Real Love

[Lola]

It goes without saying that what this article states would not apply to the disordered two-some!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-2486.html
The Power of Love
Love is the best antidepressant—but many of our ideas about it are wrong. The less love you have, the more depressed you are likely to feel.

By: Ellen McGrath

An extract:

"There is a mythology in our culture that love just happens. As a result, the depressed often sit around passively waiting for someone to love them. But love doesn't work that way. To get love and keep love you have to go out and be active and learn a variety of specific skills.

Most of us get our ideas of love from popular culture. We come to believe that love is something that sweeps us off our feet. But the pop-culture ideal of love consists of unrealistic images created for entertainment, which is one reason so many of us are set up to be depressed. It's part of our national vulnerability, like eating junk food, constantly stimulated by images of instant gratification. We think it is love when it's simply distraction and infatuation."
Learn good communication skills. They are a means by which you develop trust and intensify connection. The more you can communicate the less depressed you will be because you will feel known and understood.
There are always core differences between two people, no matter how good or close you are, and if the relationship is going right those differences surface. The issue then is to identify the differences and negotiate them so that they don't distance you or kill the relationship.

You do that by understanding where the other person is coming from, who that person is, and by being able to represent yourself. When the differences are known you must be able to negotiate and compromise on them until you find a common ground that works for both."

[Mariana]

Some time ago, Paul posted somehing about Dr. Greg Baer's Real Love (unconditional love) technique or method/approach to solving conflicts. This is the website: http://www.reallove.com/

I believe in finding a healthy balance. Sometimes, some people idealize concepts and ideas, so a routinary reality check here and there won't go amiss ;)

[Lola]

http://www.planetpsych.com/zPsychology_101/codependency.htm

".....co-dependents become addicted to emotional pain and to unhealthy relationships. They are drawn to people who are not available to them, or who reject them or abuse them. They often develop unhealthy relationships that eventually become unbearable. Because relationships hurt so much, co-dependents are more in touch with the dream of how the relationship COULD be, rather than the reality of the situation.

The co-dependent is often immobilized by romantic obsessions. They search for the "magical quali" in others to make them feel complete. They might idealize other people and endow them with powerful symbolism.

In the relationship, the co-dependent will do anything to keep it from dissolving. This is because s/he is terrified of abandonment, the same psychic abandonment s/he felt as a kid when the parents were not there. So nothing is too much trouble, takes too much time or is too expensive if it will "help" the person the co-dependent is involved with. Co-dependents are willing to take more than 50% of the responsibility, guilt and blame in any relationship (one person told me that when people bumped into her, she was the one who said, "I’m sorry.")

[Mariana]

Sorry, but that reminded me of a joke...

The joke goes something like this, "When her husband sneezes, the codependent wife says 'excuse me'.

Jokes apart, that is the true nature of codependency. Codependent people are always trying to figure out what other are thinking or feeling... it can really get on anyone's nerves quick!

[Brian Robert Gatt]

Well codependancy is a painful visius circle......yep especialy in retrospective after 17 years of a relationship....that has i feel robbed .... robbed by the ignorance of what we were liveing and all the pain that came out o fthe variuos situations and the disbelief and the lack of acceptance from my part for a long time that i was abusing of the person i loved.....that i was entrusted with .... to cherish, lauph with, play with ...builda family with etc etc etc it all ended in pain ....loads of that

I looking to a positive future yes ....but the past keeps haunting me like a shaddow......many what ifs and what this and that......i cannot go back and fix the past i waould if i could with the awarness i have to day but i cannot......

I was asked if i deeply understood the pain i caused ...... my answer was i could reson it but now i am not comeletly awar of the pain o caused..... The next thing i did was i asked my pscologist to help me feel ...i need to understand th epain th efeeling .......well he took me on a trip to when i was young and there i saw my aunt commit suiced the detacment of my parents the coldness i got my way from my Dad the .......pain i used to feel went i used to be rejected and i was asked to feel , taste .....and stay with the feelings......then he told me that is only part of what I caused on the other person...

I have been thinking about this all true the week.....

Brian

[Mariana]

Hi Brian,

I think we cannot blame ourselves for not knowing. As we get more and more information, then it becomes more apparent other people's moves or hidden agendas. So we can learn and slowly try to detach our heart from oru reason ;)

[Lola]

You are so right, Mariana. I refer to your reply to Brian.

"I think we cannot blame ourselves for not knowing."

I just wish the sort of information we see here, and on Dr. Carver's site, and a couple of others, could be available to absolutely everyone. As it is, only the fortunate handful (relatively few really) who find their way to these sites, or are able to dredge up the info on the internet, find that all-important light-bulb moment. In the midst of their confusion and hurt, the are able to read validating information.

Could I just mention here a very good site run by Dr. Richard Grossman:
www.voicelessness.com
The articles are excellent.

The information now more and more available in books, on the internet, in articles by professionals provides insight, knowledge about the shadowy worlds inhabited by the personality disordered, by the abusers, by the soul-stalkers.

Best wishes
Lola

[Mariana]

Dr. Grossman's info is really great! Thanks for posting the link =)

[Lola]

Thanks Mariana.
I was just looking at Dr. Grossman's site last night for a moment. He is a very human and understanding person. He does also have a forum (it is for adult children of the NPdisordered and for adults who were abused as children). Some of the stuff makes very hard reading. The huge struggle most of them have to just find themselves (and many are adults in their 40s, 50s and older). Inevitably many, indeed most, of those posters got into marriages where the spouse was simply a copy, a duplicate of the abusive parents. That says something....
I also noted that a majority of them are on medication, or several medications, for their psychological problems.

Now and then it is worth while reading some of those posts.

All the best
Lola

[Administrator]

I don't know if I ever mentioned this here, but about a year or so, I translated the whole program "Stewards of Children", created by an organization called "Darkness to Light" that trains people as facilitators of such program. That program is about child sexual abuse prevention. And some stories were really tough to translate (especially those that were for the video script).

I am not sure if one really gets to recover fully from any kind of abuse (sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, etc.) The damage abuse causes runs very deep inside. It takes a very long time before one starts feeling a bit better.

Mariana (doing some technical work on the site now) - Have a great weekend all ;-)

[Administrator]

Hi Rosanne,

What you mentioned here is of key importance. Children cannot think the way adults do, they don't have an adults brain and understanding of things, let alone an adult's life experience. Still, many adults expect children to behave as "little adults." Pretty unfair. We, as adults, need to become aware of children's needs and - above all- about our reaction to a child's need.

Thanks for your comment!

Mariana

Rosanne Kresse said:

Lola, I ran across Dr. Grossman's site just a couple of days ago. Very informative. So important for children to find their voice, and yet so many families don't understand what that even means. Again, some of society's "rules" as to what makes a "good" child that will have a fulfilling life. Many well intentioned parents, are so busy directing their children that they don't listen and let them find their own. Lot's of times they may say silly kinds of things or interrupt an adult discussion and parents can sort of say something that hurts their "worth", instead of gently letting them know that it isn't appropriate at the time and that later when they are alone will discuss their views. This gives the child the opportunity to start to voice opinions, even though they don't have the same adult brain, but at least they feel heard and then you can discuss at the age appropriate level, or more important just listen. Life will provide the shift in their thinking.