Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

by Melody Beattie

Others, sighing and crying, claim inability, proclaim their dependence, announce their overall victimization, and successfully control through weakness. They are so helpless. They need your cooperation so badly. They can’t live without it. Sometimes the weak are the most powerful manipulators and controllers.1 They have learned to tug at the guilt and pity strings of the world.