Codependent: The Hot Mess of Trauma Recovery

Seeking freedom from chronic misalignment, fear, self-abandonment and managing the perceptions of others.

Hey there. I’m Jonathan, and I’m a recovering codependent. 

Without a doubt, the longest lasting effect from my childhood trauma(s) has been codependency - a miserable mode of operation in which we spend all of our time and energy worrying about others, obsessively trying to manage people’s perceptions of us, and obsessively trying to manage and take on responsibility for everyone else’s happiness around us while we silently suffer in self-doubt, self-loathing, and a sense that our life is not our own - that we owe our time and energy to the maintaining of others’ happiness and wellbeing. 

If you know, you know. 

Sadly, I’m finding this kind of silent suffering is so common. 

And tragically, it’s not a simple addiction to kick. One of the reasons is that it makes you super likable - and dependable - for others. You come across as a super noble, giving person. And the TRUTH is, you very much likely ARE a super noble and giving person, and that’s how you ended up living into an addiction like this in the first place. 

But this codependency stuff is a viscous, life-sucking beast. It can even be deadly. 

It leaves us feeling trapped. Trapped in responsibilities for others. Trapped in managing perceptions. Trapped in managing relational dynamics around us. Trapped in taking on the responsibilities of others. Trapped in silent suffering. And it’s suffocating. It’s drowning while you’re still breathing air. 

I’m Jonathan, and I’m a recovering codependent. 

I’m Jonathan, the guy who started a blog almost two months ago - a blog that was incredibly well received, that struck a chord with people I knew and people I’d never met before, that inspired dozens of people to reach out and share their stories with me - and is just now allowing himself to write the follow up. 

Good people of the world, I introduce to you: my codependency. 

It’s a bitch. 

It seems ridiculous. I FEEL ridiculous about it. It’s the ultimate living in your head. (Hear Jeff Lynne singing, “And I can’t get it out of my head, no, no, no.”)

In therapy recently, I’ve come back around to grapple with this beast in me full force. I’ve been sharing with my therapist about how pervasive this addiction has been my whole life - it’s all I’ve ever known. Us survivors of childhood trauma often develop it because we are programmed to protect those who harmed us. It’s a part of the system. It’s the expectation. And when these pathways are set into place in childhood, we develop survival skills - ways of coping with our inner pain, confusion, disconnect, and torture. 

I’ve been pondering the concept of alignment recently. It was introduced to me by Cheryl Strayed on an episode of the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast with Glennon Doyle. Cheryl says, “the most painful thing is to be misaligned, to have your life out here be different than your life in here.” 

My God, Cheryl! This was everything for me.

I’ve lived my entire existence misaligned. Out. Of. Alignment. What folks have seen on the outside has rarely been aligned with what was happening on the inside. But I learned at a young age that I wasn’t supposed to say what was on the inside. That my feelings, my truth, were secondary. What mattered was being obedient. 

I talked about being a shape-shifter in my first blog. This is that. You learn what the expectations are in any given environment and then your ass goes chameleon. And everyone loves you for it. 

It’s even worse when it’s churchy. Religiousy. When you’re the good boy, the fine, promising young man that everyone puts up as the leader and servant and example. It’s this god-awful mixture of building ones worth and value and esteem at the cost of deepening the misalignment. For fuck’s sake. That’s dirty. 

I was processing all this misalignment and codependency stuff with my wife the other day, and how I realized that I’ve been scared my whole life. 

Codependency, for me, is living in this perpetual state of scared-ness. Fear. Scared-ness and fear run my life. Scared-ness and fear of what people think. Scared-ness and fear of what happens if I stop trying to control everything, to manage everything. 

The truth about me going ghost-writer on y’all - starting the blog just to disappear - is that I’ve been scared. That’s the honest-to-God truth. I’ve been scared. Scared to say the truth about what’s in here, in my heart and mind and body. I’ve spent my whole life in the perception management field, and stepping into a new way of being has had me in my head in all kinds of nasty ways. I’ve been in a swirl. Frustrated. Pent-up. And scared.

Expressing all of this to my wife, she said: you should write about all this! (She’s brilliant. And in tune. She sees me. Loves me. And she gets me. Thank you, babe.) 

So… here I am. This is me. Finding Jonathan will be this hot mess of me learning not to be scared. Finding alignment. Breaking out of my codependency. Learning to speak my truth, to trust my voice, my story, my longings and desires and hopes and dreams and to know that I deserve to share them all with you because I’m beautiful and good and I’m the only one who has this story and these exact thoughts to share. 

I’m currently reading “Codependents’ Guide to the Twelve Steps,” by Melody Beattie. I first read some of Melody’s “Codependent No More” a couple years back, but was in such thick grief and trauma therapy that I just didn’t know what to do with this codependency stuff. But I was sharing with my therapist recently how I knew that dismantling this beast in my life was my next step. I’d been telling people for over a year that I had this growing sense that I am the only thing in my way. The only thing in my way to living into and being all I want to be, all that  I know I truly am, and expressing that to the world, is me. 

And it’s all this codependency shit. Fear. Scared-ness. Trying to manage perceptions. Falsely believing that if I withhold my truth, that I’m somehow safer - which is SUCH a lie, because it creates that chronic mis-alignment, that perpetual torture of my life in here not matching my outward expression.

Step one in CoDa (Codependents-Anonymous) is two-fold. First is to confess: We are powerless over others. Second is to confess: My life has become unmanageable. 

I am powerless over others. And my life has become unmanageable. 

This is me. These words have been so liberating as I’ve begun working my first step. At the end of the day, I have no control, no power, over others. None of you. None of my family. Not my wife, my children. No one.

No one, that is, except my-SELF. I DO have power. Lots and lots of it. Loads of it. I have power over ME. I have agency! I get to decide how I want to live in the world. Who I want to be. What I believe. How I want to treat others. And I get to live out of and express these things FREELY. 

I just can’t control how others receive all this. (deep sigh.) 

So that’s scary. But I’m trying to learn. This is me trying to learn. 

Secondly: my life has become unmanageable. 

If you’re not a person that has suffered with codependency, this statement might sound harsh. But I’ve gotta say, as a codependent, I wept when I read this. 

This is exactly it. I can’t do life this way. With this disconnect. It’s exhausting and unsustainable. It’s unproductive and chaotic. It’s a swirl, endlessly in my head and being tossed to and fro to the next urgent thing I feel like I need to do or manage or control or take on, jumping from fire to fire. 

It. Is. Unmanageable. 

It. Is. Deadly. 

But I’m learning - in many ways for the first time - we do NOT have to live this way. We CAN be free. We don’t have to stay in the torture of mis-alignment. We can be free, baby. And I’m here for it. 

It’s HARD for me to tell my truth this intimately. But I believe the truth will set us free.

Finding Jonathan is my journey in this learning. Learning to tell the truth. Finding alignment. Sharing what’s in my heart and mind and body, in my past and my present, so that I can live freely and openly and courageously. 

I’m so honored for those of you that are here for this with me. And for those of you who will join me along the way. I can’t wait to see where the journey takes us.

Much love, all.