Me and a friend of mine, we were talking about codependency recently. That wasn't about serious chat involving nerves, the term has been involved and appeared in my life since about three years ago, as I discovered that I am also interested to get to know other fields rather than collecting every season's catalogue from Mango, Zara, Desigual, etc...(hey, it takes time to notice that you've had enough of your fabulousness. Yet being fabulous has no limitation :p)
Yes, I finally decided to increase my value of living by having a seriously funny absurd research on pop psychology. And the choice has been co-dependency.
I personally think that co-dependency could be defined as wild as it could be. In a book "Co-dependency, an Emerging Issue" Subby wrote an article explaining that co-dependency is 'An emotional, psychological, and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual's prolonged exposure to, and practice of, a set of oppressive rules-rules which prevent the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal and interpersonal problems.' Ok then, so now co-dependency is a problem. But then, how is it going to be when you have to reverse the situation.
In the western world co-dependency has become an interesting issue and emerge to become problem for minority, whereas in the eastern side of the world co-dependency is a normal behavior. What I can underlined from co-dependency is to live your life based on others, and not on behalf of yourself. You behave and do your things based on what people's thinking. How on earth could that be? That is as simple as it is.
The society has demanded you to please others above yourself. The term 'respect' has been modified and translated as being complaisant to the majority: that is the rules and customs and values that's been originated as the most authentic righteousness. We are then used to please others and forgetting to please ourself. In a worse case scenario, we even don't know how to please ourself because we are trained only to make others pleased, rather than checking our feelings: what exactly do we want?
This co-dependency thingy has more or less affected the identity of oneself. Because the life is centered not on his or her willing, but what other's wanting. Melody Beattie on her book "Codependent no more" has categorized some points of what a co-dependent might tend to feel or do. This is amazingly so familiar on the situation that I've been brought up with. It's marvelous how the point of view of 'western upbringing' and 'eastern upbringing' have been so different. Beattie, which I believe has been analyzing and took notes on more to 'western' rather than taking every elements of cultural value in the eastern part of the world, has carefully introduced the fact that co-dependents tend to :
- feel terribly anxious about problems and people
- worry about the silliest thing
- think and talk a lot about other people
- lose sleep over problems or other people's behavior
- worry
- never find answers
- check on people
- try to catch people in acts or misbehavior
- feel unable to quit talking, thinking, and worrying about other people or problems.
and moreover...they:
- become afraid to let themselves be who they are
- push their thoughts and feelings out of their awareness because of fear and guilt
- appear rigid and controlled
Well, for me who's brought up in a eastern part of the world, to please others has become a major thing. Every thing had to be think and re-think and re-rethink. 'If I do that, what will they react?' 'If I chose A, what would the people of B thinking?' 'If I go for that, would they be mad at me?' 'If I...bla bla bla...would it be Ok for blablabla...?' and so on... In short, I was just too busy to think about what other's thinking, that I forgot what was I thinking! See, that's what happen when you're too busy to please others. Lesson learned: you can not please every one.PERIOD.
And then the case is continuing. People keep arguing, one felt that one's better than another. And so on and so on and so on. The value of truth is now become bias.. People just to afraid that they in fact are different from another. One feel insecure that there are other facts or science or issues that have been discovered through times and resulted opposite theories or thoughts that have been believed as the truest truth.
So then why focused on others when the value of truth is not absolute? We might be true-er than those who thought that their thoughts are the most eligible genuineness.
I was inspired by my friend (who's also brought up in eastern part of the world) 's note about her relationship with european society. And I must say that it's been a blessing to be able to conquer yourself in a different circumstance with what you are usual and familiar with. I could happily analyze the similarity and the difference between my family of origin and the situation I am dealing with right now.
I am now making a comparison between the society here in western part of the world and my upbringing society (read: eastern part of the world). I classified them in term of daily life, the topic of small talk, deeper conversation, until the idea of making space with another.
We live in a big space together with people. And the human races are different, and this difference leads to different needs and demands. The need of togetherness sometimes conflicted with the demand of being alone. This is when the smaller space is created. This space satisfied one's need of more private situation, where he or she could rest him/herself from being attached with others. In the case of co-dependency, the desire of having a private environment is high, but the current situation does not allow them to concentrate on themselves.
It's always about them, and not about he or she. The highlight is on what other people want, not on what he or she is willing to do. This is what happen in the room of co-dependency. You just don't have space to be alone and be what you want to be. It is about how you treat others but never consider yourself as the focus of your life. A pity, but that's been happening in some culture for...ever.
For some reasons, a fear of being different has lead one to identify him or her self to be some one else. Rather than being called 'weirdo', one prefer to act as if they're doing just fine living a life based on the majority's demand. Inevitably, this situation create bigger effect and problems. Codependents do not have identity, they don't know themselves and do not have a certain parameter of what can make them content, happy and satisfied. The reality is their insecurity.
Lesson learned: It's OK to be different. Different is sexy... (ehmmh..the sexy part was only my thought. It's not scientifically proven :p ). But it has always been like this: It is easier said than done.
As a human being, we need to feel content about ourself. Feel happy of what we are, and appear confident of what we are. We have to believe that what we are living right now is a process to live a better life. A life that make more sense. People have to keep trying until they reach a certain point, that what people say and think about them will not affect their life in general. People will keep talking because they have those mouths complemented with teeth, people will keep on thinking and checking on us because they have brain. It's just the way it is.
Chris Abel's book "Architecture & Identity" take up Vico's views on the nature of knowledge and science. According to Vico, human beings can understand themselves and their own cultural milieu in a way that they could never come to know that which is already given in nature, and for which they have no responsibility. Human culture can only be understood from 'within'. from the point of view of the human agents under study. This also what makes it important to deal with our family of origin. We cannot control others, but we can control ourself. And creating a smaller space inside the big space is a significant step for letting go the room of co-dependency.
Let's put it this way, the point of view on how we see co-dependency from our upbringing culture is not the same. Again I will give a case of study of western and eastern culture. I take out an architectural example from an article 'Living in a Hybrid World'. This article examined that the different parameter in translating privacy in Malaysian peasant society compared to Western society. It's been argued that It is possible for Malays to live happily with their dwellings, open to both breezes and neighbors alike, where similar attributes would cause serious problems for a western family, accustomed to maximum privacy, even among members of the same household. For Malay houses, the detached form of the houses, the lack of barriers between them and the external and internal openness of the dwelling form all say much about the social and economic forms involved.
As written above, point of view of reading co-dependency as a disease that has to be handled are not the same. The culture of origin and the roots of behaving have tendencies to grab this phenomenon differently. How if co-dependency has become a culture in which being codependent is just normal, because every one is a co-dependent? How to fix things if there's nothing to be fixed and every element is already fixed just the way it has been fixed.
We just live our life together in this big space called world... I create a smaller space called privacy... and people have started their new dwellings, new society in a so-called 'room', namely co-dependency. How is life ever be easy?
