What is Codependency?

I was a codependent for most of my life. Desperate to be loved, I jumped from one long-term relationship to another, from a very young age, most of them being abusive.

I was desperate for friends, so clingy and needy, I either put up with bullying and toxicity even in adult friendships, or drove any healthy minded friends away, with my drama and need for constant reassurance.

Living in a permanent state of arousal – massive heightened anxiety – I found healthy relationships or friendships dull and boring, and with a deep core belief that I was ‘unloveable’ and ‘unworthy’ of love, paired with a terrifying fear of rejection or abandonment, I clung to narcissistic abusive partners, and turned to substance and alcohol abuse in a desperate bid to self-regulate.

Finally, after years of emotional and physical abuse, addiction, chronic insomnia, and a suicide attempt, I realised I had hit absolute rock bottom.

Fuelled mainly by rage and anger at the latest in a long line of relationships with violators, I presented at my first therapy session as an empty shell, depleted of any remnants of self love, if indeed I had ever had any at all, and begged, ‘What is wrong with me? Why don’t I ever recognise the red flags?’ And so began my journey of healing, and enlightenment.

Codependency, often called ‘love addiction’,  is an emotional and behavioural condition that makes it hard for a sufferer to have  healthy, mutually satisfying relationships or friendships.

If you are a codependent, you don’t even necessarily have to be in a romantic relationship. Being codependent means having unhealthy attachments. It occurs in friendships, between family members, between a boss and an employee, and among co-workers.

People who are codependent have one-sided, emotionally destructive, and dysfunctional relationships and friendships.

A codependent person puts their own needs aside and is hyper-vigilant about meeting the needs of others. The ultimate people-pleaser.

But What Causes Codependency?

Codependence is thought to develop when a child grows up in a dysfunctional family environment where fear, anger, and shame go unacknowledged. The dynamic leads family members to withhold from expressing (repressing) their emotions and ignore their own needs.

Codependency starts in childhood when the home, or one or both caregivers are deemed ‘unsafe’. They come from dysfunctional families marked by criticism, excessive control, neglect, abuse, or lack of emotional support. Their pattern of accommodating other people, then, is an attempt at finding safety and belonging.

As a child our boundaries are porous, and we absorb the beliefs and emotions of those around us. As adults, if our boundaries and sense of self are still permeable, we continue to do this in close romantic relationships. This can lead to codependency. We can’t  access our innate, true self, and our thoughts and actions revolve around someone or something else. We feel more fragmented and lack authenticity and a clear awareness and conviction of our feelings, needs, beliefs, opinions, and values.

Factors that may contribute to codependency include:

• A family member who has substance use disorder (e.g., drugs, alcohol, relationships, work, food, sex, or gambling)
• A family member living with a chronic mental or physical illness
• Experiencing physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
• Childhood neglect

Symptoms Of Codependency

• Find it hard to make decisions
• Harsh self-criticism
• Can’t easily accept compliments, recognition, praise, or gifts
• Be unable to identify or ask for what they want and need
• Place a higher value on others’ approval of their thinking, feelings, and behaviour than on their own
• Not perceive themselves as lovable or worthwhile
• Compliance Patterns

• Compromise their values and integrity to avoid rejection and other people’s anger
• Be extremely loyal, even staying in harmful situations too long
• Place a higher value on other’s opinions and feelings
• Accept sex as a substitute for love
• Harshly judge what others think, say, or do
• Develop addictions to people, places, and things to distract them from intimacy in relationships
• Use indirect or evasive communication to avoid conflict or confrontation

Self Abandonment

Codependents try to fit in with other people and hide who they are to be accepted by other people.

Development of a full-embodied self is stunted due to a lack of self-constancy starting in childhood. Instead, codependents create a false self, which they determine is pleasing to others.

Unconsciously, they carry the shame of feeling unlikable or unlovable. They long to be accepted, often lose sight of their own values, and believe they have to sacrifice themselves for love. They shore up their low self-esteem through seeking validation from others.

Relationship Problems

Without a self-concept and self-esteem, codependents find it near impossible to set boundaries. Their partner’s feelings and needs take precedence over their own. In the process, they can become dependent on their partner despite serious problems or abuse. Many codependents in recovery report accepting or participating in behaviour with their partners that they never could have imagined doing.

Codependents feel trapped in a “subservient” or submissive role despite the negative consequences. Many choose partners with psychological problems. They feel a sense of obligation and find it very difficult to leave an unhappy relationship that was “unhealthy,” “unequal,” and “unpleasant.” In playing a familiar subservient role, they lose themselves completely.

Lack of Peace and Balance

Lack of internal stability makes codependents feel “out of control.” They have never been taught to self-regulate their emotions, so turn to addictive behaviour; drugs, alcohol; eating disorders, shopping, workaholism, excessive exercising, and romance addiction. The intensity they seek is often provided by the ups and downs of a relationship with an addict, an abuser, or someone mentally ill or emotionally unavailable.

Their activities, the melodrama, and an unstable partner provide a sense of excitement, aliveness and an escape from their inner void and depression, which creeps in when they’re alone and unoccupied. Some have to literally burn out in order to sleep or relax.

Healing From Codependency

The word ‘recovery’ literally means to ‘recover’. Healing from codependency provides an opportunity to repair our boundaries and recover who we were before life came at us.

It involves working through childhood issues and making the unconscious conscious. This enables us to stay in emotional contact with others while maintaining our own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings.

Therapy,  mindfulness, journalling, meditation, yoga, inner child work, identifying your feelings and needs, spending time alone, and self-care all help to individuate and reclaim yourself.

Andrea x