The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
It may seem a really odd question to ask however I ask it all the same.
Is stepping back the same as detaching? I have found myself looking closely at how I manage relationships of late and wondering why I do certain things, how I react to other peoples needs and the responses I make before assessing whether or not I have what it take to give what I give, do what I do, or take on what I offer, or am volunteered by others, to do.
I realise a part of me, only a tiny part now compared with a couple of years ago, needs to be fed by the feeling of being needed; however I feel that I am progressing here in a much healthier manner and I am looking and listening and thinking and assessing before I act, or speak or agree to being volunteered anymore.
As a result I feel that I am stepping back more than detaching myself as I do not feel that I am cutting myself off from others [as detachment seems more to imply]; I am simply learning not to make myself so readily available.
My stamina is taking a long time to build up this year particularly after the last two very bad winters I have grappled with, and my strength and energy are not returning as quickly as they used to do a few years ago. Maybe the last ten years of repeated surgery and illness and lowered immune system problems are taking their toll and at last my brain is grasping the fact that I need to look after myself first and not put myself last as I have done for the last 40 years of my life.
Even as a child I always suppressed my needs and wants for the needs and wants of my twin...now it seems my brain is telling me that I cannot go on like this after the life I have led and the abuse I have endured.
Meantime, detaching seems to be so cut and dried. May be that is why I am still holding on to the stepping back rather than detaching. Maybe I DO need to detach even if it does sound more cut and dried than the act of stepping back...this seems easier for my brain to take on board and feels less permanently negative. If I step back I can at some stage step forward again. If I detach it might not be possible to attach again...or maybe that is what I should be looking at...if I detach is that healthier in that attaching will only take me back into that spider's web again?
Any ideas, opinions, feelings on this? Over to you family.
With love Suzannah
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Out of the ruin of my past I have found the fortress of myself and I know how to defend it.
Strive for WISDOM; Seek SERENITY; NEVER compromise your INTEGRITY.
Wow, Suzannah, That is a great question. And I do not know how to answer it, but I will be watching here to see the responses you get. I think it is great that you are beginning to consider your own well being as important. I love this board; the questions help me as well as the answers. Hugs,
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It's easy to be graceful until someone steals your cornbread. --Gray Charles
"Even as a child I always suppressed my needs and wants for the needs and wants of my twin...now it seems my brain is telling me that I cannot go on like this after the life I have led and the abuse I have endured." -Suzannah
It is fantastic awareness to see that you have some codependent tendencies that need to be fed and that u now have the boundary to say "No" & not automatically be volunteering.
In reference to your quote up there, I say ~ focus on you & keep practising until you can focus on you easily. I spent 36 years of my life not focusing on me & I was neutoric, dysfunctional, depressed. Once I began to just focus on me & discover self love, I stopped looking out to others to fill me up. I was getting filled up from within & all the desperate outwardly clingy codependnet stuff diminished. I still have issues - but they subsided greatly by me focuisng on me & getting validation from within.
I also had to give myself permission to be happy again (in general) and that it was okay for me to not go on the emotional roller coaster my loved ones were on. Since I wasnt doing the emotional trip/ride, I found I was albe to be much more supportive for them. I am empathetic & compassionate but I'm not feeling it with them - I have some inner emotional boundaries.
It's very good to step back & be objective... I think stepping back may very well be a part of detaching but detaching is nothing negative. All detaching with love means... we step back from our loved one's issues, inventory & emotionalism. We all get to deal with our own feelings. For me attachment is about being emotionally enmeshed in the "soup/energy" of other's. Detachment has allowed me to have serenity emotionally & be loving & supportive for others. For me this has all been part of the process of my recovery.
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Light, Love, Peace, Blessings & Healing to Us All. God's Will Be Done. Amen.
I do not see detachment as "cutting off folks" i see it as "hey this is YOUR responsiblity, I am letting YOU deal with your own stuff"..........that is detachment or part of it, other parts, not getting caught up in their anger or other emotions......detachment is realizing "this is where I end and YOU start".......
detachment is letting the other reap what they sow w/out you interferring or getting all in a "wad" about their mis-deeds...
also, like in the meets. we listen with LOVING detachment to the other's shares....we care, but we only give our expereince and strength and hope, allowing the other to work out their own stuff........IF they are capable
it breaks my heat when someone approaches me with a genuine need and they cannot help themselves....they just are in capable.....i still have to "detach" emotionally b/c if i am powerless to help them help themselves, what good does it do to get all twisted up over it??? so, i pray for them....hold them while they cry....try to come up w/suggestions for them to work on......yea, if someone is helpless and i can't do anything other than support them, yea, it hurts, but i still have to detach in a way b/c i can let "their stuff" bring me down if i do not....being detached wiht love and concern is a better way for me to a....take care of me......b...give what little help i can
stepping back, I call it stepping aside.........i do that when its time to work step 3.....like i am in over my head.....cannot do a thing about a situation and so i "step aside" and give it over to my higher power......also it goes w/detachment in that I am LETTING IT GO............taking MY hands off so HP's hands can come on....
the two actions are closely related to me....... they both mean "letting go" taking my hands OFF what is not my business or power to take care of
if it is outside of me?? chances are i am going to be powerless..........so detachment/letting go is the best thing to do
stepping back , to me, is to back off.......regroup........re-think something.....like feel my feelings first.....get the emotions under control, by feeling them and to step back.......maybe write down the situation in a journal.....lay it on a trusted recovery mate and maybe come up w/a diferent approach even if it ends up my having to DETACH
"Even as a child I always suppressed my needs and wants for the needs and wants of my twin...now it seems my brain is telling me that I cannot go on like this after the life I have led and the abuse I have endured." -Suzannah
### I saw this too....suppressing your needs and wants for the needs and wants of your twin......that is coda to me.....losing myself becoming enmeshed w/another to the point where MY needs and wants are forsaken....
our maker did not intend for us to forsake ourselves for another.....we are to take care of OUR needs first so we can SHARE the love we give to ourselves with others....... a healthy person, knows and embraces their *separateness*...even in a marriage.....the people are "joined at the flesh" but their souls are separate....he has his friends and activities, she has hers.......and he has his own job, she has hers, even if it is charity work......we have to have our separateness to be able to set proper boundaries, like "ok, I will help you with this out of pure love in my heart" AFTER my needs are met.....
i am responsible for me.......the other is responsible for them....and through this program i have learned that what is my responsibility and what is not AND--- i can allow another to experience the lessons they need to learn to grow....
i know what you mean by forsaking your needs/wants b/c i did the same thing....as a child i was forced to take care of others needs as i was just an object...to be used and abused......growing up i had no clue as to boundaries.....what I wanted........what I needed.......working step 4 cleared that up for me.............NOW the healthier me, says "gee i need my money to pay my bills, i know it is tough right now, but i just can't do it"...............or or if a person wants me to do a favor for them that is just not feasible, I can say "i know you need help and i am sorry your feeing angry at my having to say no, but i just cannot"...
i gently let them know that their anger is theirs, not mine, and that i am not responsible for their needs.......i am becoming less coda b/c now when i give it is out of my HEART.......not obligation......if i am *compliant* then i am CODA.....if i am joyfully giving b/c i want to, then I am healthy and not expecting any return from the other....i just do it out of love.....
As a twin, the elder too and the one who was clever, quick, and apparently more able, my mother drummed it in to me, along with my school teachers and my father that I had to put my slower, weaker, less able twin first.
That was what I was taught right from the beginning and it was only when I stayed on at school at the age of 16 that I realised that I was ONE WHOLE PERSON who had a life to lead apart from my twin.
Wow was that painful and difficult and as I progressed I felt guilty that I was more able, and going in a different direction to my twin, silly though 'cos I could never make my parents proud or notice me - they were too fixed on my twin, but I had been taught that it was selfish to expect my needs to be put first when my sister was ailing or so less able.
It was years after that I learned - well two weeks before my mother died that she told me she was proud of me and what I did and told me she was sorry for the millstone she felt she had hung around my neck all these years by letting my twin manipulate her to keep the focus on her.
Well, that was just five years ago and it came as a shock, and I never felt as though I was forsaking me until she told me that she gave into my twin time and time again over my wants and needs. What my twin wanted came first and I just naturally fell into line. After all, I was the lucky one.
Hmmm, Rosie, I never never realised this was codependent behaviour until you responded.
I think this is going to need me to look more closely at the dysfunction that I have been taught from birth.
Thank you. Suz
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Out of the ruin of my past I have found the fortress of myself and I know how to defend it.
Strive for WISDOM; Seek SERENITY; NEVER compromise your INTEGRITY.
I think my compassion can actually be improved by detaching. Some of that includes compassion for myself as well as others. I am certainly a very very generous person and no longer feel as burdened by that quality as I used to when I over gave.
I certainly believe stepping back can be one part of detaching.
I am glad you are willing to look after yourself now. I believe its never too late to change.
