Growing Past Pain and Chaos
According to author Rita Mae Brown “a controller doesn’t trust his/her ability to live through the pain and chaos of life.” Brown then goes on to say that “there is no life without pain just as there is no art without submitting to chaos.” Anyone who has ever suffered from codependency knows the fear of facing pain and chaos. And we codependents certainly do a masterful job of trying to control life in regards to emotional pain and daily chaos. My question, however, is this: Do we try to control life to avoid chaos and the pain it causes, or do we try to control life to ensure chaos and the pain it causes? I think we are often trapped between both the need to avoid and the need to create chaos and pain. After all, many codependents willfully choose to engage in relationships with people who are toxic for them. We invite chaos and pain into our lives based in our need to repeat the childhood patterns of chaos and pain that we are so familiar with. And yet once we have...