RELATIONSHIPS AND LOSS OF SELF

Thomas Merton, the well-known American Catholic monk, wrote this in the 1960's:

Alienation begins when culture divides me against myself, puts a mask on me, gives me a role I may or may not want to play.  Alienation is complete when I become completely identified with my mask, totally satisfied with my role, and convince myself that any other identity or role is inconceivable. 

Alienation is another way of describing the experience of loss of self.

And loss of self is the best way of describing what happens to a person when they become codependent.

When a person takes on roles in order to make accommodations to someone else's behaviour, the accommodations contribute to a loss of self. My accommodations are the roles, the masks I take on to survive in a relationship, or relationships, and after awhile they become my alienated self. What I do to accommodate others becomes me - my identity.

The most common relationship that results in the loss of self is when at least one of the people (maybe several) makes accommodations to at least one of them (maybe several) who is dependent on alcohol or other drugs..

A relationship with at least one codependent and at least one dependent is called an alcoholic, or an addicted relationship. An alcoholic, or addicted, family

Some of the most tried and true ways to lose oneself in an alcoholic relationship is by making one or more of the following accommodations:

- Attempting to control the other’s alcohol and other drug use.

- Ruminating over whose fault it is, self-analysis, guilt

- Rescuing others from the dependent’s behaviour

- Resolving to do something about the problems, then backing down

- Accepting verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse from loved-one

- Compromising personal moral values

- Refusing to allow oneself to express, or even feel, feelings

- Developing defences to protect oneself from the hurt, pain and guilt that surrounds the deteriorating relationship: denial, minimization, rationalization, sarcasm, etc.

- Delusion: holding onto a persistent belief, despite serious evidence to the  contrary, that the dependent will change.

- Enabling: Refusal to allow the dependent to experience the consequences of his or her behaviour.

- Physical reactions stemming from the stress and anxiety inherent in living with a dependent person: headaches, stomach aches, insomnia, depression, appetite changes, anxiety, etc.

- And so on …….. the list of possibilities may be endless.

Becoming a mature, differentiated self in relationships with others means being able to turn one's attention on oneself - to become self-aware - and to learn self-regulation of one's own emotional state and to self-soothe. When a person (or a whole family) lives under the thumb of addiction, they are very difficult skills to learn. 

And the great tragedy of living in an alcoholic family is that the loss of self, the alienation, becomes normal - that is when I become completely identified with my mask, totally satisfied with my role, and convince myself that any other identity or role is inconceivable.

The good news of course is that these are learned attitudes and behaviours - and what is learned can be unlearned. And new behaviours and attitudes can be learned - even though the temptation, as Thomas Merton said, is to 'convince myself that any other identity or role is inconceivable'. 

Not true.