22. Codependency Recovery for Autistic Women: The Healing Journey as a Codependent Single Mother with Autism & ASD - Emotional Detachment as a Tactical Advantage for Family Court, Season 2

Here, we look at practical ways out of codependency as an autistic woman. Most of it applies to neurotypical people too, but I want to be mindful of the specific wiring of the ASD brain covered in Episode 21.

Welcome back to season two of Light in the Battle, emotional detachment as a tactical advantage for family court. Light in the Battle is a podcast for autistic women healing from narcissistic abuse and it is a podcast where we get clearer, calmer, and spiritually and legally harder to mess with. What I learned in my journey is that the legal advice and strategy for family court against people who make us feel confused or scared just doesn't land when emotions are running high.

This is the transcript for Episode 22.

Survivors keep losing in court over and over because they're showing up in court frazzled with raging PTSD and resentment and they can't think clearly in the months leading up to the hearings precisely because of PTSD and resentment. So the goal of season two is to take you on a journey all the way from dealing with the trauma bond right after you leave the person all the way to emotional freedom. I've packed four years of my life into one season of my podcast and this episode here is part three of the topic of codependency because it's a huge part of our recovery and of how we detach emotionally in order to be better equipped to receive and incorporate any legal advice that we're getting into our strategy.

So far in season two we've talked about the trauma bond, we've talked about PTSD, CPTSD, and EMDR, we've talked about forgiveness, we've already covered codependency in two episodes. If you're not familiar with codependency I strongly recommend you start with episode 20 and 21 so that this episode 22 makes more sense to you.

Episode 20 was about the codependent traits and behaviors. Next, episode 21 was the strong link that I'm seeing between the autistic brain and codependent behaviors and traits and in episode 22 here we're going to be talking about ways out of codependency and things you can work on with a trained professional.

After this mini-series about codependency still within my season two to help you get to emotional detachment we will be talking about mentorship and fellowship, we'll be talking about gratitude and then surrender and grief.

Before we start talking about ways out of codependency please make sure to subscribe from the bottom of this page, so you don't miss the next blog post.

Please make sure to stay until the end as I freestyle a little bit towards the end to give you hope and encouragement.

This is the part where we get more hopeful and we think about ways out of codependency as an autistic woman. So from here in everything I'm going to say I'm going to invite you to think about those with a mental health professional.

They describe the process that I went through and what worked for me to go from raging codependent, grade A target, to now being repelled by people who thrive on me over-functioning and bending over backwards.

By the way, I now have a fresh dating story about this - note to self, I'll do a storytime-type episode about what it looks like when you notice in the wild, in a real life situation, that you're suddenly repelled by unhealed men and it's an amazing breakthrough.

Okay so I'm now seeking healthy dynamics and my wish for you is that with the help of a qualified, hopefully ASD-informed, or even better autistic therapist you can get there too. We autistic women just have to work twice as hard to break free from codependency. That's all, you know, no big deal.

We can do it. I did it, and I'm not special.

All right let's start with the main message of the book I mentioned in the last episode, "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie.

Again for those who didn't have a chance to listen to the previous episode, "Codependent No More" is a book that came out 40 years ago and put a name on the common traits that were found among spouses of alcoholics. The men and women married to people that were in AA groups, they themselves also had common traits and behaviors that they displayed but no one had a name for it at the time. And so Melody Beattie came up with this book, called it Codependency and since then it's changed millions of lives. That was 40 years ago.

So the book is called "Codependent No More" - I highly, highly recommend. You can obviously get a printed version but you can also get it on Audible. So the main message of the book is, "you must learn to depend on yourself; stop abandoning yourself for others; make promises to yourself and keep them; you must learn to depend on God too; as codependents we have a complex relationship with our feelings".

So let's break this down.

• You must learn to depend on yourself: only you can make you happy. That's YOUR job.

  
  

• Stop abandoning yourself for others: well, put yourself at the center. As Catholics we tend to frown upon this mindset but that's BS. Jesus himself made sure he ate and rested before speaking to crowds. It says "love others as you love yourself", not more. There's no reason I should be loving others more than myself. that's not what it says in the Bible.

  
  

• Make promises to yourself and keep them: that trains the brain to take you seriously and it can change your self-perception and therefore your self-vertification-seeking behaviors. So every time you say, "tomorrow I'll do a YouTube workout" and you don't, you train your brain to not trust you. But when you do, (and I would start very very small) you start to train your brain to take you seriously.

  
  

• You must learn to depend on God too: Okay so there's a 12-step program called CODA: codependent anonymous. I was a member for a while, and I absolutely recommend it. See if it's a fit for you. I found it useful, it was nice to hear about others also getting walked all over. It took away the shame it was helpful that way for me. See if there's a CODA program in your city and drop in and see what happens. Why I'm talking about CODA codependent anonymous is because they teach you to rely on a higher power.

  
  

• As codependents we have a complex relationship with our feelings: with your therapist I would encourage you to learn to feel your feelings. That can be particularly challenging for ASD people with alexithymia so maybe explore that in therapy with an ASD-informed professional.

  
  

So that's for the bigger picture advice she gives in the book.

In addition to that, I want to give you a little list of items to consider with the help again of a professional.

1. First would be to find your sense of worth outside of what you can do for others. Your worth, for Catholic folks, and probably actually most other religions (I don't understand deeply a lot of other religions) but we're made in the image and likeness of God. It's a pretty huge deal. There's your worth right there. Jesus died for you - God himself came down to Earth and died so that you would be forgiven. That's your worth right there. It's pretty huge, but look into it maybe in a secular way as well.

   
   

2. Second would be understanding what boundaries are and what they're not and practicing them on small things. There's a lot of great resources about this everywhere, podcasts, youtube, and your therapist obviously, will teach you what boundaries are and what they're not.

   
   

3. Practice saying no. Start with small things: school asks for parents to help out with something, and you know you're available? Say no anyway. And now the key is to sit with the discomfort and notice that you're okay. You're okay! Your worth has not changed because you said no. People don't start to hate you and reject you because you said no. You're safe, you're okay. You're uncomfortable, but you're okay.

   
   

4. Understand the difference between supporting someone and fixing someone: people aren't projects. Don't go around robbing them of agency without them even asking for your help - especially, by the way, if you're also working on restoring your feminine energy. Fixing and saving others puts you in a strong masculine energy so let's try and stop doing that. You can support others if they ask and after you've paused and thought about how much energy and time you're willing to donate, you then let go and trust that they can figure something out. They'll be fine (most likely, in most cases). So practice that.

   
   

5. The next item is acceptance. That can be a huge area of growth in therapy. You basically want to stop running away from yourself into relationships that allow you to focus on the other. Focus on you, all of you, the good, the bad, the ugly, and know that you're safe. You're fine. Acceptance also entails forgiving yourself for letting an unfortunate situation become your life - for now. It's not going to be your life forever but you have to go through a phase of acceptance.

   
   

6. Next is to make it your new obsession to achieve detachment. Shift your obsession from helping others, fixing others, forcing your help onto others, over to: let's now start obsessing over how we can detach. Make it your new special interest! That's what I did! Eveything i'm sharing with you, where do you think it comes from? It became my special interest for a long time. Page 62 in the book, "Codependent No More" she says, "detachment is not withdrawal, resignation, or ignorant bliss". And then another quote on the same page about what detachment is, "it is a policy to keep our hands off other people's responsibilities; to allow them to be where they are". Something to think about.

   
   

7. Next is to speak nicely to yourself. How about that? Speak to yourself the way you speak to others. You would never say to someone, "oh gee no wonder you messed that up, are you stupid or what?" You would never say that to someone else, would you? Why are you saying it to yourself? You is the only person that you're stuck with for the rest of your life - every second of every day. I would think you start there if you're looking for people to be nice to, you start there. You're stuck with you forever and all the time! Just saying.

   
   

8. Next is to create your own predictability, so that instead of relying on that concept of self-verification that I talked about to reinforce who you think you are from the outside, create little routines for yourself from the inside, that will make your life predictable. For me, for a long time I've been extremely specific about the order in which I would do things every morning; then it was the clothes I would wear. I can control how I'm going to look. I'm going to be wearing all black, it's predictable, I can control that. It takes zero thinking power in the morning to get dressed. Great predictability I've created for myself. Another example is the route you take when you walk your dog. It can always be the same. I'm giving you very small, very easy examples of control and predictability you can create for yourself. Create as much of it as you can, as much predictability and control for yourself as you can, as you need, so you can let go of the relationship with the dysfunctional person as your source for that control and predictability you seek. You're still going to need control and predictability, but you need to change the source. The source was outside, it was another person. Now it's you - do it for yourself.

   
   

9. Last suggestion is to consider fellowship and mentorship as part of your codependency recovery. That can look like joining CODA, Codependent Anonymous. Find a recovery group that specializes in codependency. I talked about this earlier, but that's the fellowship and mentorship you may need. I will be dedicating a full episode in the coming weeks to fellowhip & mentorship, in the context of Podcasthon, and I'm dedicating that episode to the STAR Network. "STAR" stands for Survivors of Toxic Abusive Relationships, and the STAR Network provides access to TAR Anon meetings and support groups ("TAR" being Toxic Abusive Relationships) so TAR Anon are support groups and co-regulation groups where you can meet with other survivors and walk that recovery journey together in fellowship. They also offer mentorship. It's different from CODA, but I can see how the two would work hand in hand for someone fresh out of abuse. Quick sidebar on Podcasthon, it's an initiative in the podcasting world where 2,000 podcasters worldwide will be dedicating that week's episode to bringing awareness to a charity of their choice. OK so that was a giant sidebar on my last item to think about as you start your journey out of codependency which is joining a Codependents Anonymous support group.

Codependency is so hard to let go of. Even after trauma work, even after forgiveness. In episode 19 I talk about forgiveness and that may end the inner war, but putting an end to codependency is the re-orientation step.

You've let go of the hurt and the resentment, and you're at peace internally, and now you need to change where you look. You're no longer going to be looking to others, you're going to start looking inwards and taking care of you, of yourself.

It's a reorientation step. It's the decision you make to work to stop organizing your identity around someone else's emotional states.

Recovery from codependency as an autistic woman, as hard as it is, can change your life. It's changed mine; it's given me a ton of bandwidth that I can invest into myself, into the kids, into strategizing for a custody battle, into my work, I'm even doing this podcast + blog! You think I had the energy and the time to do this before?

For autistic women especially, letting go of codependency isn't just losing a relationship. It's losing a self-definition. That's scary, it's uncomfortable, it leaves a void - something i covered in episode 15 and 16. I talked about the addiction to chaos and how we can handle that void. Once you let go of something destructive, there's a void that can reveal a lingering addiction to chaos and I give suggestions on how you let that go from a practical to neurochemical to a faith-based perspective. I pretty much covered the topic of the trauma bond aka the addition to chaos aka how to handle that void, from every possible angle!

You're losing a self-definition; it leaves a void because the question underneath is not, "who am I without them?" it's "who am I without the role that I adopted that made me feel like less of a misfit in this world?".

Sorry guys i'm being very direct... Love you guys... That's what it is, in my view of things. Codependency recovery as one piece of the puzzle of achieving emotional detachment, requires more than boundaries or knowledge or understanding.

You need to slowly get yourself to a new internal reference point. You have to shed your codependent skin and move into a new person, a person that doesn't need to feel needed, doesn't need to fix and control chaos, or stabilize others.

I know this season is pushing you out of your comfort zone. I've been getting feedback, I know that it's uncomfortable... That's kind of the point. Stay with me through this season 2 -it's a very hard journey but the person you're becoming... She's emotionally safe, she's grounded, she's a better friend, she's a better mom, she's a better fighter! It's so worth it.

So have courage. Stay with me through the entire season, follow the show so you see the next episodes drop for the entire season and have courage.

You can do this.

You've survived worse, okay? Honey, the work I'm suggesting here is nothing compared to the reason you're here reading this. The underlying reason you're here reading this blog, what you've been through, that was hard.

So you can do all the things that I talk about in Season 2. You got this.

Codependency goes away when the nervous system learns that our worth, our stability, that predictability, that control can come from inside rather than from managing an external dynamic. It's a lot easier to then engage in healthy relationships with healthy people, whether that's at work, romantic relationships, or in the new friendships you'll have to build after you get rid of the flying monkeys, when you have a clear sense of where they end and where you begin.

A sense of the fact that no, you're not a hero. Sorry, but nobody healthy wants you to be a hero. Sit down. Focus on you, and on your kids. Breathe. You're okay. They'll be fine, and you'll be fine.

Nobody healthy wants you to be a hero.

Sit down.

Focus on you, and on your kids.

And so you may see why the gratitude piece of my giant puzzle here comes later in Season 2. Gratitude is impossible if you're still focused on what you lost, on the loss of the abusive relationship. If you're still looking outside, you haven't reoriented, you're still looking over there at other people to self-verify, I want you to not focus on that loss.

Once codependency loosens you can start to think about gratitude. You can finally see what this life-changing experience that you went through, this objectively horrendous experience that happened to you, at some point (if you have the right therapist and you do the right work and listen to the right people and find what works for you) there are strong chances that you will get to a point (and i know a lot of people that are there and have been there) you get to a point where you see that all of that happened for you.

And you'll be grateful that it happened. Yup. I would not be the person I am today if I hadn't been through horrendous experiences. It all happened for me. It's made me who I am now and it's made me able to bring value to this world.

It's not going to stop, there's always going to be another hearing and another nonsense and craziness, that's never going to end, so it's not in the past... But it's entered my life for me. It's not happening to me.

I know a lot of you are not ready to hear this and I'm not sorry. I think by now, if you've listened to a few episodes of this podcast / read a few posts on this blog you understand that I'm genuinely trying to help and that i'm sharing things that have worked for me and for a lot of survivors. I'm here to help you save time.

I know some of what you've been through because I went through my own version of it. So I'm not being direct to disrespect anybody, I'm just trying to save everybody time and get straight to the point. A lot of what I'm saying is a little shocking, but I'd like to invite you to keep an open mind, and humor me, and maybe chew on bits and pieces of this Season 2 because I'm condensing years of my life into 15 weeks of content. This is like drinking from a fire hose and I get that. Do with this content what you will, do what works for you, at the pace that works for you, just don't feel judged at any time.

Freedom from codependency is not in the absence of a relationship because you'll still have those dormant traits waiting to come out. Breaking the dysfunctional relationship that brought you here on my podcast, although that was a fantastic and brave and crucial first step, breaking that relationship is not enough because after a dysfunctional relationship, whatever traits got you into it, if you don't do the work they'll get you right into another dysfunctional relationship.

We all know people that are like, "Why do I only attract narcissists" or, "why do I always end up in this situation", "why does this keep happening?" HONEY! You're the common denominator! Whatever made you self-verify in a way that got you into an abusive relationship, THAT needs to be addressed so that you don't spend your whole life in a string of dysfunctional relationships.

Freedom and detachment can come when you no longer abandon yourself in your quest for stability, control, and safety.

It's your job to make you happy.

De-center the dysfunctional person, the sad puppies, the validation you seek from helping others. Sit down, focus on you. You're worth it.