Narrow Way Cafe

Orphangelical

“You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.”

Kurt Vonnegut

“Every saint has a past, every sinner a future.”

Oscar Wilde

The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They fail to alter their views to fit the facts. Instead, they alter facts to fit their views.

Dr Who.

Social Glue

Dgg

A definition of Codependency often used in 12-step programs goes something like:

Codependence – When one’s sense of wellness or angst depends on the behavior of another.

The example I’ve used is:

Married? You know the axiom “Happy wife, happy life?”

IMHO (and depth of experience) “Co-dependency” as the term is applied generally today, is a modern label maligning behavior that used to be “Social Glue.” (Well, basically…)

Professionals place more qualifying restrictions on diagnosing the condition of “Dependent Personality Disorder.”

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

Reference at DSM-5 301.6 (F60.7):

“…does not have age appropriate ability to operate autonomously, the diagnostic criteria for Dependent Personality Disorder may be met.”

What’s “the” definition of “appropriate?”

The inability to operate autonomously – would truly be a disability.

Children of prisoners are good examples. Fractured families are the collateral damage of when our social glue is undone.

What I mean is, what if we took each other’s well-being seriously?

Reversing the terms: Families are deprived of the “ability to operate appropriately” when formative relationships and appropriate guidance / and participation is absent.

It takes a village, but more and more our culture seems to be unconcerned with what happens to our members. We used to depend on each other.

Perhaps problems with substance use and homelessness, or even political division would diminish if we depended more on our neighbors. What I mean is, what if we took each other’s well-being seriously? Like being concerned to the extent that we care for each other and could not be comfortable knowing others suffer?

What if we actually cared that people in other places are oppressed to such an extent they’re forced to migrate away from homelands? In the absence of a sense of dependence, isn’t compassion is sterile? Empathy seems to be missing. And Empathy inspires healthy social glue.