(Part 2) Best products from r/Codependency

I may well be aiming way beyond the actual target zone, but even so, I will suggest the following because familiarization with them won't hurt (fer sure) and it may help:

1. Read this article on the five stages of recovery about her, seeing where she is among those five stages with respect to her own issues.
   
   
2. Read this article on the patterns & characteristics of codependency about you and her.
   
   
3. Read about the Karpman Drama Triangle about you and her, and her and her other, original family members.
   
   
4. Learn about family secrets and the emotional blackmail used to protect them, because it is typical in the childhood families of adult survivors.
   
   
5. Read about reactive attachment disorder, because it is usually what the child acquires when abused or invaded by those she must depend upon to survive.
   
   
6. If you're not already down with it, look for CoDA meetings in your area and go to six before making a decision to continue or not... because it is likely that you will need to know about psychological boundaries and how to raise and lower them appropriately as your wife struggles with -- and seems to flip back and forth from -- fear of abuse (or invasion) here and fear of abandonment there.
   
   
7. Look over these books, pick one or two, and read it about you and her. I am not diagnosing her. But I do see possibilities of her being "in range," albeit on the less dramatic end of that range.
   
   
8. Look over this link to this book, get the book, and work through it for your own sake, regardless of what she does or doesn't do. Because even if she isn't borderline, there's plenty in that book that will be helpful regardless.
   
   
9. Come to understand that she may have BPD -- or, at least, a collection of defense mechanisms that resemble it -- as a coping system for the C-PTSD that is typical among adult survivors. BPD is a set of dysfunctional -- but understandable -- coping mechanisms for untreated child abuse and resulting C-PTSD. The best psychotherapies for it are those that understand the causes resulting in and physiological conditions of a shredded autonomic nervous system no longer capable of managing her "fight-flight-freeze" response to perceived threat.
   
   
10. Take a look at the concepts of counter-dependency and love avoidance, as they may fit in the mix here.
    
    
11. DBT is the current gold standard for managing the emotions and behaviors that come with BPD & complex PTSD. She can find people in her area who know how to administer it through Behavioral Tech, and even adjunct therapy workbooks like these. One can also get a lot of support from DBT Self-Help and organizations like DBT-NJ, so dig around for them online, but advise her not to try to "get well" on the cheap.
    
    
12. To truly scrape out the bottom of the bucket of C-PTSD, one can get into EMDR, SEPt, HBCT, SP4T and NARM, which are the most widely research-supported therapies for the causes of BPD and C-PTSD. In time, she may need one of more of these to clean up the lingering residues and rewire her limbic emotion regulation system.
    
    I have myself recovered from BPD, severe anxiety, compensatory mania, suicidality and other upshots of complex PTSD by using Ogden's SP4T as the 9th of the 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing in the fifth stage of my recovery, as well as REBT, collegiate critical thinking, several of the CBTs including CPT and schema therapy, EMDR, DBT, MBCT, ACT, MBBT, MBSR, SEPt, HBCT, and NARM in the fourth.

>sometimes it feels like codependency is like the inverted, or "shadow" form of narcissism

Yup, you've nailed it. This book https://www.amazon.com/Why-Always-About-You-Narcissism/dp/0743214285 agrees with you, talks about "healthy narcissism" and how we codependents are different from narcs.

For a book that combines the best of codependency literature with insights gained from recent research, IRON LEGACY by Dr. Donna Bevan-Lee (one of the founders of CoDA).

https://www.amazon.com/Iron-Legacy-Childhood-Trauma-Transformation/dp/1795461799/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=iron+legacy&qid=1573359490&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/The-Drama-Gifted-Child-Revised/dp/0465016901

its a quick easy amazing read

My take on it is that it can be very difficult to break codependency if one doesn't have something else to ground ones sense of safety in.

Being easygoing and submissive can be a strategy to gain accept, and belonging, instead of a dreaded abandonment and perhaps secretly being exposed as "no good".

One way to go about it is to practice expressing yourself with people you feel you can risk losing - and get references with your innate worth. Yontef is a Gestalt therapist that writes about this, how one needs to speak ones truth and let go of the outcome.

Another way to go about it is to contact a Coherence Therapy - practitioner. I will add a quote from one of their books:

Unlocking the emotional brain

Psychotherapy that regularly yields liberating, lasting change was, in the last century, a futuristic vision, but it has now become reality, thanks to a convergence of remarkable advances in clinical knowledge and brain science.. It allows new learning to erase, not just suppress, the deep, unconscious, intensely problematic emotional learnings that form during childhood or in later tribulations and generate most of the symptoms that bring people to therapy.

For me, The New Codependency by Melody Beattie was better than Codependent No More. I have been reading The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: Recognizing the Traits and Finding Healing After Hidden Emotional and Psychological Abuse and it has been really helpful.

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristen Neff

This book helped me a lot (I listened in audiobook format)

This definitely speaks to me, I know the feeling you're talking about.

One thing I can suggest is trying to practice awareness. I can imagine right now when you're freaking out about him not texting you for 10 minutes, or whatever it is, you feel stupid or bad in addition to the anxiety you're feeling. You probably start beating yourself up for feeling the way you feel. Try not to do that. Rather, just allow yourself to feel what you feel, and observe it. Try to rest in it. "Hmmm, I'm incredibly anxious right now. Why am I anxious? I think it's because of my boyfriend not texting me (or whatever). Why is that causing me anxiety? I think I'm starting to imagine all kinds of dark scenarios like him cheating on me. I know that's probably not happening, and him not texting me is not a reasonable indication of that anyway. This anxiety is really about my own insecurities and need to control. Ok. Let's just let this go on for as long as it does, and observe it." That kind of thing.

Just remember that this particular behavior is only a symptom of your larger disfunction and unhealthy behavior towards relationships.

Are you religious, spiritual, or have a belief in any kind of higher power? If you have any sense of that, something that's really been helping me when I have reactions and unhealthy obsessions like this is to stop, recognize it, and then ask God (as I know Him) to come into that moment and feeling with me and to let me feel His love for me. I don't try to not feel it, I just accept it. I also don't beat myself up for feeling that way.

Some resources:

Codependents Anonymous website, a 12 step recovery program for people who want the ability to have healthy relationships with others.

Codependent No More, a great book.

Good luck!

Edit: don't know why that link isn't working...

This one was a surprise:

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https://www.amazon.com/Enemy-Within-Recovery-Guide/dp/0692922121/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517155504&sr=8-1&keywords=the+enemy+within+jeff+rounds

Codpendent No More by Melody Beattie

The one and only book I've read. It was very helpful for me.

https://www.amazon.com/No-More-Mr-Nice-Guy/dp/0762415339/ref=nodl_

Freud died long ago. Mankind's understanding of the human psyche AND the human body have come way far from 'inheritable neuroticism'. That, no disrespect here, is the quackery –one the whole world's believed for far too long now.

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This is not a cherry-picked study, and i encourage you please do some (any) research around this, origins, context, how it ties to LOTS of previous research and above all to the inevitable conclusions of 50 years of trauma research out of integrating results from multiple scientific disciplines; you'll find too many 'cherry-picked`' studies pointing in the same direction:

The Polyvagal Theory


And, most importantly, check it out against your own experience, your own body, mind, history.

I wish someone had told me all this a long time ago.

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Addiction, as others have said. I've been there. Only way is no contact. Know that, believe it.

Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XFKNB2Y/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_LjIzCb9YFAYDB

This and meditation helped me. It isn't easy to break thought patterns, but I know you can do it.

Pick up a copy of Codependent No More https://www.amazon.com/Codependent-No-More-Controlling-Yourself/dp/0894864025

It was a game changer for me and many others!

TLDR: Good for you!

Your post resonates with me, mostly because I’m that guy you described.

I’ve been married to a really great woman for the past 5 years (we were together another 5 before that), and I’ve been giving her a lot of hell ever since the beginning. Most of it has been emotional abuse (I have a short fuse, and it makes me say some very hurtful, if not damaging, things), to the point of almost constant unkindness and disrespect. On a regular basis, I tend to project onto her my negative state of mind (I’m unhappy about a lot of things in my life that I feel like I can’t change); if I had to guess, it’s probably a subconscious thing---if I can’t be happy, then maybe she shouldn’t be either. I shut her out, we don't talk, and are both very lonely and isolated. My wife has given up a lot of herself in unsuccessful attempts to make me happy and to put up with all of the shit (there is no other word, really) I give her, and I perpetuate and take advantage of it.

The thing is, I do recognize and have recognized that I’m an altogether horrible person to be around sometimes (most times?), though I've never been able to label things. Our relationship has been a debilitating (and exhausting) flip-flop between happy and miserable. Consequently, I’ve lost the trust that is so desperately needed in a long-term relationship.

I want to get better, but I’ve never taken any real steps to do so (pride? fear? denial?) until recently. In the research I’ve done to figure out what the hell my freaking problem is, I’ve uncovered a plot twist of sorts: I’m codependent.

I had a very unpleasant childhood that I recognize now as being codependent, which probably explains how I ended up in a codependent relationship with another woman for 4 years before meeting my wife. Both of these relationships I’ve repressed very much, but as I open up the memories, I realize how I gave up a lot, if not most, of myself for my immediate family as well as this woman.

What’s happened now, I think, is that I’ve somehow twisted things around so that my wife is now the codependent one with me (although, I see early on how I repeated codependent tendencies when I met her). It’s almost as if I’m trying to recover from what was taken from me before and so have become narcissistic and controlling in the process (e.g., I know what’s right for my wife, we only do the things I enjoy or go to the places I want to go, I keep her from having friends since I’m the only one who knows how to/who’s able to/who should care for and comfort her, we only talk about how my day went and not hers). Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to displace blame for my actions---I’m an ass---but it’s helpful for me to recognize, perhaps, what causes me to be an ass.

Sorry for the outpouring, as I don’t know that I really contributed anything other than to say that I understand what you’re going through and that I’m glad you’re taking the steps to do what’s right for you. As others have said, you’ve recognized what’s going on and are doing something about it, and IMO that’s huge.

Oh, I guess I will also add that there are some of us who are aware of the pain they’ve caused, don’t like it, and do genuinely want to get better. What’s troubling to me is all of the wasted time and unhealthiness in our relationship that was brought about by petty fights, usually caused by my selfishness or need to control situations, if not my wife. I do honestly love her, even though it's so easy for me to hurt her, and I don't want to be this way. I know I as an individual (perhaps we as a couple) need therapy and I’m willing to go (it’s a financial hardship as well); however, this was not an easy thing---at all---for me to finally admit. You, as the abuser, really have to want it. In the meantime, I’ve picked up a copy of Codpendent No More as well as The Language of Letting Go. Also looking into Why Is It Always About You? It’s not easy for me to write about these things, especially in a public forum, but I’m hoping it will be therapeutic to discuss this with others.

My wife and I have started talking about these things, and I’ll say that it’s helped tremendously, in particular knowing how she feels. I think in the past I was too involved in myself to care how she felt (that really sounds horrible to say, but it’s the unfortunate and scary truth).

Whether or not you can do the same likely depends on your SO and whether or not he’s able to recognize what he’s doing and, perhaps more importantly, whether or not he’s willing to get some help.

Good luck to you!