Soulshine

“Say you'll share with   me one   love, one lifetime...   Lead me, save me   from my solitude... Say you want me   with you,   here beside you...   Anywhere you go   let me go too -   Christine   that's all I ask of you” The Phantom , Phantom of the Opera I saw the new Broadway rendition of Phantom of the Opera last night. I always find myself initially pulling for Raoul, while empathizing with the Phantom. And it’s my empathy for the Phantom that eventually leads me to pull for him toward the end, even though I already know what the outcome will be. I realized last night that my primary reason for empathizing with the Phantom is that his story parallels my own. Since my teenage years, I’ve always seen myself as hideous to look at. This started when I developed a horrible case of teen acne that literally ravaged my face and left it terribly scarred. Coupled with my ever-growing codependency, I had little hope...

“Folks who have no vices have few virtues.” Abraham Lincoln We all know people who have no vices, or rather, who pretend to have no vices. These people tend to be self-righteous, overly-critical and extremely judgmental. These are their key defense mechanisms. And these defense mechanisms are necessary because they mask the fact that these Fake Saints do indeed have vices. Many addicts can identify with being a Fake Saint in one way or another because addiction causes us to cover our tracks through deceit. Codependents, especially those who are accommodators, are usually guilty of being Fake Saints. As Darlene Lancer notes in Conquering Shame and Codependency , “Because love is the highest ideal, an Accommodator strives to be a loving, lovable, charitable and selfless do-gooder—someone flawlessly noble and compassionate.” In other words, codependent accommodators project a false self-image in order to earn their highest ideal—love. Prior to recovery, and even s...

Last night I was watching Scared Shrekless . The first “horror” story in this Halloween movie is called “The Bride of Gingy.” And Gingy’s bride is nothing short of an overly-clingy codependent nightmare. If you are familiar with the Shrek movies, you know that Gingy is the gingerbread man. In “The Bride of Gingy,” Gingy goes to see the village baker because he is lonely and wants a sweetheart of his own. So the village baker agrees to make a gingerbread girl for Gingy. As the baker begins to mix-in the proper amount of sugar, according to his recipe, Gingy insists that the baker include 10 times more sugar than the recipe calls for using. He wants his bride to be truly sweet. Within a short time, Gingy meets his dream girl, Sugar. Suddenly we see them skipping hand in hand through flower-filled fields while the song “Happy Together” by The Turtles plays in the background. But “happily ever after” is not how this story ends. Next we see Gingy and Sugar together in his gin...

My CODA group is currently reading the book Conquer ing Shame and Codependency by Darlene Lancer. Recently one of the members mentioned to me that he found the book difficult to read. I believe I understand where he was coming from, although he may not yet understand that fact about what’s going on inside of himself. Often times when we find a recovery book 1) doesn’t resonate with us, or 2) is difficult to read, it is a clue as to what is really going on inside of us subconsciously. I believe in both of these instances, our denial is being unearthed and disturbed. When a recovery book doesn’t resonate with us at all, we are most likely so bound-up by our denial that the book seems totally foreign to us. We say to ourselves, “Well, this isn’t me at all” as we read about the fact that codependents engage in caretaking and other manipulative behaviors. So we put the book aside and allow it to gather dust. This has been the beginning of the story for many people who I have talked w...

Be-You-tiful: It’s the only way to be. I was watching an episode of Will & Grace last night. It was set at Thanksgiving. Will is hosting Thanksgiving dinner and he’s invited Grace, Karen and Jack. He also has a surprise dinner-guest: Jack’s mother. When Jack finds out his mother is coming to dinner, he freaks. Afterwards, Will and Grace learn that Jack has never told his mother he’s gay. For 30 years, Jack’s mom has been living in a fantasy-like world where she simply ignored all of the obvious clues that her son is gay. And Jack played along with her. Why? Because Jack believed he couldn’t be beautiful in her eyes as a gay man. He was afraid of being rejected and abandoned by her if she knew the truth. And so, as a result, Jack was never able to be “be-You-tiful,” or his true beautiful self, around his mother. Many of us have lived our lives for way too long with the same sort of terrible fear that plagues Jack in this episode of Will & Grace . We’ve exhausted o...