Signs You Might Be Codependent
Codependency almost wrecked my life.
I was scrambling to manage my ex’s addictive behaviors and their consequences, my father’s constant manic episodes that landed him in various jails and mental hospitals, answering crisis calls at all hours of the night, and absolutely drowning in a workload that was humanly impossible to carry. Not to mention, I gave unsolicited advice to anyone who even remotely hinted at a challenge in their life.
It took losing my marriage, losing a home and nearly losing my very self to force me to a place where I realized I needed help.
Being the daughter of a parent who struggled with addiction, codependent relationship patterns were ingrained in me so deeply that they felt completely normal. I thought it was my responsibility to care for the wants, needs and feelings of everyone around me, even at my own expense.
When I was 17, after a brief time in foster care, the Department of Children and Family Services mandated that my mother and I go to therapy in order for me to return home. Noticing the dynamics in our relationship, that therapist was the first person who pointed out tendencies towards codependency in me. She recommended a 12-step program called Al-Ateen, for children of people struggling with addiction.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t until 14 years later, when my life spiraled out of control, that I finally went to a 12-step meeting for codependency through Celebrate Recovery. Better late than never.
It wasn’t until I truly understood codependency that I began to see how it was wreaking havoc in my life and could finally make some changes.
If you have ever wondered if you might struggle with codependency too, here are some signs and some solutions.
Putting the needs of others before your own
One of the tell-tale signs of codependency is that we get so busy taking care of everyone else, we forget to take care of ourselves. We put the needs of others before our own. Of course, there are times when we make sacrifices for people and arrive for them in a time of need. There are also times where we rightly take on the role of caregiver, perhaps with young children or a parent whose health is failing. But if caring for others becomes a primary way of engaging in relationship and we constantly neglect ourselves in the process, it’s codependent. In cases where our loved ones are struggling with addictions or other hurtful habits, “helping them” isn’t actually even helping them. Instead, we are enabling poor choices by rescuing them from their consequences.
When I began to face this tendency with complete honesty, I discovered that at my core, I needed to be needed in order to feel a sense of significance. In actuality, helping people wasn’t out of pure love or altruism, but a desire to feel better about myself. Ouch!
SOLUTION
Remember to take care of the one person you are solely responsible for… YOU. You may even find it helpful to schedule time for self-care activities and protect that time on your calendar like you would an important meeting.
The following question has changed my life. I encourage you to ask it of yourself.
“What do I need?”
Ask yourself this simple, yet powerful question again and again. It might be hard to answer at first. Keep asking yourself this and commit to prioritizing and responding to your own needs. I actually began to silently ask myself this very question every time I was faced with someone else’s need. If someone else’s need conflicted with my own need, I learned to say “no” when I needed to. Which brings me to the next sign of codependency.
Having difficulty saying no
There was a time when I didn’t know how to say no to almost anything EVER. My deep desire for people to like me, mixed with my sense of shame and guilt if I didn’t say yes, combined with an extreme sense of discomfort with other people’s pain and problems remaining unresolved, made me a “yes woman” through and through.
Being unable to say “no” left me feeling controlled by the needs of others. I often felt forced into doing what was being asked of me, even when that was not the intention of the other person, because of own inability to say “no”. This left me feeling powerless, frustrated and sometimes downright angry.
As my favorite recovery experts Dr. Cloud and Townsend point out, I needed to learn how to exercise my “no muscle”.
SOLUTION
Codependency tells us that we are obligated to say yes to meeting the needs of others. This is a lie. We get to choose. We can practice using our “no muscle”. We can consider our answer before responding and ask questions like, “Is it healthy?” “Will I regret it?” “Is it realistic?” “Will saying “yes” enable bad behavior?”
You know what, it’s okay if other people get mad at you for saying no. In fact, it is not unusual for someone who is used to you enabling their poor choices to actually throw a tantrum when you begin to set boundaries. A healthy person will respect your “no”. If someone responds poorly to your boundary, take it as a sign that you are on the right track by setting one!
Spending a lot of time talking, thinking and worrying about other people’s problems or behavior
Codependency causes us to devote a lot of our time focused on the problems and behaviors of others.
“Are they still upset with me?”
“Are they using again?”
“I can’t believe they did that!”
“What will happen to them if I don’t take care of this for them?”
“They need to read this book, go to this class, stop doing that, start doing this…”
As we focus on other people’s problems or behavior, we are faced with our own powerlessness. Our discomfort with this feeling may cause us to embark on a mission to try to fix or change them or their circumstances. This is not our job. It is helpful for me to remember that I am responsible toothers, not forthem.
In my own recovery journey, I discovered something startling about my own motivation for allowing myself to be consumed with the actions and issues of others… As long as I spent all of my time focused on them, it allowed me to notfocus on my own shortcomings and need for healing.
SOLUTION
The lie we tend to believe is that if we devote enough time, energy and effort, we can somehow control the actions or circumstances of others.
We can’t. In fact, admitting and facing our own powerlessness is a key to growth in this area.
Rather than obsessing about things that are beyond our control and not our job to take ownership of, we can shift our to focus on the only thing you can control… you. We may need to take time to consider how we will respond to people with healthy boundaries, but simply obsessing over their actions or circumstances is unproductive.
The next time you find yourself getting sucked into the whirlwind of someone else’s crisis, it might be helpful to remind yourself of this…
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HAVING ONE-SIDED RELATIONSHIP(S)
In 2009, when I found myself going through one of the most difficult seasons of my life, I noticed that there were very few people who were willing or able to arrive for me. I realized I had spent most of my energy building very one-sided relationships. When I was in a place of need and couldn’t give my time and energy the way I was able to before, many people even became upset with me.
I decided to begin intentionally investing in reciprocal relationships with a few close friends. It was scary as all get out! Because vulnerability.
As I anxiously practiced vulnerability with these women, I found myself wondering “Why do they want to hang out with me? I have nothing left to give. I can’t do anything for them.”
That is when I discovered the lie that kept me stuck in co-dependent cycles:If you don’t need me, you will leave me.
SOLUTION
For me, the solution was engaging in reciprocal relationships. In fact, for the better part of the past several years, three of my friends and I have been doing weekly calls where we share vulnerably about the things that are happening in our lives and hearts.
During these calls, we ask each other questions like,
“Do you like the person you are becoming?” “Are you allowing a person or circumstance to steal your joy?” “Are you giving your family your emotional scraps?” “Is your heart for God growing or shrinking?”
* SEE FULL LIST of Jim Burns’ accountability questions.
I encourage you to find a couple of safe people and invest time into developing reciprocal friendships with them. True intimacy is about knowing and being known. Letting our truest self be known can be scary, but it is worth the rich relationship that comes out of it!
These are just a few signs of codependency. Check out this comprehensive characteristics of codependency checklist or this problem/solution guide from Celebrate Recovery.
Love, Harmony
BOOKS THAT MIGHT HELP YOU
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BUY
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