“Imagine chasing the impossible dream of having the perfect family. Having experienced many relationships with emotionally unavailable people, the co-dependent subscribes to an every-growing myth that there will be some kind of gratitude if material things are provided. What these people end up with in their relationships is a bottomless pit.”
Dr. Kaye (1991, p. 56) probes a bit deeper:
“Co-dependents give or spend until it hurts. Who’s hurt? Think of our language.
‘I bent over backwards for him.’ How very painful, to bend over backwards. Maybe its okay for a contortionist.
‘I went out of my way to buy her the ring she wanted.’ What for? People “go out of their way” because pain is the way, and the pain has to be circumvented at any cost. (See the language? ‘At any cost.’ You can always tell a recovering spender!) So people ‘go out of their way to do for others, to buy for others. Then more is bought to ease the guilt of spending. It’s a vicious cycle.”
She (1991, p. 56) turns to the underlying causes:
“Let’s look at how co-dependents circumvent pain. What do they do to make themselves feel better? This is the root of all addictions and the core issue that needs to be dealt with to stem the addiction. Overeaters state that when they were growing up, the reward was food.
‘Let’s go and get something to eat’ – social life.
‘If you are very good, I’ll get you some ice cream’ – conditional love.
With spenders the rewards are material. I have said it myself. ‘If you feel lousy, go buy yourself something.'”
In this list offered by Yvonne Kaye we find the intermixing of self-reward with the witnessing rewards being given to us by significant people in our life. For Kaye this all eventually turns back to self-reward or at least self-protection. You are “protecting yourself from the way other people feel [about us].” (Kaye, 1991, p. 102). Ultimately, it is about coming to terms with that to which we are “entitled” in our life. And what we can expect from other people who love us and what we should provide them in our love for them (Kaye, 1991, pp.138-143).
Identification of Self
There is one other matter that Yvonne Kaye considered in her analysis of monetary crises. This matter concerns the world in which we live. In many ways, this is a return to Erich Fromm’s description of American society as consumer driven. This concern also relates to an observation made by Ken Gergen 2000) about contemporary life. He writes about the “saturated self” and the appearance in each of us of multiple senses of self (what Gergen calls “Multiphrenia”). In our search for one authentic and stable self, there is an understandable turning to outside sources for this identification of self. And many outside sources are more than willing to assist us in this process. Dr. Kaye (1991, p. 68) requests that we do a bit of investigating regarding these sources:
