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Post by Susan Peabody on Mar 16, 2009 18:46:05 GMT -8
Studies have shown that in cultures where kindness and generosity are valued there is a direct link between altruism and self-esteem. If we are taught that good people do good things, then we feel better about ourselves when we help others. These feelings of self-worth build our confidence and empower us to change. The exception to this is the codependent person. Codependents take the good feelings they get from helping others and rely totally on them to build self-esteem. In the process, they become addicted to helping others and cannot stop even when their emotional and physical well-being is at stake. They forget that they are still good people when they are not doing good deeds. They need to learn to balance taking care of others with taking care of themselves. Helping others also helps depression. It takes us out of our own pain for a little while.[/color]
For a better understanding of codependency see my book Addiction to Love or any of Mellody Beattie's books.
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Post by CareBear on Mar 23, 2009 2:25:10 GMT -8
Thank you Susan for posting this,it really helped me make better sense of the act of helping, when it is appropriate and when it becomes unhealthy behaviour. I am definately a codependent love addict,and this have helped me understand it better and also allowed me to begin feeling ok with not helping others all the time, that I am a good person even when I don't go out of my way to assit others. With my POA, I played the nurturing care taker role, all day everyway in every aspect of his life, from assisting him to pay bills, organise events,make calls and appointments, and even going for an interview for him once! I never found this to be a problem and was always up within minutes of him asking me to do something, I would drop what I am doing without a second thought so that I can attend to his needs, believing that if I did what he needed he would appreciate it and love me for it, instead he became soo use to it and expecting it without feeling the need to even say thank you. Now I realise that perhaps I was helping him for the wrong reasons, and even though I feel I did it from the bottom of my heart and out of love, perhaps the underlying reasons are wrong, maybe I did it so that I would feel needed and in return worthy and a good person? How do I build my self confidence and feel good about myself without the need of helping my POA, even now when we are no longer together he calls for assistance and I run to save him!
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