Codependent Crazy Thinking: "I'll Scratch Your Back If You Scratch Mine" and We'll Both Make Each Other Forever Happy!

 

Prior to recovery, I never thought I could be someone who made ME happy. How can someone who thinks he/she is a complete loser-- because they are so wounded deep down inside-- provide happiness for themselves? Impossible. The thought that I could be the "someone" who was going to make me happy never occurred to me.

No. That was someone else's job. It was my job to find that person who was going to rescue me from my self-hatred and make me happy. Of course, everyone I ever assigned that job to failed miserably. Now, I know that it wasn't their job to make me happy. But back in the heyday of my codependent crazies, I had no clue-- no matter how many people failed to make me happy. I'd just lick my wounds and then go hunting for someone else to be responsible for making me loveable.

Of course, I believed that I was also responsible for making them feel loveable and happy. The old cliche "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" fits an active codependent perfectly. I'll love you so you'll believe your loveable and then you'll be happy; and you'll love me until I believe I'm loveable, and then I'll be happy. Yes, magically, we'll live happily ever after once we've fixed each other! NOT!

 Looking back, it's funny how I never put 2 + 2 together. No matter how much someone loved me, it was never enough for me to love myself. I still felt bad about me. I felt anxious and desperate that at any moment I would say or do the one thing that was going to suddenly make me unloveable to them. So I lived on pins and needles fearing the day that I'd make the big mistake and they'd abandon me. 

How can you be happy living on pins and needles-- 24/7? You can't. Recovery has taught me that I have to first love and be happy with myself. No one else can do it. It's impossible for someone to love me into loving me, or for me to love that person into loving themselves. 

Caretaking (scratching each others backs) might earn some cheap thrills and momentary happiness, but ultimately our depraved thinking about ourselves is going to ruin that happiness. I've never met a codependent who has allowed themselves to be happy for an extended period of time, much less "happily ever after." 

We destroy our own happiness with our own negative thoughts about ourselves. No one can fix that but us. As long as we are cruelly unloving to ourselves in our daily thoughts, we won't find anyone who can even complement our happiness. Think about it: We do have to be happy first in order to find someone who can compliment our happiness, right?

We have to be responsible for our thoughts. We have to choose to think loving, good thoughts about ourselves-- while allowing our Higher Power to help us. Eventually, if we transform our negative thinking into positive, we will BE the person who makes us happy. And then we will meet people who complement our happiness. And life won't be perfect, but it will be much better.


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