Soulshine

It may be a recovery cliche, but it is certainly true: Codependent people do not make friends, or lovers, they take hostages. Whenever we experience that truly needy feeling, that desperate desire to cling to someone, to have ALL of their attention, we have taken them hostage in our minds and hearts. This is when we need to find our way out of the fog by surrendering to our Higher Power and by attending a CODA or Al-Anon meeting. The spirit we experience within the group will help to bring us back to mental and emotional balance, to sanity.

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...

“Love says, ‘I love you no matter what.’ Love says, ‘You’re fine the way you are.’ …If you think he’s supposed to be different From what he is, you don’t love him. In that Moment you love what he’s going to be when You’re through manipulating him. He is a throwaway Until he matches your image of him.” Byron Katie, A Friendly Universe Codependents like to remake/remodel people in their own image and likeness. We attach ourselves to people we believe we can fix, or manipulate into being what we want them to be. We are never in love with the person just as he or she is. We are infatuated with what we can make them into in order to ensure our own happiness. Before recovery I consistently struck up relationships with people who were needier than I was. My pattern of thinking was simple: This person is so needy that they won’t be able to resist me. I’ll shower them with attention and do all of the things for them that they should be doing for themselves. After I ...