"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" ~but have ya ever asked yourself WHY this is??
Pathological Codependency: The 'Covert' Personality Disorder.
It’s said that doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result, is “the definition of insanity.” This is not actually correct.
What IS true, is we keep following the same template or blueprint that was implanted in us during our formative years (age 1 - 5) and despite consistently disappointing outcomes, we doggedly continue to believe that ONE DAY, our choices and behaviors are gonna yield satisfying results~ if we just keep trying!
My healing practice has always attracted clients who have Borderline Personality Disorder and/or pathological Codependency traits. Psychotherapists and Clinical Psychologists often carry the traits of both personality disorders, so a dual diagnosis is not at all uncommon. These personality traits spawn from deficits in nurturant attention, care and affection during our earliest life experiences outside our mother’s womb.
Both Narcissism/Codependency and BPD are caused by developmental arrest, around the age of 2 - 3, when we started asking ourselves questions about and analyzing the emotional pain in our body, rather than being able to endure it, and stay out of our head. For millions, this is the only mechanism (or defense) that kept them from becoming a childhood suicide statistic.
Nobody is born a fixer, caregiver or rescuer personality! This persuasion is cultivated in us from as early as infancy onward, and is continually reinforced as we grow into adulthood. Every child who had an unhappy and/or dissatisfied mother, readily adopts rescuing impulses as he navigates childhood, often becoming the surrogate spouse or partner for his mother, as he tries desperately to please and make her smile. He does this, because he inherently believes his mom should be happy with him~ yet all too often he cannot observe in her a joyful affect, and presumes the lack of same, is his fault (“if I were only good enough or lovable, my mommy would feel happy!”)
We bond in-utero with our mothers as we are developing inside her womb. We constantly hear the rhythmic sounds of her heartbeat and breathing during our fetal development, that routinely lull us to sleep. We hear our mother’s voice and become intimately familiar with the cadence of her speech, how she enunciates her words, and her vocal tone. We co-experience our mother’s emotions, and whatever she is feeling, we simultaneously feel right along with her.
We can literally develop chronic depression and anxiety issues a bit later in life, if these were Mother’s predominant feeling states, during our gestation period. It’s okay, you’re not stuck with these issues. They can be completely dismantled and healed, with the right type of assistance.
During our months in our mother’s womb, we develop a sense of oneness with her. As far as we’re concerned, We are Her, and She is Us. We cannot discern any separation from her, whatsoever. She and We are one~ which is often the feeling we get when we first meet and get involved with a Borderline. The love-bombing we receive from these people is literally irresistible. It’s their primary means of seducing us.
Core Trauma occurs when a newborn comes out of his mother’s body already bonded and in love with her, and senses his feelings of adoration are not mutually felt. Core shame is instantly implanted due to this deficit, because an infant can only sense that it’s his fault, he’s not getting his love returned. This is the actual start of core trauma for every child who grows up acquiring Narcissism, Borderline Personality traits, Codependent leanings, and chronic anxiety and depression.
MIllions of people all over the world invest in years and very often, decades of psychotherapy, which may provide worthy insights, but never heals core trauma wounds that reside (since infancy) in the heart (not the head). Alas, resignation about what’s causing our inner pain (and inability to forge and maintain healthy attachment bonds) falls very short of resolution and genuine healing.
Codependency and Borderline Personality Disorder are two distinct sides of the exact same ‘core trauma’ coin~ they simply play out differently, within each personality. The Codependent becomes a Super-giver to compensate for his poor self-worth, and the Borderline becomes a Super-seducer/user to compensate for her lack of worth. Both are narcissistic, and incapable of feeling empathy, as they have each dissociated from their own agony, since they were toddlers. This leaves each unable to identify with and relate to another’s inner experiences and pain.
It’s a fact that any person who needs the least in their relationship dynamic, is the one who’s always in power. The Super-giver tells himself he expects nothing in return for his giving gestures, which is a good thing~ because those impaired others he gives to cannot reciprocate his generosity! It was not part of their ‘unspoken contract,’ when they first joined. This type of relationship is never anything but a one-way street~ it cannot be reciprocal.
It’s not that The Giver receives nothing in response to his giving gestures~ it’s that they merely reinforce for him his ideation that he’s a “good person.” This seems enough to carry him along, until he feels compelled once again, to refuel and reinforce this self-image by finding ways to fix, rescue or take-on the care of others~ even if his own well has run dry.
For every GIVER, there must be a TAKER, because Life has a funny way of balancing the scales. Who IS one who compulsively feels the need to give, without someone to give to? Who is he or she really, if these behavior patterns are abruptly halted, and he/she is not permitted to keep giving? Might this inability to give of oneself, trigger an Identity Crisis??
When you’ve felt like “no good deed goes unpunished,” it’s due to the fact that the receivers of your kind and charitable acts, are forced to feel ‘less-than’ you. If you’re the guy who’s always picking up the tab for your group at lunch, your unconscious need is to remain in the one-up position with your compadres. This isn’t consciously held by you, ‘cause in Your mind, you’re just being a ‘great guy,’ and extending a favor to others~ but they resent you for it, just the same!
Another aspect to consider when you’re a Super-giver, is this: When one lives with the compulsion to GIVE because it helps him feel good about himself, why in the world would he want to deprive others of this pleasurable experience?!
A Super-giver feels uncomfortable, receiving a compliment. He/she doesn’t feel worthy of receiving that offering, and difficult/icky feelings are invoked when someone dares to offer one. Super-givers will either make a joke and laugh it off when ya compliment ‘em, or they’ll invalidate your perceptions. The same unsettling emotional reactions occur when a Giver is given to, in the form of a gift, favor or kind and loving gesture. Can you imagine being married to someone like this??
The tide of the ocean routinely goes out to sea. It must however, return to shore with sand and shells it deposits, or no beaches would exist anywhere in the world! If it gives us pleasure to give to another~ but we have difficulty receiving, we not only incur resentment from others, we may often try to give ‘em a drink of water from an empty well. This is an addictive, compulsive way to maintain our relationship bonds, and it seriously undermines them.
The USA has been a Pathologically Codependent Nation for far too many decades. We’ve rushed to the aid of other countries, meddled in their wars, given gargantuan sums of money and arms to fight their battles and feed their civilians~ yet in the final analysis, what have we to show for it?
I’ve often wondered when it’s gonna be America’s turn to receive care and aid. Might doing so evoke shame for us as a (former) “World Power,” to be on the receiving end of another country’s support and help?? What precisely would receiving these supplies from other nations actually mean to us? Could we tolerate the feelings it invokes~ and might it diminish the sense of “strength and might” we’ve long-deluded ourselves into thinking we actually have?
The narcissism America carries is nothing short of prodigious, just as it is within millions of individuals who feel a compulsive need to be in the driver’s seat in all their relationship dynamics! In truth, deep-seated insecurity and poor self-worth drives this compulsion. There are no exceptions. This insecurity spawns grandiose, compensatory behaviors to help mask or deny one’s own vulnerability and fragility. ALL living, breathing creatures are on occasion, vulnerable. Only a supreme Narcissist feels the need to refute this.
Remember, the one who NEEDS the least, is always the one in power. Take an honest assessment of how this ideation has worked out today, for the US. The harm this has caused America as a once-vibrant, somewhat invincible nation, is incalculable! All ya need to do is assess our military, to know we wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell, to survive a serious attack!
We are currently down on our knees, just struggling to survive under massive debt amounting to trillions of dollars (and that’s just the interest~ not the principle), we are being overrun by illegal migrants, many of whom are criminals and mentally unstable individuals who are flocking here from hostile nations, due to our unbridled decades of egomaniacal choices and actions, which have focused on other people’s problems, while completely ignoring our own.
If the parents of a family gave care, food, clothing and shelter to neighboring kids but neglected to provide enough of these resources to their own kids, might their children question their worth and lovability, and grow up feeling resentful?? American citizens (the ones who are conscious) are utterly furious about the Biden administration’s insane antics~ and to make matters worse, our VP (Kamalalalalalalala) intends to pour salt into our gaping, bleeding, and at this point, virtually irreparable wounds! How did we ever allow this to happen to us?
How DOES a nation like America give away countless billions of dollars to another country, while her own ‘children’ are starving in the streets, and her welfare system is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy? Do we just not notice our needful own, because we receive far more accolades, ego-fueling kudos and press coverage from nations who merely wish to take advantage of our “kind and generous nature?” Have ANY of America’s ‘good deeds’ been rewarded? Or is this administration merely laundering money and lining its pockets with the ripe, delectable fruit of senseless, youth murdering wars?
My dad once said to me as a teen: “Make sure you clean up the mess in your own backyard, before you start workin’ on someone else’s.” Solid advice from a wise man… thank you, Daddy.
This obsession of ours to keep pouring resources into other countries who resent the hell out of us, is solely ego-driven, self-serving and self-destructive. We’ve all but lost the value of the US dollar, and yet we’ve still not come outta the ether and realized how we’ve brought about the demise of our once great (albeit pathologically Codependent) nation!
ARE the people we elect to be our leaders actually this unconscious, shortsighted and incredibly STUPID? Have they really NO common sense~ or does their acute narcissism override any familiarity with the concept of Cause and Effect? Who IS America, if it can no longer fix, rescue and help everybody else who has their hand outstretched, expecting us (“The Super Power”) to keep giving till we bleed~ and are we not there already??
You tell Me.