In a war soldiers have to deny what it feels like to see friends killed and
maimed; what it feels like to kill other human beings and have them attempting
to kill you. There is trauma caused by the events themselves. There is trauma
due to the necessity of denying the emotional impact of the events. There is
trauma from the effects the emotional denial has on the person's life after
he/she has returned from the war because as long is the person is denying
his/her
emotional trauma she/he is denying a part of her/himself.

The stress caused by the trauma, and the effect of denying the trauma, by
denying self, eventually surfaces in ways which produce new trauma - anxiety,
alcohol and drug abuse, nightmares, uncontrollable rage, inability to maintain
relationships, inability to hold jobs, suicide, etc. 

Codependence is a form of Delayed Stress Syndrome. 

Instead of blood and death (although some do experience blood and death
literally), what happened to us as children was spiritual death and emotional
maiming, mental torture and physical violation. We were forced to grow up
denying
the reality of what was happening in our homes. We were forced to deny our
feelings about what we were experiencing and seeing and sensing. We were forced
to
deny our selves. 

We grew up having to deny the emotional reality: of parental alcoholism,
addiction, mental illness, rage, violence, depression, abandonment, betrayal,
deprivation, neglect, incest, etc. etc.; of our parents fighting or the
underlying
tension and anger because they weren't being honest enough to fight; of dad's
ignoring us because of his workaholism and/or mom smothering us because she
had no other identity than being a mother; of the abuse that one parent heaped
on another who wouldn't defend him/herself and/or the abuse we received from
one of our parents while the other wouldn't defend us; of having only one
parent or of having two parents who stayed together and shouldn't have; etc.,
etc. 


We grew up with messages like: children should be seen and not heard; big
boys don't cry and little ladies don't get angry; it is not okay to be angry at
someone you love - especially your parents; god loves you but will send you to
burn in hell forever if you touch your shameful private parts; don't make
noise or run or in any way be a normal child; do not make mistakes or do
anything
wrong; etc., etc. 

We were born into the middle of a war where our sense of self was battered
and fractured and broken into pieces. We grew up in the middle of battlefields
where our beings were discounted, our perceptions invalidated, and our feelings
ignored and nullified. 

The war we were born into, the battlefield each of us grew up in, was not in
some foreign country against some identified "enemy" - it was in the "homes"
which were supposed to be our safe haven with our parents whom we Loved and
trusted to take care of us. It was not for a year or two or three - it was for
sixteen or seventeen or eighteen years. 

We experienced what is called "sanctuary trauma" - our safest place to be was
not safe - and we experienced it on a daily basis for years and years. Some
of the greatest damage was done to us in subtle ways on a daily basis because
our sanctuary was a battlefield. 

It was not a battlefield because our parents were wrong or bad - it was a
battlefield because they were at war within, because they were born into the
middle of a war. By doing our healing we are becoming the emotionally honest
role
models that our parents never had the chance to be. Through being in Recovery
we are helping to break the cycles of self-destructive behavior that have
dictated human existence for thousands of years. 

Codependence is a very vicious and powerful form of Delayed Stress Syndrome.
The trauma of feeling like we were not safe in our own homes makes it very
difficult to feel like we are safe anywhere. Feeling like we were not lovable to
our own parents makes it very difficult to believe that anyone can Love us. 

Codependence is being at war with ourselves - which makes it impossible to
trust and Love ourselves. Codependence is denying parts of ourselves so that we
do not know who we are. 

Recovery from the disease of Codependence involves stopping the war within so
that we can get in touch with our True Self, so that we can start to Love and
trust ourselves.


Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls
by Robert Burney, therapist




HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

From ghoulies and ghosties
And long-leggedy beasties
And things that go bump in the night,
Good Lord, deliver us!
~Scottish Saying


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