Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (28 page)

1. You turn to wiser or stronger people all the time for advice and guidance.
   
2. You minimize your successes and magnify your shortcomings.
   
3. You avoid new challenges on your own.
   
4. You do not make your own decisions.
   
5. You do not take care of your own financial records or decisions.
   
6. You live through your parents/partner.
   
7. You are much more dependent on your parents than most people your age.
   
8. You avoid being alone or traveling alone.
   
9. You have fears and phobias that you do not confront.
   
10. You are quite ignorant when it comes to many areas of practical functioning and daily survival skills.
    
11. You have not lived on your own for any significant period of time.
    

If you are
counterdependent
, like Christine, you reinforce your lifetrap in other ways. You shape things so that you are always swimming out of your depth.

THE SIGNS OF COUNTERDEPENDENCE

1. You never seem to be able to turn to anyone for guidance or advice. You have to do everything on your own.
   
2. You are always taking on new challenges and confronting your fears, but you feel under constant pressure while doing it
   
3. Your partner is very dependent on you, and you end up doing everything and making all the decisions.
   

You ignore the part of you that wants a little healthy dependence, that just wants to stop coping for a while and rest. Christine’s imagery expresses this yearning for normal dependence:

THERAPIST: What image do you see?

CHRISTINE: I see myself as a child. My mother’s sitting on the couch, and all I want to do is go across the room, sit down, and lay my head in my mother's lap.

Here are the steps to changing your lifetrap:

CHANGING DEPENDENCE

1. Understand your childhood dependence. Feel
   the incompetent
   / dependent child inside of you.
   
2. List everyday situations, tasks, responsibilities, and decisions for which you depend on other people.
   
3. List challenges, changes, or phobias that you have avoided because you are afraid of them.
   
4. Systematically force yourself to tackle everyday tasks and decisions without asking for help. Take on challenges or make changes you have been avoiding. Start with the easy tasks first.
   
5. When you succeed at a task on your own, take credit for it. Do not minimize it. When you fail, do not give up. Keep trying until you master the task.
   
6. Review past relationships and clarify the patterns of dependence that recur. List the lifetraps to avoid.
   
7. Avoid strong, overprotective partners who generate high chemistry.
   
8. When you find a partner who will treat you as an equal, give the relationship a chance to work. Take on your share of responsibilities and decision-making.
   
9. Do not complain when your partner/
   boss refuses
   to help you enough. Do not turn to him/
   her for
   constant advice and reassurance.
   
10. Take on new challenges and responsibilities at work, but do it gradually.
    
11. If you are counterdependent, acknowledge your need for guidance. Ask others for help. Do not take on more challenges than you can handle. Use your anxiety level as a gauge of how much you are comfortable taking on.
    

1. Understand Your Childhood Dependence. Feel the Incompetent/Dependent Child Inside of You.
You must first understand how you got this way. Who fostered your dependence in childhood? Was it your mother, who was afraid to let you try things on your own? Was it your father, who criticized the things you did without him? Or perhaps you were the youngest in the family and were babied by the rest. What was it that happened to you?

Explore your images of childhood. Remember, a good place to start is with a feeling of dependence. Any time that you feel your Dependence lifetrap in your current life can serve as an opportunity for an imagery exercise. Find a quiet place to summon that feeling back.

MARGARET: I went to the mall with Anthony to practice controlling my panic, and he left me. We were sitting on a bench, and I wanted to practice walking around the mall alone, and I told him to wait at the bench. I walked across to the drug store and came back, and he was gone. Right away I started to panic, and I was running around looking for him. When I found him, he was standing behind a column, laughing at me. He was watching me the whole time and laughing. He thought it was funny, just a joke. I could have killed him.

THERAPIST: Close your eyes and bring that moment back with imagery.

MARGARET: Okay (closes eyes). Okay, I can see him, behind the column, looking at me.

THERAPIST: What are you feeling?

MARGARET: Like I always do. Like I hate him, but at the same time I’m so relieved he’s there.

THERAPIST: Now give me an image of when you felt this way before, as a child.

MARGARET: (Pause.) Okay. I can remember standing at the door of my house. My mother and father are about to go out for the night, and they are leaving me with Lisa, the baby-sitter. I’m watching them leave, crying, and begging them not to go. Lisa is trying to pull me back into the house, and my parents are going out the front door and down the steps. My mother turns back and gives me this worried look.

This image reflects how the Dependence and Abandonment lifetraps work together.

Other events can serve as sources of imagery. William told us about a dream he had that captured the dependence of his childhood. He was talking about how frightened it made him to think of breaking up with Carol, and he remembered this dream.

WILLIAM: I was walking up the stairs with my parents. My parents were walking, holding my hand on either side of me. I was a little boy. But then they were letting go of my hand and moving away, and the stairs started getting steeper and steeper, and I was having trouble climbing them alone.

When you have an image, try to remember what you felt as a child. That child is still alive in you. It is a frightened child. Try to comfort that child. Encourage that child. Support that child’s efforts to tackle things alone. The dependent child within you needs a certain type of help that you
can
give. Learn to support your own efforts to move toward independence.

2. List Everyday Situations, Tasks, Responsibilities, and Decisions for Which You Depend on Other People.
Make explicit the extent of your dependence. This will give you a more objective view. For example, here is a list William made in reference to his dependence on his parents.

WAYS I DEPEND ON MY PARENTS

1. Provide me with a place to live.
   
2. Provide me with a job.
   
3. Get my car fixed.
   
4. Meals.
   
5. Laundry.
   
6. Investing my money.
   
7. Planning vacations.
   
8. Planning holidays.
   

Your list is a blueprint of what you have to master. These are the tasks of life, and almost everyone can do them.

3. List Challenges, Changes, or Phobias That You Have Avoided Because You Are Afraid of Them.
List challenges you have avoided. Some will be relatively easy, while others will be difficult. Here is a list Margaret composed with us.

TASKS I HAVE AVOIDED

1. Being more assertive with Anthony.
   
2. Riding the subway.
   
3. Going shopping alone.
   
4. Staying home alone.
   
5. Driving on the highway.
   
6. Going to a movie with Anthony.
   
7. Going out dancing with Anthony.
   
8. Going out to lunch with girlfriends.
   
9. Going to see a lawyer about options for ending the marriage.
   
10. Talking to Anthony about marriage counseling.
    

Try to include items from all spheres of your life. Margaret did not have a job when she first came into therapy—this was something she tackled much later. But your list should include items about work. For example, one aspect of William’s job that we addressed in therapy was his tendency to run to his father whenever he had even the slightest question or doubt about how to do something. (As you will remember, his father is his boss at the accounting firm.) William had to learn to tolerate the anxiety and solve problems himself. He made mistakes at first, but he improved and gradually took on more responsibility. After about a year, he left his father’s firm and took a job elsewhere. This was after considerable struggle and effort on his part that slowly built his confidence.

4. Systematically Force Yourself to Tackle Everyday Tasks and Decisions Without Asking for Help. Take on Challenges or Make Changes You Have Been Avoiding. Start with the Easy Tasks First. Use the two lists you have just constructed to map out a plan for yourself. Sit down and rate how difficult each item would be for you to complete, using the following scale:

SCALE OF DIFFICULTY

0 Very Easy

2 Mildly Difficult

4 Moderately Difficult

6 Very Difficult

8 Feels Almost Impossible

Begin with the easy items. Make sure that you have included items that will be relatively easy for you to complete. In addition, it is important to do a lot of planning before you actually attempt an item, even an easy one. We want you to be ready.

The first item Margaret chose was going shopping alone. She decided to go to the grocery store. We spent a long time talking about how she would handle different scenarios. If she started to panic, she would do deep-breathing exercises to control her physical symptoms. If she started having catastrophic thoughts, she would challenge and correct them. If she wanted to run out, she would tell herself that she could handle the situation without running, and she would stay. Examine every possibility, and plan what you would do if it occurred.

You might want to do several items at the same level of difficulty before you move on to a more difficult item. If you need to, add to your list. Margaret added a number of level 3 items to her list before moving to level 4—going to an uncrowded department store alone, exercising, balancing the checkbook. We want you to feel that you have attained a level of mastery before going onto more difficult tasks. We want you to feel that you are building mastery and competence in a systematic fashion. We want you to feel a sense of
control

5. When You Succeed at a Task on Your Own, Take Credit for It. Do Not Minimize It. When You Fail, Do Not Give Up. Keep Trying Until You Master the Task.
It is important to give yourself credit when you have earned it. You may have a tendency to feel that you do not deserve credit because you
should
be able to do these things already. When Margaret successfully completed her first item, going to the grocery store alone, she expressed this feeling:

MARGARET: I didn’t feel too good about it really. After all, everyone goes to the grocery store. What’s the big deal really?

THERAPIST: But to someone with panic attacks, going to the grocery store is a big deal.

Be realistic when you appraise how competently you completed an item. There will be some things you did well, and some things you did not do well. Try to recognize your achievements and learn from your mistakes.

You may have the tendency to criticize yourself if you had a critical parent. If you start to disparage yourself, stop. Support yourself instead. This is part of the nurturing of yourself that you must learn to do. It enables you to move on, even if you are not perfect, to keep strengthening yourself and to build your competence.

6. Review Past Relationships and Clarify the Patterns of Dependence That Recur. List the Lifetraps to Avoid.
Make a list of the people who have been most important in your life. Include your family, friends, lovers, teachers, bosses, and coworkers. Look at each relationship in turn. Look at your dependence. What was it about that person, and what was it in your behavior, that fostered your dependence? What are the lifetraps for you to avoid?

Here is the list that Margaret made:

DEPENDENCE LIFETRAPS

1. Acting like a child instead of an adult.
   
2. Staying with people no matter how they treat me.
   
3. Acting clingy.
   
4. Picking people who like to take over my life and take care of me.
   
5. Giving up my old life to be with somebody. Living their life instead of my own.
   
6. Not making my own decisions.
   
7. Not making my own money.
   
8. Not pushing myself to see what I can achieve.
   

This is a list of what may have gone wrong in your relationships. By being aware of your lifetraps, you can start to correct them.

Margaret did this in her relationship with us. With our support, she was able to become stronger in our relationship and assert herself. It showed us once again how
one
relationship can help heal a person. Asserting herself with us mobilized Margaret to assert herself with Anthony. Once she saw what it was like to be autonomous in a relationship, she did not want to go back. You will not want to go back either. It is a relief and a pleasure to give up the desperation of dependence for the calm and strength of independent functioning. As Margaret said, „It feels good not to need him so badly.“