That Blasted Phone

He wonders if she’ll ever get it right

Turn off the phone and turn out the light

He wonders if she’ll ever see the light inside herself

~ Lonelyhearts by Juliet A. Wright

copyright 2010, all rights reserved

I truly do struggle with the telephone. When the phone rings, I feel like I have to answer it. Even if the ringer is off and I see the light blinking with a message, I feel like I have to find out who it is and what they want — just like a food addict who is looking for the cookies that someone hid from them. If there is even a crumb, I have to find it and devour it. But unlike the food addict who enjoys the flavor of the cookies, I answer the phone often out of obligation. I am responsible for whomever is on the other end of the line. I often see the red message light blinking and feel a sense of dread. The days are blissful when I come home from work and there is no blinking light on.

I dread hearing my telephone ring because it has brought me a lot of bad news over the years. The phone delivered the news about my mother’s cancer and death, my father’s dementia (I was there for his death), my brother in-law’s illness and all of the stress, sadness, and issues that my sister went through with that (I learned about his death over the Internet, not by phone). The phone was also a source of contention in my friendship with Doris, a relationship which ended quite painfully.

Sometimes I wish I could throw my phone out the window and have it get run over by a semi-truck, like Jim Carrey does with his pager in Bruce Almighty. Or I could leave it out in the snow to freeze like talented musician Jacqueline De Pré did with her cello in the movie Hilary and Jackie.

Part of the issue is that I have friends and family on the West Coast and I now live on the East Coast. The time change makes connecting difficult as the West Coasters have to call earlier than they are able. I go to bed early so I turn the phone off at 8:00 pm. This is part of my self-care. Juliet is taking care of herself by turning off the phone and going to bed early. Yea me! However, I often get calls after 8 o’clock at night.

Enter Juliet’s defects of character. My relationship with the telephone brings up my character defects of fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, over-responsibility and caretaking, obsessiveness, compulsiveness, people pleasing, and peacemaking — just to name a few.

The telephone also connects me to people who need me to listen to them and help fix their problems. That is what Juliet the Codependent thinks.

Then Juliet’s Codependency Patterns start kicking in:

• Your moods and actions are my fault: My over-responsibility tells me I am responsible for other people’s feelings and whatever is going on with them is my fault.
• If you hurt, I hurt; I think I have to fix you: Codependents are “fix it” people and I am no different. It’s my job to fix people because I am responsible for them, my thinking tells me. This is my over-responsibility defect too.
• My fear of abandonment and fear of rejection determine how I behave: I answer the phone because if I don’t, then whoever it is will get mad and not be my friend anymore. This also reminds me of Doris and of Betty as well. There was anger and rejection there in both cases.
• I am less than: My low self-esteem tells me I’m not good enough to deserve to have needs and to value them over other people’s needs. I’m not good enough to put myself first.^[1]

Juliet’s Feelings are involved here too:

• This is all my fault. I did something wrong: My inner critic yells at me and tells me I’m bad, mean, and selfish for not answering the phone and taking care of people.
• They’re going to abandon me: I fear that if I don’t answer, they will leave me.
• They’re going to reject me: I fear that if I don’t answer, they will say I’m bad and not love me anymore.
• I don’t deserve good things: My inner critic tells me that I’m selfish for not being there for them and taking care of myself instead.
• I am less than: My inner critic continues by saying, “What kind of a person wouldn’t answer the phone? Bad Juliet!”
• I am ashamed: I feel shame for taking care of myself instead of helping someone else first.
• I am bad and now everyone knows it. I’ll be alone forever: Now I won’t have any friends.^[2]

Now all of these responses to the above feelings are jabs by my nasty inner critic. None of them are true. I know they are lies and I don’t have to listen to or believe them. The fact that I know this is recovery. I can dismiss them and move on with taking care of my own needs, which is my God-given right.

Now in reviewing these patterns and feelings, I see recovery.

The old Juliet would have had the following Codependency Patterns on her list:

• I’m not conscious of my own moods. I am conscious of your moods: I can’t say that now. I am conscious of my moods. This is progress. But now I have to deal with my moods and express them to people. Sometimes this is difficult to do and people don’t like what I have to say.
• If you’re happy, I’m happy: This isn’t true anymore either. I am aware now that someone can be happy and I’m not. This awareness is a sign of recovery and growth but leads to the next Codependency Pattern.
• It’s difficult for me to recognize my moods or articulate them: I can now recognize my moods more readily, but articulating them is still difficult because of my fear of abandonment, fear of rejection, and over-responsibility.
• I don’t know what I need. I focus on what you need: Now I do know what I need to do and sometimes what I need involves taking care of myself by not answering the phone. There is recovery here, but putting my needs above the needs of others is still difficult for me.
• I like to do whatever you like to do. What I like to do isn’t important: What I like to do is important to me these days. My inner child speaks up here. She has been shoved under the rug for too many years and she wants what she wants and she wants it now. Sometimes I have to calm her down. She is a child, after all. But the fact that I know what I like to do and feel it is important is recovery. Plus I’m starting to take action in this area and do things I like to do.
• Please don’t get mad at me. I’ll feel however you want me to feel: Obviously my fear of abandonment and fear of rejection, conflict avoidance, and passivity escalate when someone gets mad at me. I don’t like it when people are mad at me. It’s scary. It hurts. It’s lonely. But I know I feel how I feel. I don’t have to change my feelings for someone, like I did with my family of origin. Especially my dad.^[3] 
  
  

The old Juliet would have had the following Juliet’s Feelings on her list:

• They’re right. I’m wrong: I can’t say that now. People are responsible for themselves. They have the right to reach out, but I have the right to say, “Not now” if that’s what is right for me.^[4]

I used to answer the phone because I felt responsible for the person on the other end. That usually led to resentment on my part. If it makes me resentful, it’s not a choice. Then I would sit there trying to be nice and patient, but they could tell I was cranky and just wanted to eat and go to bed. So I’d get off the phone. But then I would feel guilty and call back and try to be nice and patient and talk to them. It was just this horrible codependent thing that went on.

The other day I answered the phone when I was in too much of a hurry to get out the door. Bad idea. The energy group, Efficiency Vermont, called again. The woman said they need the manufacturer’s invoice for the water heater and I misunderstood and jumped down her throat. Now I’m beating myself up for that. I was not nice to her. She clarified and said that they need the invoice from the manufacturer. She said they contacted the installer about it. I did apologize to her and am also saying I’m sorry to God. So I shouldn’t answer the phone when I’m in a hurry.

I am working really hard to surrender my slavery to the phone. For a while I unplugged the phone at 8:00 pm. Now I have an answering machine that has a silent mode. I can program it to just go to the machine at whatever time I want. It won’t start ringing out loud until the time I have set it to do that. Now sometimes it does seem to malfunction and ring late, but most of the time the answering machine is quiet.

I will surrender my slavery to the phone. I will not allow my phone to become my God. Only God is my God. I admit powerlessness over the phone. This has helped me. As soon as I admit powerlessness over something, the urgency is defeated.

I have talked to my therapist, my sponsor, and my Quaker Clearness Committee about my issues with the telephone and my over-responsibility for the person on the other end. They all agreed that I need to unplug the phone, put it on silent mode or whatever, and go take care of myself. When three separate entities are saying the same thing, that is God talking to me. I am listening, God.

I am making tiny steps of progress in my recovery in issues with the telephone. I will keep working my program until I recover.

Thank you God for this learning.

What helps me the most when I am struggling with that blasted telephone is:

• Surrender: I get on my knees, admit powerlessness over the telephone and my over-responsibility, and give this to God.
• Give it to God: I place the person and situation that is involved with this phone call and anxiety attack into a beautiful, imaginary goblet and offer it up to God. Then I put a note in my God Box about it. This helps me let go and move on.
• Constant God connection: I pray as much as I can throughout the day, listen for His guidance, and try to do His will as I think He has told me. Just knowing that I am trying to do His will and follow Him helps me to feel better about doing what I need to do to detach and take care of myself. If I am listening to and following God, there must be good in me.
• Step work: I work the steps on whatever telephone call or situation is triggering my anxiety. Then I read the step work to my sponsor.
• Documentation: I record my thoughts and revelations about the situation that is causing me turmoil. Then I listen to the tape and write the contents in to my computer. Working the matter out in this way really helps me to become settled on the matter. 
• Program literature: Reading the 12 Promises, 12 Steps, and 12 Traditions of Co-Dependents Anonymous really helps me to remember that I have a right to take care of myself. It also puts God back in the driver’s seat. Reading the CoDA basic text and the stories within its pages reminds me that I am worthwhile just because I exist and that I am not terminally unique.

^[1] Adapted from the Family of Origin packet materials provided by the Sequoia Recovery Center.

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Ibid.

^[4] Ibid.