Until such a time as you can make room for these frustrations, there will be a sense of despair and anger every time there is a conflict. You will tend to see your partner as a source of frustration, as the source of your unhappiness. And vice versa. As a result, there will be a lot of blame and finger-pointing.
Codependence implies a lack of assertion. Whereas, if a woman asserts her opinions, needs, or rights to a controlling man, he could then engage in more or worse abuse to stamp out her assertiveness. It may, therefore, be dangerous for a psychologist to coach a woman to assertively stand up to her partner. Anyone wishing to help such a woman should respect her reasoning for not asserting herself.
Anger CO-DEPENDENCE (Part 1)
Panel A: Interaction between Treatment Condition with during-treatment change in trait anger on posttreatment drinking problems. Panel B: Interaction between Treatment Condition with end-of-treatment AA attendance on posttreatment drinks per drinking day. Panel C: Interaction between Treatment Condition with end-of-treatment AA attendance on posttreatment adverse alcohol consequences.
Physicians who decide to prescribe controlled substances to patients with addictions should be aware that they may be drawn into the patient's own system of denial.12 The physician should pay attention to any atypical emotional responses in himself or herself. These include anger, guilt, wish to disengage, pity, revulsion and other emotions that diverge from their usual experiences of confidence and empathy in patient interactions.
But anger that is allowed to control us and to grow in our hearts without a redemptive protocol eventually becomes dominant. It in essence swallows up all other emotions. Anger can bring us into dark and terrifying places. It can imprint an angry identity over our lives where we become back-biting, critical, hateful, ornery, hardened and potentially violent people.
While anger looks and feels stand-alone, it is not. It is driven by an initial emotion that oftentimes is hidden and buried deep behind the anger. Those raw emotions are what we try to avoid, but they are what need to be exposed.
Hopefully, the relationship with your loved one is far more meaningful than the simplicity of what I’m going to say next, so bear with me. In terms of the essence of co-dependence in communication with your loved one, a reason your loved one may need you is for your good hearing, and one reason you may need him is that it fulfills a purpose in you that may tie in with your need to feel good about yourself. By your action in helping him hear, it can make you both feel better, but it will never solve the underlying problem of him hearing better. If you have half a heart, it’s human nature to want to pitch in and assist somebody in need. However, in this case, as alluded to earlier, you are perpetuating the problem. In fact, it’s worth restating: you are part of the problem! Now don’t throw this book down in disgust because I’m picking on you. Examine your relationship to recognize if what I’m saying applies to you, then do something about it.
Co-dependence has been applied to a wide variety of healthcare issues far beyond the scope of hearing loss. The concept of co-dependence really developed in an effort to understand the role of the spouse or family member in relation to the alcoholic. For our purposes, this means that the hearing spouse enables the hard-of-hearing spouse (that is, facilitates the problem) by interceding and covering up the problem so that everything appears to be fine to the outside world. The hallmark of a co-dependent is that need to look good to the world at large. Sound familiar?
One of the more common emotions you may have noted in this questionnaire was resentment. It is closely tied to anger and together is the most common emotion a person will experience with a hard-of-hearing loved one who does nothing about the hearing loss. First you resent the action you must take on behalf of your loved one. Then you get mad at yourself for taking that action (like continually repeating yourself). Then you express this anger directly at your loved one! In the meantime, your loved one has no idea from where this tornado came. All these incidents can silently gather within you and can eventually culminate in your own rage and anger.
In your present search for help by reading this book, you’re on a path to break this vicious damaging cycle. The early stage of co-dependence with hearing loss is merely reaching out to help your loved one hear better. This starts quite innocently, but eventually gets to a point of habitual self-defeating coping mechanisms. Ultimately, as a co-dependent, you try to control more and more of your loved one’s hearing needs because “He may miss something” or “because you love him” and “That’s what a good _____ [wife, daughter, son, spouse, friend] does.” As a result, your loved one comes to depend more and more on you without developing the need to seek professional help. In fact, why should he? It’s perfect the way it is.
Some could say, “I don’t mind having to do this.” This certainly seems selfless and altruistic, but if your loved one can be helped through hearing aids, this is classic co-dependence. It will never solve the core problem of having your loved one hear better on his own, at family gatherings, at work, on the telephone, during leisure moments without you, and so forth. You should stop being his ears unless he either cannot be helped with hearing aids or wears hearing aids and still needs the extra hearing clarification you provide.
Conversely, you cannot live in a vacuum completely devoid of the influences of co-dependence, nor is that our goal here. That is, you have to be involved in your loved one’s quest for better hearing, but cautious that you do not overstep your boundaries or his, making yourself solely responsible for him acknowledging the problem and seeking help.
Failed Action (includes): • Stubbornness • Negative Attitude • Control Issues • Passive-Aggressive BehaviorExamples of Failed Action: • Insisted on hearing aids not recommended and now cannot hear with them (may be stubbornness). • Purchased hearing aids but he won’t wear them (stubbornness). • Purchased hearing aids only to prove they cannot work for him (may be a negative attitude). • Purchased hearing aids, but turns them off most of the time while wearing them (may be a control issue). • Purchased hearing aids but only wears them when he wants to, not when he always needs to (may be a control issue or passive-aggressive behavior).Ten Steps to Your Loved One’s Independent Hearing Now that you have a better understanding of co-dependence, it’s time to address independence. There are 10 easy steps to help you resolve the dilemma of co-dependency by recognizing the simple and practical guidelines for your loved one’s independent hearing. These steps basically unravel your co-dependency. While the following can apply to both of you, you cannot snag him into this issue as long as he remains resistant to hearing help. Therefore, these points apply only to you for the time being:
Well, let's see. What are some of the things I do that make others angry with me. I show them disrespect by interrupting them when they are talking, I point out their faults and failures, I get angry with them ... Yes, there are many things I've done that make others angry at me. When I am counseling, I can do some of them without my client feeling anger. They seem to expect me to point out their short-comings. In my years of counseling, very few clients have ever reported feeling angry with me.
Don't get me wrong. I don't believe that my mistakes justify an angry outburst on Joyce's part. She needs to protect me from her abusive behavior just as I need to protect her from mine. But if she feels anger toward me, I have done something that has annoyed or offended her, and should try to avoid it if I can. Another "yes" if it applies to Joyce, and a qualified "yes" regarding most other people.
I'm one of those odd ducks that don't experience fear very often, so my answer to this one is also, "no." But I should add that people's anger does influence me, especially when it's Joyce's anger. But it is not fear that I experience, rather sadness that I did something to disappoint her.
We provide intensive outpatient (IOP) and outpatient (OP) counseling services, including day and evening group counseling, as well as individual/family sessions, for substance-related conditions. Group sessions deliver a comprehensive and in-depth approach for those in need of a recovery path for chemical dependence, co-dependence, adult children, emotional regulation / anger management, as well as those affected families, couples, etc.
Someone who is codependent feels that they need to step in and clean up any messes the other person gets themself into. They will make excuses, try to bail the person out of jail, and feel that if they can make the person happy, they will stop drinking or be able to control their anger better.
Many people with codependent traits have underlying chronic anger. The anger may be from feeling that past treatment was unfair, but often the anger is directed at both the person who the codependent person feels responsible for, as well as toward themselves.
The codependent person may feel that they aren't strong enough or good enough because the other person isn't responding to their efforts to be fixed. They also feel anger towards the person because, subconsciously, the codependent person feels taken advantage of.
Often, they feel that they are giving everything they have, and the other person doesn't notice just how much they are trying to help. This helps play into the chronic anger mentioned earlier. Yet, the codependent person responds, not by leaving, but by digging down even deeper and trying to give more. 2ff7e9595c
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