As the belt came sizzling down onto my bare skin, I could feel the rage in my mother. The rage seemed to carry a message that said, "How dare you make me feel this way; and you're going to pay for it!" Codependents claim they are victims of someone else's actions and feelings. I still hear the cry of a victim behind my mothers words, "How dare you victimize me, I'm going to get even with you now so you won't ever do this again."

I remember feeling the shame that I had somehow hurt my mother. I think this is how she must have justified beating me and expelling her anger and rage onto me. Somehow she had believed that I had hurt her by being myself. So in order to survive, I became something other than myself (a false self).

It's going to take a long time for our country to heal from child abuse and codependency. We have become a nation of codependents. If you haven't noticed, we are very good at recognizing what other nations need and very poor at recognizing what we need. We take care of other countries better than we take care of our own. This codependent skill is something we are going to have to get rid of before we become self aware as a nation. And once we become self aware as a nation, we may begin to heal our problems from the inside out and not the other way around.

end.

What I had originally termed as "codependency," I now change to the term "direct dependence." Codependency refers to a person who becomes dependent on another person; and that other person is dependent on something else like alcohol, drugs, etc. An example would be the stereotype of the wife who becomes dependent with a husband who is addicted to alcohol. The prefix "co" means shared. In this case the word codependency means shared dependence. Co-addict is another term used for the same behavior. It means shared addiction. An addiction and a dependency are the same thing.

In my own case, my mom was not dependent with me as a result of my having a dependency on alcohol or drugs, etc. My mom was directly dependent on me. My mom was addicted to me; not codependent with me. Fortunately, however the terms have evolved or are being used, the concepts for recovery are the same.

next: A Place to Start Healing