Control Issues Include Over-Helping
And Falls Under Co-Dependency
I always thought— I never understand people with control issues. To me, they often seemed so overbearing and trying to micromanage the smallest things. They seemed uptight and petty, often times making mountains out of molehills.
Like the parents or partners who were so anal retentive about certain issues—clealiness or high maintenance or like things had to be done just so like this or that—
I always thought—get a life—aren’t there more important things to worry about?
I thought people with control issues ridiculous and silly—and I certainly didn’t consider myself to be one of them….
That is, until I learned two things—
They were the following:
First, I heard the quote:
1-You never had anxiety, you had fear of loss of control.
(And I’ve had lots of anxiety at various points in life, even diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and taking anti-anxiety meds for it.)
And
2-I heard it said that co-dependent people can have control issues because of their fierce and desperate and overbearing desire to “help” others. Even when others may not have asked for and didn’t want their help.
And that—help is just a nice word for control.
That one was like a gut punch.
I heard that the other day on a podcast with e author of Co-Dependent, Melody Beaty.
I have certainly been co-dependent and emotionally addicted to others and using relationships to gear my emotions, to help me manage how okay I feel with/about myself and about life.
I may have great intentions at points.
I was other times using helping and co-dependency so as to not address my own issues—either with alcohol abuse, trauma, or issues of childhood wounds in which I never dealt with—like having two mentally ill and traumatized parents—first, my dearest mother with her significant depression issues and hoarding issues. My father, the other one, an alcoholic who also was traumatized. And my own child of an alcoholic issues that lended well, too well, into paving the path for my own alcohol abuse, when you add the heaping doses of trauma onto the equation as well. And failure to address my own repression of the pain and grief and trauma and feelings of anger and godforesakenness and heart-wrenching sadness of being the only one left in my family.
That’s a mouthful.
But suffice it to say this—I realize that I do have control issues.
They are just packaged in a different wrapping.
Like anxiety, like overdesire to help, like attachment issues and co-dependency and emotional addiction.