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LoveWithBoundaries

If It Doesn’t Open… It’s Not Your Door

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A while ago, I was going through my newsfeed on Facebook, when I came across this proclamation:

If it doesn’t open, it’s not your door.

I thought it was one of the most brilliant pieces of wisdom I’d ever heard—so of course I immediately stole it and shared it on my own Facebook page too. And I’ve been using it—with clients, with friends, and with myself—ever since.

How many times have we all tried to manipulate situations and relationships to make them work out the way we wanted? How often have we tried to control people and things we just simply had no control over? Raise your hand if you’ve ever done this—once or maybe a hundred times over.

Sometimes if we try as hard as we can—when we are forceful enough or persistent enough—we can get the outcome we want. Or so we think… But how many of us have had the experience of getting that desired outcome, for a time, only to have it blow up in our face? Why does that happen? Because if it doesn’t open—or if it takes too much manipulation or scheming or controlling to keep it open, it’s truly not the door we’re supposed to walk through.

And at times like that, it’s best to cut our losses and focus on what is ours to do, instead of what isn’t. [Read more…]

Addiction and Codependency: The Top 10 Reasons to Stop Enabling the Addict You Love, Part 2

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Continued from article posted February 24th. Click here to read Reasons 10 to 6.

#5 – Others around you are watching what you’re doing.

When we deal with an addict of any kind, there are always ripple effects that occur—positive or negative.

Consider a scenario such as this: Your teen or adult child is actively using drugs or other addictive behaviours. If you are enabling this person and you have other children, they will be watching as you ‘favour’ the addict, even while the others are trying to do well in their lives. In fact, those children may sometimes resort to acting-out behaviours of their own because #1 – they feel resentful, and #2 – they begin to believe this is the only way to get your attention.

Or perhaps your partner feels somewhat estranged from you because you are so focused on the addict. He may distance himself from you because he feels hurt or disagrees with how you’re dealing with this situation. Or she may collude with you to enable that child, just so the two of you can be on the same page and have something to share with each other. Either way, you may find your world becoming smaller because you’re not reaching out to friends and family—often as a result of the shame you could be feeling. Whether you and your partner are distanced or enmeshed, you will be riding together on the roller coaster chaos of the addiction.

If the addict in your life is your partner—and if you are minimizing, making excuses, blaming, and putting up with inappropriate behaviour from him or her—you are undoubtedly teaching your children how to handle this situation. Because it’s what they’ve seen, known, and feel comfortable with, there is a good chance that they will either choose partners of their own who hide from life by using addictions, or they may choose to live that way themselves.

No matter how the dynamics of addiction play out for you, the others in your life will inevitably be watching—they will observe how you handle these types of situations and take their cues from you. The good news is that you are also at choice—you can make the decision to stop enabling and instead heal from your own unhealthy behaviours—thus role modelling something different in the process. [Read more…]

Addiction and Recovery: What Do Addicts REALLY Need?

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Whenever I hear clients repeating themselves in our therapy sessions, I take notice.

Their repetition alerts me that something is really important to them. Sometimes they’ll tell me the same story more than once, other times they will ask the same questions a few times. In other cases, they will repeat words—especially when they are striving to let me know how they feel.

So when I began receiving emails this past week from both colleagues and clients containing the same link to the same TED talk about addiction, my curiosity was piqued. [Read more…]

Saying NO to Manipulation: What Happens When We Enable an Addict?

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In my last post, I wrote about Jessica’s manipulation of her parents and how they consistently gave in to her demands, allowing her disruptive and destructive behaviour to continue.

By accepting that behaviour and not challenging their daughter, Jessica’s parents enabled her for many years. They posed no consequences for her and set the bar very low in terms of their expectations—and Jessica continued to live up to exactly the standard that they set.

[Read more…]

Are You the Loved One of an Addict? Saying NO to Manipulation

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I am a firm believer that we teach other people how to treat us.

The way people treat us generally has its roots in the way we treat ourselves as well as how we decide to show up in the world. Are we assertive and clear with our boundaries, or do we allow other people to push us around? Do we practice healthy self-care, even while we may be caregivers to family members? Is our self-respect non-negotiable, even when we are experiencing difficulties in our lives?

Or—do we allow anxiety and fear to rule us when we encounter situations that we simply can’t control? Do we go along to get along, giving in to what other people want just so that we can avoid conflict?

If you are the loved one of someone with an addiction and you are allowing yourself to be manipulated, it’s important to ask yourself why you’re doing that—and to be as honest as you can in your response. One of my favourite sayings comes from Eleanor Roosevelt, who so aptly told us, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” When we choose to feel inferior to someone else—when we put someone else’s needs ahead of our own on a fairly consistent basis rather than take care of ourselves, we act in ways that allow that person to manipulate us.

[Read more…]