Soulshine

Manipulation : to control or play-upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means, especially to one's own advantage; to force change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one's purpose. Every codependent is familiar with manipulation. We have all engaged in manipulative behavior for the express purpose of getting from others what we were not willing to give to ourselves—namely love. In fact, for the non-recovering codependent or addict, manipulation becomes a way of life, a survival skill. We need to be needed or loved and so we engage in manipulative behaviors, like people-pleasing and caretaking. We falsify how we really feel about this or that in order to please (manipulate) someone into loving us. We bend over backwards to meet the needs of another person, not because we truly love and care about him/her, but because we want to manipulate him/her into appreciating us and making us feel good about ourselves. But there are other forms of manipulation that we,...

I don’t know who I am. I’ve lived (existed) so many years, walked so many miles in my own shoes, and yet, I don’t really know who lives (hides) deep inside of my body, my heart, my brain. It scares me to realize and to admit this. Even worse is the fact that I don’t know how to really discover, connect with and begin to understand me. I’m 17 years into codependent recovery, and yes things are better. The real me has floated to the surface in magnificent ways. I speak-up more, say what I believe and feel, and allow myself to be goofy and humorous. I’ve even rediscovered the great singing voice I had as a child. And I give myself credit for all of this. I also understand that I was a people-pleaser, a caretaker and a fader (someone who constantly fades into another person to find a sense of value or purpose, or to simply escape from themselves.) I don’t people-please anymore. I don’t care-take anymore. But I do still have a tendency to want to fade into someone else. I stil...