> Dear Ellie
> Thank you for your excellent explanation and wise words on co-dependency.
> My regard for you becomes greater every day. You truly are a very wise
> person, a rare gem in this strange world. Your response helped me a lot,
> and confirmed what I realized just last night: my current relationship with
> my girlfriend is a co-dependent relationship. With her I re-live my
> relationship with my parents, in VERY many ways. And I agree with you: It
> is as an opportunity to understand, and deal with, my dysfunctional
> relationship with my parents.
>
> I have a question though: How do I best deal with being co-dependent. Do I
> only need to identify connections to my past and redirect anger towards my
> past abusers, or is there more to it? How do I best deal with this
> situation?
>
> Thank you very, very, very, very much. I am very grateful to you. You bring
> tears to my eyes.
> Love,

Frank

Dear Frank,
You bring tears to MY eyes because of your progress with this, but please don't
give me all this credit. This understanding of the biology was a gift from my
higher power and I'm someone who found it speeded my recovery. I make lots of
mistakes in trying to convey this to others and I learn from all of you. I know
from what you have written that you have probably done the major work of
releasing repressed anger (you may be post-flood by my definition i.e. about
95% of the anger related to earlier trauma is gone), BUT there is lingering
anger (and grief) that will come out over the next year, after which you will
no longer be co-dependent and I hope your relationship will be smoother. Some of
my co-dependent relationships ended, others lasted and became much healthier. I
wouldn't worry about the concept of co-dependency, but just
recognize it as the lingering but basic addiction that will be virtually gone
when the muddy basin period is over. And yes, you said it when you wrote:

"need to identify connections to my past and redirect anger towards my past
abusers"

This is exactly what I did. When someone rejected me, if my anger was intense,
I recognized it as a mix of old and new, and did some pounding on the bed or
just mentally redirected anger. If I was paranoid about something someone said,
same thing. If I felt fearful about confronting someone, I knew the fear was a
signal of underlying anger and did some more redirecting. In time the anger was
less and less a mix of old and new and more to do with the current interaction.
Now I can confront someone in a current situation if necessary without fear.
Remember not to suppress anger in current interactions even when it becomes
mild and not mixed with anger from old trauma, because you can reclog.

Ellie

>

>
>



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Self help for depression is on:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~clearpathway
The same article entitled Self help for addictions is on:
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Sauna/2579
The longer version entitled Self help for emotional disorders is on:
http://pages.nyu.edu/~er26