I never realized this until a couple days ago that I was either being codependent or concern over a good friend that I had grown up with. Now, some of you who are close to me know what I am talking about and for those who know me from a distance hang on I am about to share with you a spiritual awakening I had three days ago. It was Sunday night,..I had approached my computer to check my messages. I saw a message from one of my closest friends that seemed to be aggravated by a persons post. I laughed to myself and knew exactly why he was feeling this way. You see, this friend I am talking about is not just a friend. This friend has known me since I was 13 years old and has seen and even cared for me when I had too many,...yes, you know what I am talking about...drinks! We went to school together, partied together and went on with our lives separately as we grew older. He went to college, I went to college. At one time, we even worked out at the same gym. We grew apart as we all know what happens after we go our separate ways. I got married, he got married. I had kids, he had kids. It wasn't until I started Facebook that our friendship reunited. Our friendship left off as though it was yesterday. I think we have all had friendships like that in our lives. Don't get me wrong, we never dated...we were just friends,...good friends, today! On the other hand, little did I know that we would meet again and find we struggle with addictions. Little did I know we would become close again and share the same struggles and difficulties. What a small world! Back to Sunday night...I began to log into Facebook and proceeded to go to my Sobriety Fitness group to check his post and all of a sudden it disappeared, he disappeared...I could no longer find him on Facebook. "Poof!, he was gone!" I thought to myself. "Oh my God!, what did I do?, what did I say?...did he block me?, he left my group I am no longer his friend...this is too weird, why would he do that? I quickly messaged my other friend, who I have become close with, and asked her if she could see his post in my group or see him on Facebook,..her reply was No! Now let's just stop right now and look at this big picture...are you looking at it? I thought to myself..."What did I do to cause him not to be friends with me or block me...for goodness sake have I blown a gasket?" "Am I nuts to think that?" No, I am someone in recovery that needs to...HALT! I calmed down from all my drama and panic state I was experiencing and realized I just had a spiritual awakening! You ask what was it? I consider a spiritual awakening something that sets a light bulb on in your head and you are clear to see all your character defects or happenings that you never seemed to realize or deal with before. Was I acting codependent? Was I acting concern? Hmmmm! I really did not know, so I asked my Sobriety Fitness group along with another group on Facebook to help me figure this out! The answer was clear! I was relieved! I was happy! I was CONCERNED! I say I was concerned because I genuinely just cared, at that moment, what truly happened to him without trying to fix it! I genuinely worried about what caused that to happen, without me controlling or changing it! I understand if I was codependent I would have called his dad, who only lives a couple streets away...heck I would have ran over to his house, to get his new number since he moved out of state. If I was codependent I would of called Facebook to see what the heck happened. If I was codependent I would have made it my problem. If I was codependent I would have not been able to sleep all that night. If I was codependent I would have blamed myself for it,...Hey! Wait a minute I think I did do that! Alright, so I am not perfect, but what this spiritual awakening did for me was to see I do have the potential of becoming codependent. What a gift it was for me to see and allow me to see my true colors in the situation. I allowed myself to laugh at myself, accept it, not beat myself up and mostly become more aware of what codependent is. I guess this gives me another gift to open up and cherish it and not deny it,...but work on it! Yes, my friend is back on Facebook and is back in my Sobriety Fitness group along with my friend list. The ironic thing was is that it had nothing to do with me. Facebook mistakenly suspended his account but he was able to get it back in so many hours. It wasn't until I saw him back in my group that I messaged him about my concern of what had happened to him that I realized I could be behaving in a codependent way! I even told him that and we both laughed! My homework will be for me to be more aware of how I am reacting and that not everything is caused by me personally! I will stick with concern rather than codependent...it is much more healthier! Thanks everyone for helping me see the difference in the two. It really helped me to realize what codependent is and how I can be more aware of it in the future. Do you have a hard time wondering if you are concerned with someone or if you truly are co-dependent of another? If so, ask yourself if you are making it about you, are you trying to fix it, prevent it, control it, change it and mostly has it caused you to loose who you are, loose your self worth and your own needs? If you answer yes to any of those, you are probably co-dependent! Today, I will run knowing that I can be codependent at times and that the most important lesson learned is that I have allowed myself to become aware of it! I will only be concerned on how many miles I run today! Sobriety Fitness by Cathy Shuba is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.sobrietyfitness.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.sobrietyfitness.com.
