No, they talk about these women as "animus driven" in public, and I think we all know what some people call them behind their backs. Yet conform to what we have been taught to do from the time we were toddlers, and we become diseased. Which is why I try not to take the co-dependency stuff too literally. Truth is, in this world, women need to have what is called a "hermeneutic of suspicion." We need to interpret things very carefully, since most people are culturally conditioned to think it's ok to use us to meet their needs. Women even do this to other women, all the time, if we let them. The real solution is a balance, where women have power to be more independent, and men are able to become more nurturing. After years of thinking about it, I often wonder if we aren't just at a water-shed in human evolution, where some of us are in a different place than the rest of the pack due to genes, circumstances, whatever. NPDers working on their healing could be in this new, in-between place as legitimately as so-called co-dependents, with the common ground being insight, and the reality that we are, as newly evolving creatures, all a little lop-sided and out of balance. You know, not that we're more advanced than anyone else, but that we are what the future will see as a sort of "missing link." Hope I don't contribute to anyone's grandiosity with this theory, least of all my own!!!  Anyway, I think of Clarissa Pinkola Estes again, who calls on us to look, listen, sniff, see what is there; know when to fight and when to walk away; claim our battle scars. I also think part of what happens on the "victim's" boards is that they see how people with NPD have manipulated and brought out the worst in them. What they don't see is that those with NPD aren't trying to make them miserable, they are just trying to survive the only way they know how. And unfortunately for everyone, they have those abilities perfected. They win someone's confidence, being who we want them to be, and we don't see the truth until much later. And unfortunately for us, we are raised to take care of other people assuming that they will also be willing to take care of us, and that they will value that caregiving as much as we do. We are also raised as women to trust that men might not do this caregiving as often as we do, but that in a real jam they will be there with the caregiving that we need. At least, this is how I was raised, and so I gave and gave to my husband, trusting that he would help me keep my life from getting to small, trusting that when I really needed him he would be there. I may or may not enter a new relationship, but I tell you, from now on, only I will be deciding whether or not my life is getting too small, and any man I get involved with better be ready to prove to me that he will be there. I am not co-dependent partly in that I have always given my partner a lot of space-- I really believe in space for both people in the realtionship-- yet I am very invested and caring in other people. If anybody's ever smart enough to realize who I am, he'll be a lucky guy. (Gee, guess the self-esteem is doing a little better today!)
| | Mood: | Mood Now: ( Reading ) Post Mood: ( Reading ) |
Hubbabubba
Offline
13 posts
Reply
| |
Re: Co-Dependancy ( 11:21:35 SunJan 18 2004 ) | |
Whoa, sounds to me as though people are trying to say its fine to label others as something but sure as heck don't label me. I've seen this in some other community discussions as well. Kind of strange.
I wonder why people have such strong issues about accepting how they empower something like NPD. I have had at least two relationships with men who are NPD. That says something about me, don't you think. No, I don't believe the NPDers are out there targeting prey. I do think they look for relationships that meet something of their needs, much in the same way that we do.
| | Mood: | |
Balbrenny
Offline
444 posts
Mood Now:
Post Mood:
Reply
| |
Re: Co-Dependancy ( 13:55:53 SunJan 18 2004 ) | |
Hubba, I don't think that is what people are saying at all in this thread. But I do believe that some of the labels that are used in the mental health community are gender-biased. Until the last century, women in the western world did not even have the vote (apart from in Australia and New Zealand, as far as I know) and in Britain could not own property in their own name - it had to be held in trust for them by a male relative. Their husbands had the legal right to beat them if they were disobedient. Women were taught that their very existence depended on males. They were expected to obey their fathers and then their husbands - they had no say in their own lives (apart from a few notable exceptions). They were taught to be totally dependant on men. Until WW1, married women were discouraged from entering the paid workforce and men were ashamed of having a wife who went out to work. The laws may have changed but many girls are still taught from an early age to be dependant on men. When I was growing up in the 1950s, boys were taught to focus on their careers and girls were taught to focus on being a wife and a mother - that was their role in life - to take care of others - to be needed by others. They were taught, by female relatives and popular literature, strategies for 'keeping their men happy' including praising them and never, ever telling them they were wrong. I could not get into the University course that I wanted to do (Vet science) because the female intake, in 1971, was limited to 9% of the total intake because it was not considered a suitable career for women. At that time, the general consensus in Britain was that it was a waste of time for a woman to go to Uni because she should be concentrating on finding a husband and having babies. Until 40 years ago or less in the UK a man had the legal right to demand sex from his wife anytime he liked - there was no legal charge of rape when a man forced his wife to have sex. So what does that mean in terms of how women have been taught to relate to their husbands? A woman had to subdue her own feelings and conform to her husband, even about something as basic as sex. In order to have her own basic needs of food, shelter and physical safety met, she needed to keep her husband happy. People do not start to think about other things until those needs have been met and the only way a woman could do that respectably was to find a husband and keep him. Many of the patterns and characteristics of codependancy that are found at the Codependents Anonymous site are ones that I can honestly say I was, as a child, taught were the proper characteristics for a 'good, caring woman' to have. And not by my family but by cultural and social norms and standards. Personally, I do not have a problem with being labelled - I have had the label of bipolar for 20 years and have been under psychiatric care on and off for a good part of that time. I have explored codependancy issues extensively with 3 psychiatrists and they have each told me that I am not codependent. But I am a warm, caring person who genuinely likes people and who gets joy from making others happy. If my type of personality attracts people with NPD or any other problem, because they can sense my caring, then that does not make me codependent. If I stayed in a relationship with somebody who had NPD because I could see the good in them and because I believe that there is a commitment that goes with having children with someone, then that does not make me codependent. If I did not jump up and down screaming about how my needs were not being met but instead concentrated on meeting the needs of my children and my spouse, I was only doing what women have been taught to do for generations. I'm not denying that the relationship would empower NPD - a person with NPD would probably not stay in a relationship unless s/he was getting their needs met. But I do believe that it is a sad reflection on our society when people who place importance on relationships and who like to take care of others are labelled as as 'codependent' and made to feel that there is something wrong with them. Take care Linda
| | Mood: | Mood Now: ( Optimistic ) Post Mood: ( Optimistic ) |
hestia
Offline
423 posts
Mood Now:
Post Mood:
Reply
| |
Re: Co-Dependancy ( 14:03:54 SunJan 18 2004 ) | |
Hubba, I don't think folks with NPD are targeting prey either. We're all (and by this I mean all human beings) just trying to survive. And sometimes those coping mechanisms hook up in really dysfunctional ways. But I do think there is a gender bias out there, just as there are biases about class, race, and sexual orientation. As for my evolutionary ramblings... Who knows? Too much serotonin? Too much caffeine?
I agree with you about labels. And yet to a certain extent being able to name something gives you power over it. So while I don't label myself co-dependent, I'm also clear I have a toolbox of co-dependent coping mechanisms, some of which are really self-defeating. That label helps me stop and go, ok, is this a dysfunctional coping mechanism from my family? from my culture? or is this something congruent with my deepest values, something I should stick with no matter how it might appear to others? I think the same goes for the NPD label. However, I don't know if the gender bias applies. Maybe it does, but with an opposite sort of affect, as in, maybe our culture supports NPD type behavior in men and thus makes it harder for people to root out these tendencies in themselves. There I go again, and I haven't even had any coffee yet!
| | Mood: | Mood Now: ( Reading ) Post Mood: ( Reading ) |
Can't start a new thread. (Host Only)Can't start a new poll. (Host Only)Can't add a reply. (Host Only)Can't edit your posts.(Everyone Registered)Total Friends of Narcissus: 3951
Can't start a new thread. (Host Only)Can't start a new poll. (Host Only)Can't add a reply. (Host Only)Can't edit your posts.(Everyone Registered) | Register :: Log In :: Steering Committee
The time is now 19:41:07 Thu May 23 2013
|
Powered By BbBoard V1.4.2
© 2001-2007 BbBoy.net |
Community created
3.10.2003
|
