I’LL DO ANYTHING
to keep you happy! 

PREVIOUS: Co-Dep Angry-Nice UNDERPINNINGS (#2)

BOOK: “Deceived” by Claudia Black, includes 3 types of anger

Co-dependence UNDERPINNINGS (cont)
YOU HAVE:
• Filters – you weed out anything positive about yourself,  your actual accomplishments, positive opportunities….. including the people who actually do recognize value in you, who are willing to help you help yourself…..

• X-ray vision –  inside your personal Fun House, you’re looking into the eyes of everyone else trying to see who you are, but only seeing other people or distorted versions of yourself thru their eyes

• Fuzz – like a grey TV screen – whenever extreme terror shuts down your frontal cortex, i.e.. the ability to think at all, OR just that familiar vagueness that comes over you, especially when it’s for your own benefit. Your favorite phrase is: “I’m overwhelmed”. It’s easier to vegg out with favorite distractions than admit what you really feel & need

• Magical thinking – you’re sure you have the ‘love’ & the will to fix broken people, & sure you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart.  But actually – it’s to make them well enough to give you all the things you want for yourself but don’t have a right to get directly

• Mommy Issues – careening thru life looking to finally be rescued & taken care of, secretly scanning everyone you interact with: “Are you my mommy? – Are you my mommy?” Even if you think you only have Daddy issues (yes, they may be very real too), you still needed a strong, healthy mother back then, & where was she???

• Nose – even in a room full of ‘normal’ people, if there’s one sick or needy person, you’ll ferret them out to latch on to or seduce – whichever works – to be their savior, in spite of feeling barely a few inches higher off the ground than them yourself, so you can feel a tiny bit less unlovable. Or because you assume none of the others would want to be with you??

• Pitch Fever – frantic to get everything done you’ve committed to, exhausted but never wanting to disappoint anyone, rushing from one task to the next, & feeling guilty for even thinking you need a break!

• Reverse logic – getting the Serenity Prayer backwards. Instead of: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can & the wisdom to know the difference”, you compulsive try to do the impossible & keep putting off the things you really can do

• Walls – in spite of a desperate need to connect, you’re so terrified of intimacy that you compulsively pick emotionally unavailable friends, mated, jobs…. their harmful patterns keeping you at arm’s length, to guarantee that no one gets too close. If they did, they’d ‘find out’ how worthless you are – according to the PP in your head!

NEXT: Negative results – Intro