Day 61

I just read the first chapter of a book on codependency. It finishes the chapter with a bunch of questions. The first question is about who or what I am trying to control. The answer in large part is my children. I learned as  a child that my mom had the control. I would hide, I would entertain myself all by myself, I tried to be invisible while also craving attention. That way I didn't have to surrender to the control that my mom insisted she had. Now, I am sure that I am supposed to have control over my children. I know for sure that I am supposed to tell them how to think, feel, and behave. This looks like this: I am not paying attention to them or what they are doing, they start to fight about something. I come in when I can no longer pretend that they are behaving. When I finally bring myself into awareness of them, I don't care what is going on, I just steam roll over everyone, and demand that they follow my orders. In the end I feel I have gained control over them. If, for some reason, I feel I have not succeeded, then I am angry and resentful of the way they treated me. I feel justified in trying to control them because they are my children, and I think that that means I am supposed to teach them how to think and feel and behave. If I don't tell them then how will they know!?
I have always believed that I am the victim of my life. All the events happen to me, I have no choice in how I feel or what happens to me. Nothing is ever my fault, it's always someone or something else: Ididn't get enough attention, My parents didn't love me as much as I thought they loved my sister...etc. That allows me to be in control. I went through a phase when I was young, of always hedging my bets, I would tell someone that something was a certain way, I would insist I was right, but then just to cover myself I would add, "I might be wrong, but I really think that something is this way...." then if someone found out I was wrong, and got angry that I said something that wasn't so, I could just reply "I said I might be wrong!"  But in the mean time they made a choice based on what I was sure about. And because I had said I might be wrong, I could detach from any guilt at their pain because of my arrogent attitude.