Identifying and Healing from Codependency
Let me tell you a little story about Greg the Giver and Tammy the Taker…
Greg is married to Tammy, who struggles with her mental health. He always puts her needs before his own and thinks he can help her through showing her affection and taking care of things that cause her stress (cleaning the house, food shopping, etc.). He is unknowingly enabling her by giving her everything she requests and removing obligations. He blames a lot of the relationship’s issues on himself and will do anything it takes, including sacrificing his own mental well-being, to make it work.
So what makes this relationship codependent as opposed to Greg simply being a supportive spouse?
Codependent relationships are relationships where one person constantly needs another, like Tammy in the above example (let’s call them the “takers”), and the other person needs to be needed, like Greg (let’s call them the “givers”). When talking about codependents, we are referring to the “givers.” The “takers” are often referred to as narcissists.
Codependency is not limited to romantic relationships; it can occur in a friend-friend relationship, or even a parent-child relationship. A relationship in this sense is meant to mean any relationship between one person and another.
Within these relationships there are no boundaries and people often take on the role of controlling another person's emotions, decisions, and behaviors (the takers), which can create feelings of low self-worth, fear of abandonment, and resentment from the givers.
Let’s take a look at a different example:
Gabby the Giver and Todd the Taker are also in a codependent relationship. Todd is Gabby’s father, and is an addict. Gabby constantly puts the needs of her father before her own and believes that she can help him become sober. She constantly covers up for his destructive behavior and feels as though she can’t pursue her own dreams because she needs to care for him. She would like to attend college in another state but decides to put her dreams aside and go to a college close to home in order not to disappoint her father and also because she feels her father needs her.
What does codependency “look” like?
Some common indicators of co-dependency for those that are the “givers” are:
Low self-worth/self-image
People-pleasing (inability to say “no”)
Lack of boundaries
Child-like fantasies that someone can save or fix you from your life
Chronic caretaking (patterns of putting everyone before self)
Emotional addiction (one becomes addicted to feeling a familiar way, or becoming dependent on a specific emotion for comfort, escape, distraction, or relief)
Inability to understand/clearly communicate your thoughts, feelings and emotions
Chronic fear of upsetting someone (the feeling of “walking on eggshells” around people)
High emotional reactivity to life situations (experiencing frequent and intense emotional reactions)
Obsessive thinking about what other people think of you
How did we get here?
Why or how would someone find themselves as a codependent?
In most cases, if we look back to the childhood of these individuals we might notice a few particular things.
There was likely a relationship, usually with a close family member/caregiver, where there was a lack of boundaries, and the emotions of that other person were felt by all those around them in repeated cycles. That would generate chronic fear of how people might respond to you or a belief that you are responsible for the emotions of others.
Another aspect that is particular to those that struggle with codependency is that during childhood they began denying their own needs in order to feel loved, accepted, validated, or even larger as a means of survival.
These behaviors not only damage our ability to trust ourselves, but also begins to create relational dynamics where we lose ourselves in order to be loved or chosen by another. Now as adults, these same individuals now engage in patterns of rescuing, people pleasing, enabling, and fixing because they believe this is how relationships function.
If this sounds extremely relatable to you, I understand the weight you’re feeling right now.
I understand how good it feels to be needed, I understand the satisfaction that comes from helping others, but I also understand the self-sacrifice, chronic self-neglect, and constant thoughts of never being or doing enough.
The good news is we can do something about this. I say “we” because codependent behavior, thoughts, and feelings were prevalent for me, too.
What can we do?
Codependent dynamics can be healed as long as we understand that these dynamics are nothing to be ashamed of, but rather the coping mechanisms we needed as children.
To heal from codependency we must learn how to:
Set boundaries with self and others
Spend time alone
Spend time doing something just for us (creating, moving, exploring)
Spend time in inner reflection (journaling, meditating, breathing)
Learn what our needs are (this could include asking our inner child what we need, and then practice meeting those needs)
As someone who has struggled with codependency I can honestly say these steps will likely be extremely difficult and uncomfortable, but also life-changing.
I was someone that would always put the needs of others first, but setting boundaries with myself and others and learning to say “no” was incredibly powerful and freeing for me. I spent a lot of time self-reflecting in order to be able to understand what I truly valued, which in turn made it much easier for me to begin declining invitations to do things I realized I didn't really want to do.
My reflection also illuminated that I kept individuals in my life that were classic “takers,” which forced me to make some changes. Not surprisingly, after saying “no'' one or two times to these individuals, I have not heard from them since.
Why is any of this important?
At the end of the day the most important relationship we have is the one we have with ourselves. The relationship we have with ourselves shapes all other relationships we have. This is why it’s so necessary to spend time alone, do the inner reflection, and learn what our needs are, because despite what we might have thought, others do not create our sense of self, we do.
And it is through that sense of self that we may begin to create healthy and interdependent relationships with others, ones where we can set and keep boundaries, express ourselves freely without fear of judgment or criticism, form secure attachment, hold space for ourselves, and be exactly who we are.