When We Know Better, We Do Better

Most people who know me understand that after years of teaching about "codependency" as a dreaded disease that needed to be eradicated, I have changed my mind. Again, more on that later, but for now, let's clear something up in terms of assumptions.

When we know better, we do better. Codependency was a word that was created to describe the dance treatment professionals noticed between family members and loved ones with their "dependent" - a person with a substance use disorder. I'm sure those early observers didn't mean it to become a cuss word or a term of condescension - but this is what happened.

Families were soon getting "blamed" for their loved ones choices even as the experts told them that they did not cause, nor could that cure or control the disease that had overtaken their beloved. But honestly - if anyone has ever said to you, "Wow, that's pretty codependent." You felt blamed. At a minimum, you felt judged.

In Emily and Amelia Nagoski's book, Burnout The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, they discuss the role of science in their introduction - and it is brilliant. They remind us that science is a particular way of being wrong. This certainly would have been good information for us to remember as various ones of us have railed against "the experts" during the covid crisis. Science is SUPPOSED to get it wrong; that's how they figure out how to get a bit better at a problem that no one had ever resolved before! Scientists are trying to be a little bit less wrong than the ones who came before them. They want to be wrong in a particularly helpful way. They want to be wrong in a manner that can be tested and proven.

Codependency language was a first step; it was picking up on something that addiction researchers understand better now, because, well, science. Addiction is a family disease - and various family members "break out" in different symptoms. The person with the use disorder looks one way; their loved ones look another. All of it is fairly predictable.

We could think of it like this. The family members become the "human givers" and the used disordered represent the "human beings" - because, duh. When someone has a use disorder, their brain is greatly compromised. They are fighting to survive and do not have much capacity for giving. This disparity is not limited to families with use disorders, but I just want to make note of the similarities because...as we walk through what happened to me and how I found my way through the tunnel of darkness, maybe others will find common ground and (I hope and pray) maybe their own way "through."

Today, take a few minutes to see where you are in life. Are you giving or being?

Human Giving or Human Being?

Philosopher Kate Manne wrote in Dawn Girl: The Logic of Misogyny about a system with one class of people she called the "human givers." The human givers were expected to offer their time, attention, and affection to another group of people called the "human beings." She implied that the "human beings" had an obligation to express their humanity while the "human givers" were required to GIVE their humanity to the human beings. As we can guess, the givers were the women. I am blessed to know many human givers who are male: my husband, my sons, my nephews, my brother, both my brothers-in-law and a bunch of guy friends. But her point is well-taken. I do believe that in our culture, we are trying to address the lopsided role of "giving" versus "being" as it relates to gender differentials.

Regardless, if you feel like you are a "human giver" surrounded by "human beings" - you may be onto something pretty ugly. In the last five years, with the help of people who I learned to trust, I had to come to grips with the fact that I was not supposed to need anything. This was a pattern that was ingrained in me. My personality seems to be vulnerable to this false belief AND my family system certainly supported this belief.

Human givers are supposed to be able to anticipate the opinions and preferences of others and behave accordingly. If they do not figure out how to give the people what they want, they will be shamed, punished or even destroyed.

There could not be a more perfect plan devised to achieve a state of complete breakdown of the human spirit.

Our body, with its instinct for self-preservation, knows that giving up our preferences in favor of serving the opinions and preferences of the collective is a recipe for disaster. Our body tries to alert us to our need for change - it gets sick, has trouble sleeping, starts ruminating, has panic attacks, and loses its capacity for joy. But within the system of "human giving" versus "human being", the system is rigged to teach the helpers that they are SELFISH if they have a political opinion, or a preference, or a need to express their own anger and disappointment.

If this sounds a lot like codependency to you, you are sort of right. But that's for another day's discussion. I wonder, do you think you struggle more with giving or being?