Acerca del autor

Karen Casey, Ph.D., is a writer and workshop facilitator for 12-step recovery. Her first book, Each Day a New Beginning, has sold more than 2 million copies. She has published dozens of books since then, including Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, which was a finalist for the MS Society Books for a Better Life Awards. As a writer, Karen's focus is on the development of spiritual gorwth and strengthening one's twelve step recovery. Relying on personal experience and the wisdom she's gleaned from the many people she's met in the rooms of AA and Al-Anon, she spends her time helping others, whether through her books or with lectures and workshops around the world. Karen has traveled throughout North America and Europe carrying her message of hope for others on the road to recovery. Visit her at www.womens-spirituality.com.

Fragmento. © Reproducción autorizada. Todos los derechos reservados.

From Enmeshment to Freedom

MY STORY

WHEN WE'RE CAUGHT in the pain of enmeshment, we don't know who we are, what we think or want, or what direction is right for us to move in. We have traded in our own identity for the identity we think another person prefers. And when we have many significant people in our lives who we assume we need to satisfy, we necessarily develop many personalities. Chaos reigns, at least in our own minds, when we are living for and through other people.

That's how I lived life for my first thirty-six years. I vividly remember standing in our kitchen and crying after my first husband, Bill, and I separated, because I had no idea what I wanted to fix for my dinner. I had spent twelve years cooking whatever he wanted, and the sad part was that it had not occurred to me that it could have been different. It wasn't because he was abusive and demanded that I cook his favorite things; I had simply lived my life around him in every regard. I remember feeling as though I were on the hot seat whenever he asked me what I thought about a book we had both read, a movie we had recently seen, a philosophical idea he had painstakingly explained to me, or even something as simple as the weather. I would nervously search my mind to guess what he might be thinking about the topic so my answer could match, or at least complement, his ideas. I feared his look of boredom whenever I offered what he considered an obviously uninformed answer.

Did he really look at me this way? Probably not. Did he demand that I pay him this homage? of course not. It was simply what I had learned to do in relationships in order to avoid being rejected. But in the end, my pandering could not keep him in the relationship. And it had given me no happiness either.

My experience with Bill was not the first relationship I had tried to control by seeking to make myself indispensable. With my first boyfriend in high school, I had behaved similarly. If Steve was moody, I was the reason. I needed to be more exciting perhaps. If he didn't call when I expected him to, I was certain a breakup was imminent. If he had not asked me for a specific weekend date, I knew it was because he was waiting for a better date to surface. I lived my life around his every mood and meager offerings of attention. I watched him like a hawk to assess how I was doing in my role as girlfriend.

My early relationships illustrate the too-common behaviors of the enmeshed, attached, codependent person. My identity was clearly an extension of the partner I was with. If he turned away, I felt invisible. If he praised me or focused attention on me in any way, it suggested I mattered. I was continuously afraid that every relationship partner and friend would eventually reject me unless I was the perfect counterpart to his or her identity. Mine was an impossible assignment. My inner turmoil and overwhelming self-doubt only increased in magnitude.

Considering myself a whole person, worthy to be valued solely on my own terms, was beyond my comprehension. While growing up, I had not received the kind of perspective from my family that would have helped me develop a positive self-image. Being constantly available and ingratiating was the only way I knew to get the feedback I craved. At the end of my relationships with Steve and Bill, I was aware that the behavior I had tried to master could not prevent rejection. But I had no other behavior to resort to. I didn't even realize it could be different.

My reliance on open expressions of love from significant other people in my life was absolute for a number of years. I didn't really appreciate the depth of my own dependence on others' approval until I had been sober and in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for a while. It wasn't that I didn't see how much I wanted to be noticed and liked—I had just never acknowledged how anxious I felt when the attention I sought was not forthcoming.

But while I assumed that AA was going to change all of the behaviors, perceptions and assumptions that had haunted me for years and fed my self-doubt, toward the end of my first year of recovery, I was closer to suicide than at any time previously in my life. I had considered suicide the perfect out for many years; however, I had never planned it in as much detail as I did after about twelve months of sobriety. Stacked on my kitchen table were the towels I planned to stuff around the windows of my apartment. All I needed to do was tightly tuck them next to the sills and turn on the gas from the stove. I felt numb and yet relieved that the pain would soon be gone.

Then there was a rapid, persistent knocking at the door.

I wasn't expecting anyone and considered not answering, but a voice began calling my name. It sounded quite impatient, so I eventually opened the door. My visitor, a woman I barely recognized, insisted we had made an appointment to discuss financial planning. She brushed right past me and walked into my kitchen.

After a good bit of probing on her part, I told her about my overwhelming fear and depression, although not my planned suicide. She said she understood, had experienced this form of anxiety herself, gave it a name, and told me I was on the threshold of a great spiritual awakening. She said that my experience was simply a point on the continuum of spiritual growth and that most individuals who were seeking a deeper, better understanding of their purpose in life, as I had been, went through this phase.

Something inside me told me she was right. I could feel a change throughout my body as she spoke. A calm settled over me. I had not felt calm for many weeks. I had the quiet but profound knowledge that I hadn't ever needed to discuss finances with her. But I had needed to speak to someone about my crippling fears. Within a few minutes of her mysterious presence in my home, I was freed from the need to end my life. She left almost as quickly as she had come, but she was, without a doubt, God-sent.