Have you ever been an abusive partner or friend or family member? Please share your thoughts. I'm looking for ideas on how to stop being codependent on everyone in my life even on taxi drivers, total strangers, etc.

I thought that's what you were getting at but didn't know for sure and didn't want to take that tone if you weren't thinking that.

lol honestly I could probably write a long rambling diatribe on it. Yes, I think most maybe all codependent people have been abusive in some ways to some people. I think it's easy while dealing with codependency to forget that people are still human, and remember that one hurt moment doesn't mean everyone will be as bad as the trauma that causes codependency.

I think suffering from trauma makes it harder for people to even begin to face the ways they have hurt people, myself included. I take in every new mental health ideology book I hear about. I've done ACA, CoDa, anonymous peer support, been everyone's go to "I'm in crisis" person, even ran an only support group and on the side help people find therapist with insurance because I got really good at it. I emerged myself in mental health and trauma recovery so I could learn more about it. All of this to say, I got a TON of facts and a TON of lived experience and hearing of other's lived experiences and did most of that before I could face being told by someone else I hurt them when I didn't intend to and not melt into a defensive puddle of no I don't ever want to be my abusers. (which as a reaction to someone calmly saying "that hurt my feelings" is imo 100% abuse)

I'm learning that the only way I can know how I hurt people is to do what my abusers wouldn't and listen, even if it's hard, and even if I need to take breaks to handle and process my feelings.

Before I make this a full chapter I have a story from today that all that build up was for. My partner said I always nit pick his driving. We talked about it and I didn't react the best because this was brought up in a conversation where he had done something I actually considered dangerous while driving, and I 100% do NOT always nit pick his driving. Not even close.

But I was able to hear him and promise to look for the behavior, and 10 minutes later traffic slowed. We were both complaining about it, and he moved over a lane, and then the lane we were in started moving. Just going along with the complaining about our situation I said, "shoulda stayed in the other lane" and then laughed and was like "wait, like there? is that nitpicking?"

He nodded and then said maybe that wasn't too bad. I realized internally it was more of a we were complaining because we were in a tough spot, and we had bad luck... it was just my internal negative voice coming out but I was thinking like both of us were stuck in traffic together as a team... not that he was the one driving and decided to change lanes. So, we talked more and suddenly it made total sense why he felt nit picked a lot (because I know my inter critic can be an ass. I'm SURE I've done this type of thing more) AND why I felt I only bring it to him when I actually don't feel safe from his driving. I thought I was criticizing the world being weirdly unfair to us?!?! lol???

I would not have heard him before a lot of the work I've done at accepting how humans are and letting go of control. He had just "almost killed me" and now I'm nit picking? (Also he had already apologized for the driving so it wasn't even like he was bringing that in retaliation or anything.)

It's also not usually about never doing the abusive things, it's about stopping, catching myself, how I respond when someone tells me I hurt them. Focusing on not ever being the things that hurt me ignored the fact that all humans fail, it's about how we handle failure. Codependency stems from a want for people to make up for their hurt. So, if I do that for others, I can save others from codependency from my hurt on them.

lol sorry... I was sitting alone and processing this when you replied and kind of just dumped it here because it seemed so relevant.

I'm going to go think about how maybe my mom also thought of the family as her team and how much of that shit she said was her inner critic.

/r/Codependency Thread Parent