Codependency - Book Excerpts

Codependency

Codependency: How to Break Free and Live Your Own Life

David Stafford & Liz Hodgkinson

1998 Edition

Publisher:

Piatkus Books

Co-dependency is a common condition in which people are alienated from their self and deny their genuine emotions. They depend on others for their sense of self-worth and self-esteem. The authors of this engaging book aim to enable the reader to recognize and understand the co-dependency syndrome, and learn how to break free from it and find a more positive way of life.

Notable Ideas of the Book

Codependents are those people who depend upon on others for their own sense of self-esteem. They are the over-supportive wives and loyal secretaries. They are or can be – dedicated doctors and tireless social workers. Not that there is anything wrong with being supportive or loyal, but such behavior becomes codependent when it is misplaced, when balanced judgment is lost and the support or loyalty continues when it is not deserved or appropriate. For example, a codependent secretary will always be willing to work overtime without pay, undertake extra duties – and put her own life in abeyance while serving her boss, who may take all the credit for her hard work, perhaps without even a ‘thank you’.

Codependents, essentially are people who cannot live their own lives. They live vicariously, have no real sense of their own identity and don’t really know who they are. They are like chameleons, taking colours from their surroundings. Above all they desperately want to be loved, needed and highly regarded.

Codependency is never a positive characteristic and hurts all it touches; many millions of people let codependency rule their lives. They attempt to control and manipulate others by whatever means they can. They can’t say no, and they let others walk all over them. They are the parents who won’t let their children grow up, the wife who won’t let her husband out of her sight in case he has an affair, the loyal worker who allows herself or himself to be exploited.

Codependents are people-pleasers always putting others first at the expense of themselves. Initially they may seem extremely caring, loving and self-sacrificing. But always beneath the apparent saintliness, they seek to control others.

Because codependents do not have a strong personal sense of identity and possess little sense of self-worth, they over-identify with their roles and relationships. Instead of being a woman who also happens to be a mother, a codependent with children will see herself first and foremost as a ‘mother’ not realizing that this is only a role she assumes, albeit an important one.

In our present society such people are frequently considered admirable – giving up everything to look after others. They are seen as unselfish, altruistic and self-sacrificing. Most probably they have told themselves that they don’t have any serious needs of their own, that their happiness comes from looking after others and tending to their need. Yet the fact is that none of them is happy.

Codependents, for various reasons, are powerless to run their own lives. They must always be at the beck and call of others. Having only a very hazy notion of who they are, it becomes easier to define themselves in terms of their roles, or relationships to other people, safer to allow the feelings and actions of others to rule their lives.

... A codependent uses people in much the same way as a chemically dependent person will use alcohol or drugs. Codependents are the ultimate busybodies, wanting to be useful, wanting to be in charge and like other addicts, they need to achieve a high. They get a buzz from feeling useful, needed and wanted – and an almighty let-down when they sense they are not being appreciated enough or that other people simply trample over them. They put themselves out endlessly for others and then wonder why people are so often ungrateful, so dismissive, so nasty.

There is a vast difference between being ordinarily loving and caring and having the best interests of family members at heart – and being codependent. In essence as codependent person cannot ever see what might be best for others, because he or she has become incapable of detaching and understanding clearly what the needs of others might be. They actually project their own needs onto other people. In a way horrible though this may seem, they become like leeches, clinging on those around them for their own sense of identity and status.

Codependents are always looking for a needy individual to latch on to. And with so many sad cases or ‘lost causes’ to embrace, they will always be successful. They are found in all walks of life, as doctors, nurses, therapists, social workers, loyal secretaries, dedicated workers, compulsive over-achievers and sometimes – yes – as active addicts.

Codependency is a specific condition characterized by preoccupation and extreme dependence on another person – emotionally, socially, sometimes physically. This dependence nurtured over a long period of time, becomes a pathological condition that affects the codependent in all their relationships.

Another definition of a codependent is somebody who might say, or at least think without you, I’m nothing. It would be very hard to codependent if alone on a desert land. A codependent needs people in the same way as an alcoholic needs a drink, or a gamblers needs to place a bet.

 The concept of codependency can be difficult to appreciate, especially as it is so intimately bound up with what society tells us is good and right. It is good to be carer – the newspapers are always full of stories about carers who give up everything to look after aged relatives or handicapped children. It is good to be concerned, to be loyal, to be a conscientious worker. But codependency is inappropriate, over-the-top loyalty, caring and supportiveness. Codependents work far beyond the call of duty, even when there is no need for it.

The basis of codependency is not simply that we may be profoundly affected by the behavior or feelings of other people, so much as that we cannot see other people as separate from ourselves, with their own set of behaviours, feelings and actions which we may not share.

Whenever you feel compelled to put other people first at the expense of yourself, you are denying your own reality, your own identity.

One of the commonest remarks codependents make is: after all I’ve done for you, this is how you treat me. They have enormous expectations of others, expectations which are rarely met. They hope and pray that the other people in their lives will change and improve. Many sincerely believe that the world would be a far better place if only everybody change their behavior for the better.

True Love

We can very easily confuse codependency with love. Falling in love mimics severe codependency. When people ‘fall in love’ very often, and frequently they go through emotional turmoil because of another failed or unsatisfactory love affair. If we genuinely love, we will wish what is best for the other person, rather than wanting the beloved to modify his or her behavior to suit our wishes.

True love involves detachment, being able to let go. Codependents love wishes to bind, strangle, cling. Parents who love their children will wish them well all their lives, but will not be hurt or disappointed when the children’s lives do not conform to the parent’s hopes or expectations. The codependents finds it difficult to appreciate that children are completely separate beings for whom they have taken only temporary responsibility.

Gender Factor

 Codependency can affect men and women equally, although it’s more obvious manifestations are frequently found in women. One reason for this is because in our society women are encouraged to become the carers, to put their own needs and talents on hold to become secondary and supportive. One of the aspects hindering recovery is that codependents are so useful to the other people in their lives, that these others don’t want the codependent to recover, and may actively sabotage such attempts. So many people, particularly men, have been rendered so helpless by the codependents in their lives that they live in terror of having to manage on their own.

Unhealthy

Codependency is unhealthy as it brings about so much chronic illness. The most common consequence of codependency is depression, very often severe. Another frequent consequence is active addiction, whether to alcohol, shopping, food, gambling or prescribed or street drugs.

The reason why it can bring about so much illness is that it is a stressful state. Codependents feel nervous inside. They have little self-confidence and almost no sense of identity. They are frantic worriers, take excessive responsibility for others, and can never relax.

Shame

The kind of home which tends to favour the development of codependent attitudes is one where there is enormous pretence, rather than any acknowledgment of painful realities. Such homes are known as shame-based family systems. In fact the concept of shame is central to understanding codependency. Because there is a deep sense of shame, either about an addiction, or about the behavior of a family member – or because one or both parents came from such a home themselves – enormous efforts are usually made to pretend that everything is normal and that this is an exceptionally happy and close-knit family. So there is always an ongoing cover up which prevents family members having a strong sense of personal identity. How can you learn to be yourself when you have had to play a false part from your earliest years?

All homes have problems; healthy ones admit them, codependent homes keep them under wraps. The reason for this is clear – the hope is that if the problems are never brought to the surface, they will simply go away. In fact the opposite happens – they fester and get progressively worse. When problems are denied the fears and shame become submerged and repressed. They remain below conscious level and are liable to surface in appropriate ways.

Narcissistic Attachment

In codependent homes, parents are unable to see the children, however old they may be, as separate entities. This is known as narcissistic attachment, meaning that the parent has great difficulty understanding what the child may be wanting.

In healthy families, the children will develop a sense of self-sufficiency and be happy to live away from home when they grow up – and the parents will be content that they have done their job. There will be contact, but this will be as between adults, with no guilt, emotional blackmail or recriminations on either side.

In codependent homes by contrast, children never break away properly; because they have always had to exist in relation to the parents, they have never developed independence. The codependent parents will respond to the child in one of two characteristic ways:

1.   Either they will devise completely rigid behavior strategies to regulate and control the child’s demands, so that these cause minimal disruption and annoyance to the parents.

2. Or they will go to the opposite extreme and give in to the child’s every whim.

The issue of codependency must be addressed as a serious problem in our society because it is impossible for anybody to fulfill their true potential as human beings unless they can come from a background of fear and mistrust – emotions they have absorbed into themselves. They have not learned viable intimacy skills, which is why they will almost always pick people who are somehow are unavailable as partners.

When we are completely and emotionally dependent on someone else, we must control them. Our need for control arises from the fear that the other person would leave us, abandon us. When our self-worth is intimately tied up in our relationship with another person, it eventually withers and dies so that we are left without any self-worth at all.

Be Good to Yourself

Resist trying to become what other people want you to be. Anybody who tries to change you is really saying: as I can’t control myself I will try and control you. By the same token, don’t attempt to control other people’s behavior – it’s not your place. If you don’t like certain aspects of a person when you first get to know them, and are desperate to alter them, then you are you are storing up problems for later life. Think carefully about why you want to change them.

Men and women often believe that thanks to their loving care, their partners or prospective partners will be enabled to give up smoking, gambling or whatever. Of course they won’t. If you ever feel the person in your life needs rescuing particularly from him or herself – beware codependency is rearing its head again.

The Spiritual Aspect

Codependency thrives on materialism, investing in external such as people, roles, status, but these are empty and unfulfilling, which probably accounts for the growing trend in our society to reject materialism and embrace spirituality. In this context ‘spirituality’ relates to the ability to be in touch with our inner selves, and to understand that we are, as people, distinct from the roles and parts we play, and how we relate to other people.

True Guru

Anybody with a codependent streak is in great danger of being taken in by a charismatic leader. They are all fallible – even though some may have developed genuine spiritual qualities. A true ‘guru’ is somebody who can lead you from darkness into light – that is what the word means. It is important not follow a ‘rugu’ – somebody who leads from light into darkness, or a ‘gugu’ – somebody who keeps you in the dark. Any human being who insists that he (or she) is worshipped, and entitled to all your worldly goods is not a truly spiritual person – just another codependent, desperate for your love and esteem.

You can appreciate the wisdom or spirituality of somebody else, that you can learn from them if they have something of value to teach, but that you will not ever come to depend or rely on them in the sense that you will never be tempted to handover everything to them, in the belief that they will be able to take all your cares and woes away and enable you to have a worry-free, stress-free life. No human being can do that for another – all that a helper of any sort can do at best is to help you to see where the essence of your identity lies, and to impart some useful strategies for accessing this and becoming aware of it.

True spirituality means taking time for the things that matter to you, and not having your day filled out with catering for other people. This does not mean you have to be selfish – in fact truly spiritual people are the most loving and giving. But they do not give in order to make you feel grateful, obligated or under a burden. They give because they have something to spare – but they rarely give at the expense of themselves. They give you because they love you and they love you because they love themselves.