Codependency - What it is and how to become healthier

Ernie Larson:  Those self-defeating, learned behaviors or character defects that result in a diminished capacity to initiate or to participate in loving relationships.

Melodie Beattie:  A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.

Codependents are reactionaries.  They overreact.  They under-react.   But rarely do they “ACT.”  They react to the problems, pains, and behaviors.  Many reactions are to stress and uncertainty of living or growing up with alcoholism and other problems. 

Sandra D. Wilson:  Codependency is a shame-based, painful pattern of dependence on others to provide a sense of personal safety, identity and worth.  Codependency binds us to relationships where we are being disrespected and controlled by people we, in turn, disrespect and attempt to control.  It is “other” addiction.

Compulsively codependent adult children inevitably end up being controlled by the very people they attempt to control.

 

How Do We Get This Way?

A deep hurt – an unmet need for love and acceptance – either numbs the codependent or drives him to accomplish goals so he/she can please people and win their approval.  Codependent emotions and actions are designed to blunt pain and gain a desperately needed sense of worth.  It yields, however, only short-term solutions which ultimately cause more pain (Springle).

 

Characteristics of Codependent Families

Alcoholism    Drug addiction   Workaholism   Divorce   Eating disorders 

Sexual disorders     Absent father     Absent mother    Neglect    Verbal

Emotional abuse     Physical abuse     Sexual abuse                                    

Domineering father/passive mother

Domineering mother/passive father

 

Codependency a Disease

 Melody Beattie says codependency is a disease because it: 

• Is progressive
• May start as concern, but may trigger isolation, depression, emotional or physical illness, or suicidal fantasies
• Can make you sick
• Can help those around you who are sick to stay sick
• Become habitual and habits take on a life of their own
• Is a habitual system of thinking, feeling, and behaving toward ourselves and others
• Is self-destructive
• Is learning to destroy ourselves because we react to people who are destroying themselves
• Keep us in destructive relationships
• Prevents us from finding peace and happiness with ourselves
• Belongs to the only person each of us can control – ourselves
• Is our problem

 Codependency Characteristics

• Difficulty in accurately identifying feelings
• Difficulty in expressing feelings
• Difficulty in forming or maintaining close or intimate relationships
• Perfectionism (unrealistic expectations of self and others)
• Rigidity in behavior and/or attitudes
• Difficulty in adjusting to change
• Feeling overly responsible
• Constant need for other’s approval in order to feel good about self (focused outside self)
• Difficulty making decisions
• Feeling powerless, as if nothing I do makes any difference
• Shame and low self-esteem
• Avoidance of conflict (fear of abandonment)

 

Controlling Behaviors

Codependents:

• Force things to happen
• Control in the name of love
• Only trying to help
• Know best how things should be done and how people should behave
• We’re right, they’re wrong
• Afraid not to do something
• Don’t know what else to do
• To stop the pain
• Think they have to
• Don’t think
• Controlling is all they think about

 Unhealthy Detachment

• Cold, hostile withdrawal
• A resigned, despairing acceptance of anything life and people throw our way
• A robotical walk through life oblivious to, and totally unaffected by people and problems
• A Pollyanna-like ignorant bliss
• A shirking of our true responsibilities to ourselves and others
• A severing of our relationships, a removal of our love and concern 

 

 What Codependency Recovery Looks Like

Healthy Detachment

• Releasing, or detaching from a person or problem in “love”
• Mentally and emotionally, and sometimes physically, disengaging ourselves from unhealthy (and frequently painful) entanglements with another person’s life and responsibilities and from problems we can’t solve
• Each person is responsible for him/herself knowing they can’t solve problems that aren’t theirs to solve and know worrying doesn’t help
• Involve living in the present moment, in the here and now
• Involves accepting reality – the facts
• Requires faith – in self, in God, and other people, and in the natural order and destiny of things in this world

 Rewards of Detachment

• Serenity, deep sense of peace
• The ability to give and receive love in self-enhancing, energizing ways
• The freedom to find real solutions to our problems
• Finding freedom to live lives without excessive feels of guilt about or responsibility for others 

Healthy Families

• Unconditional love
• Unconditional acceptance
• Forgiveness
• Laughter
• Fun
• A sense of worth
• Time to work and play together
• Attention
• Compassion
• Comfort
• Honesty
• Objectivity
• Freedom to express emotions appropriately
• Friendship
• Freedom to have your own opinion
• Freedom to have your own identity
• Appropriate responsibility
• Loving correction
• Affirmation

Recovery from Codependency

• Expectations – it’s OK to expect good things and appropriate boundaries
• Work on issues of fear of intimacy – getting close may cause hurt, staying distant keeps hurt away
• Take financial responsibility
• Forgive
• Have fun
• Set limits and boundaries
• Take physical, emotional, and spiritual care of self
• Get professional help
• Accept positive feedback (don’t push compliments away)
• Trust – especially yourself
• Face the child within
• Learn to identify and talk about feelings
• Be real
• Lose the victim mentality