Codependency For Dummies

by Darlene Lancer

know your bottom line so that you’re not persuaded to accept something you can’t live with. This is not selfish. It’s self-respect and self-love, and when you do it with kindness, you gain the respect of others — even if they don’t like it. Remember that the change is for your benefit.

You may get complaints that you’ve changed or that you’re selfish. You can agree: “Yes, I have changed,” or “I am thinking of myself more. What’s wrong with that?” These attempts to undermine your resolve eventually pass. If the other person hasn’t listened to you or changed his or her behavior, be sure you’ve specified and carried out consequences. When you’re serious, you’re taken seriously. In addition, remember that boundaries aren’t intended to control someone but are for your comfort. Consider actions you can take.

It’s a mistake to take personally anything said to you by Mr. or Mrs. Hyde because it is largely drug-induced.

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Whether your style of reacting is to blame and criticize or suppress your feelings and complaints, these strategies (and reacting in general) are ineffective and unconstructive. Blame and criticism invite a defensive reaction. Brushing things under the rug doesn’t help you feel better and enables the addict to continue his or her drug use as if it isn’t causing problems. Calm assertiveness with a loving, or at least friendly, attitude is best.

The problem of the addict’s addiction belongs to the addict. It’s best to invest your energy in yourself, children, work, supportive friends, interests, and hobbies. By not enabling and controlling, you become more independent and less subject to being controlled. This both affords you greater freedom and happiness, and allows the addict to deal with his or her addiction.

Remember that, although you may feel like a child with your parents, you aren’t one. You’re now a powerful adult. You can leave, unlike when you were a child.

Indifference, not hatred or anger, is the opposite of love.

Notice if you cross boundaries with unrequested advice or help and then feel frustrated because your friend’s problems don’t change.

The Twelve Step programs suggest not advising other recovering members and, instead, sharing your recovery, experience, and hope. You can let them know that you care but have no answers, and, if fitting, that they attend a Twelve Step program or seek therapy. This is the best response.

Codependents tend to share their problems — the old saying applies, “Misery loves company.” As you change, your friends change as well. You may discover that you prefer to be with people who are more assertive and happier in their lives. You may decide to leave old dysfunctional friends or limit your time with them.

Self-acceptance means that you don’t judge or deny your needs or values in order to make a relationship work. Some people like to spend a lot of time together, whereas others need more space. Some are active, and others are homebodies. Some need lots of affection, and others don’t. To some, security is paramount. Some want adventure and others emotional intimacy or to raise a family. Realize you can be who you are and have what you want without apology or self-sacrifice. Codependents are often afraid of talking about their needs and wants because doing so might scare away their partners, but it’s best if these differences come out in the open. If you brush them under the rug, they won’t go away. Later they can cause pain and conflict in the relationship after you’re more invested in it and leaving is harder.

For sex to be healthy and gratifying, each partner must have self-esteem, boundaries, the ability to give and receive, and mutual respect for each other’s differences — keys to healthy relationships

Women often have difficulty saying no to sex that they don’t want because they feel responsible for their partner’s sexual needs or in order that their partner continue dating them. Having sex for these reasons can lower your self-esteem. Sex becomes a substitute for intimacy to reduce feelings of depression and loneliness. Real intimacy takes time together, self-esteem, skill, and trust

Notice if you start to rationalize negative sensations, thoughts, or feelings. Your body’s signaling, “Stop!” Practice listening and verbalizing those words.

A healthy long-term relationship doesn’t preoccupy your thoughts. It becomes background instead of foreground. It supports you in living your life, like the battery that enables a watch to tick. If you have to keep checking the battery, you’re not enjoying the watch — which is your life. The battery doesn’t need repairing, just recharging, and similarly, like maintaining a skill level or caring for your pet, even healthy relationships require time and nurturing.

The process of relationships and the behavior that makes them last require more than the feeling aspect of love. Mixing up these components causes problems. When you accuse your partner of not loving you because he or she wants time alone or disagrees, you’re confusing your feelings with process.

Individuation also means that you view and accept your parents for who they are, without idealization, grief, or resentment.

For a relationship to be successful, there must be two separate individuals who come together to form a couple, which isn’t a blending or merger. There are three distinct entities: I, you, and we.

People in healthy relationships seek closeness, not oneness. They give their relationship priority, but enjoy the rest of their lives and don’t neglect themselves. There are disagreements and compromise, separateness and closeness. The more you develop your individual “I,” the more you can tolerate both closeness and separateness

The greater your sense of Self and self-esteem, the more successful will be your relationships. Couples with independent identities each continue to focus on and pursue individual goals and growth. When you find sustenance in your relationship and by yourself, you’re more able to give, which enhances your intimacy as a couple. With high self-esteem, you don’t expect or need as much validation and support.

Self-esteem also allows you to be open without being ashamed to reveal yourself. You won’t be as sensitive to criticism and differences or as threatened by closeness or separateness. You’re not so afraid of being rejected because you can stand on your own. Feeling free to leave, you don’t try to please or change people, but enjoy them and negotiate for what you want.

Happy couples are realistic about their expectations of each other and the relationship. They accept responsibility to make themselves happy and don’t expect the initial phase of romance and infatuation to last forever because they’re not relying on the relationship to complete themselves. They know that it won’t fill all their needs, that perfection doesn’t exist, and that relationships have problems and challenges.

Assertive communication involves setting boundaries and asking for what you need and want, without hidden expectations, which may be heard as a subtle demand. Practicing self-care and self-responsibility enables you to share your feelings,say no, and make requests without reacting, manipulating, or punishing the other person when you don’t get an answer you want.

You don’t impose expectations, blame, or make demands on your partner, since you’re able to emotionally survive on your own. Nor do you please your partner without weighing the cost to yourself. The compromise is not so much with your partner as within yourself;

Rare is the person who reaches this level, where autonomy and intimacy are now not in conflict but are equally satisfying. There’s no tension between the two. Emotions don’t escalate when decisions are made about doing things together because there’s neither projection nor inner conflict. You’re able to express a need for separateness with love and affection instead of blame or guilt. You don’t feel rejected when left because you’re more whole and autonomous. You don’t take your partner’s need for autonomy personally. You accept that he or she is a separate person with different needs. In fact, you can feel close when physically apart. Supporting each others’ autonomy makes you feel more loved and appreciated as individuals. Likewise, being sexually and emotionally intimate doesn’t feel like a loss of autonomy, but a celebration of your own sexuality and your mutual love. The integrity of your Self is maintained and fully integrated, rather than parts being projected onto your partner. Giving and receiving blend, but you can ask for your preferences and wouldn’t do something you were uncomfortable doing. Rather than feeling a loss of yourself with closeness, you feel more completely yourself with your partner.

Dialogues vary in their degrees of intimacy, but the most intimate conversations have the following characteristics: You express feelings in the present moment, not facts, thoughts, or judgments. You’re vulnerable and honest without regard to the consequences. You acknowledge each others’ differences, minimizing reactivity and projection. You describe feelings about yourself, the relationship, or the person you’re with

To empower something is to give it authority. Recovery is about making yourself your own authority — what you like, what you want, and what you decide, rather than deferring or reacting to someone else. Even rebelling is a reaction that disempowers you. To give yourself authority means you become the author of your life. That may feel like a daunting responsibility. It’s putting your self-esteem into action

Most codependents have an external locus of control (refer to Chapter 3), meaning that they think external factors are the cause of what happens to them and how they feel. Codependents expect and hope that change will come from the outside or some other person. Their focus and power are outside of themselves. They look to others to make themselves feel better and approve of them, especially when it comes to relationships. They also tend to make excuses or blame others or circumstances for their problems and when things don’t go as planned. As you stop doing that and begin to take responsibility for your life and your feelings, actions, and inactions (see Chapter 12), you’re gradually taking your power back, and the locus of control becomes internal, on yourself.

Listen to your body and mind. What feels right and what do you want? Where do you want to go? With whom do you want to spend your time? What do you want to learn more about? These are clues to your passion

The three biggest emotional obstacles to achieving your goals are Overwhelm Doubt Fear To be successful in meeting your goals, break them down into stages, and each stage into achievable action steps. I once learned rock climbing to overcome my fear of heights. If I looked up or down, I became frightened, but when I focused on the next foothold, I made progress one step at a time until I reached the summit. The point is not to look too far ahead, but to do what’s right in front of you. However small a step you must take, do that. Keep it manageable. You’re making progress rather than procrastinating or giving up because you’re overwhelmed and paralyzed with fear that your goal is too hard or impossible to attain. All things great are achieved one step at a time.

Notice when your codependency comes out in therapy — if you feel distrustful, are trying to please your therapist, or are hiding facts or feelings, especially about the therapy. These are all things to talk about in therapy because they go to the core of codependency.

Individual therapy is focused on you, not your partner. Sometimes people come and want to complain about their partner or the addict and convince the therapist why that person is so frustrating or in the wrong. They really want their pain to be heard and witnessed, but it doesn’t help them to grow or change. A support group would be a good place to do that. Often it takes time to help them focus on themselves. If you’re ready to do that, you can make the most of individual therapy. It can help you individuate from your family and build a solid, confident Self by understanding your behavior, beliefs, thinking, and history in a way that’s more concentrated and specific to you than in a Twelve Step meeting. You can also learn to problem solve, raise your self-esteem, accomplish goals, and resolve issues from your past. Therapy is particularly important if you have suffered from trauma or abuse, or have a mental illness or a mood disorder, such as depression or anxiety, which is not relieved by going to meetings.

Some of the known authors on codependency include Melody Beattie, Pia Mellody, Robin Norwood, Earnie Larsen, Claudia Black, Charles Whitfield, Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse, Anne Wilson Schaef, and Janet Wotitz.

We admitted that we are powerless over others — that our lives had become unmanageable.

Often you might try to control someone to avoid the pain and fear of loss — loss of affection, loss of the health of a loved one, or loss of a relationship. Attempts to control other people are based on an illusion, a false idea that you can control other people. It keeps you in denial and can make your life unmanageable because you’re trying to control something you can’t. If your reactions and efforts to control and fix haven’t measurably helped, consider that you may be powerless to change another person or situation. It’s hard enough to change yourself, even with considerable effort.

Powerlessness doesn’t mean that you’re helpless. A multitude of actions — even inactions — are more effective for dealing with problems and creating more peace, clarity, and a sense of control than reacting and fruitless behaviors. More importantly, you reclaim your power over your mind and the will to change what you can.

We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Step Two promises that, although you’re not all-powerful, a power greater than you exists. Consider whether you’ve made someone in your life your Higher Power — a god — living for his or her love or approval, accommodating and trying to manipulate him or her, and sacrificing yourself in the process. What or whom might replace that person?

Whether or not you believe in God or recover from codependency, reality is often painful. Even when life goes well, everyone loses loved ones, suffers health and other loses, and eventually dies. However, in choosing to surrender self-will, you’re able to accept life realistically and with equanimity and are thus able to live more effectively. This doesn’t eliminate your emotions; on the contrary, it enables you to accept them and allow them to flow — weep if you must or take action that is in your highest interest. Denying sadness closes your heart and vibrancy and blocks your laughter. For it’s in opening to the experience of the moment that your true security and joy lie.

Many people take the first three steps each day as a daily ritual. Others use the shorthand phrase: “I can’t. He can. Let him.” Living Step Three entails going through your day with an inner awareness of a spiritual presence operating in your life to whom you turn and partner with. It means being receptive and flexible — the opposite of a typical codependent attitude.

the Gospel of St. Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

Recovery entails self-acceptance, which means accepting your humanity. Self-judgment reflects shame and pride — shortcomings to be added to the list. The Twelve Step programs advocate progress not perfection.

the symptoms of codependency and many of your dysfunctional behaviors helped you survive and avoid deeper problems and pain. Letting go before you know what’s in store can feel life-threatening. Defensiveness bolstered your low self-esteem when you felt judged. People-pleasing stemmed from shame and fear and has allowed you to feel connected and loved. Being a caretaker helped you avoid self-responsibility but also provided a sense of worth and security that you’d be needed and wouldn’t be alone. Perhaps you allowed abuse because you couldn’t set boundaries and/or were afraid to leave a relationship and stand on your own. It takes time to transform into the new you. Becoming assertive, autonomous, and raising your self-esteem requires new skills. Until you learn them and remove the purpose that the old habits served, they persist.

Living amends also means changing your attitude and behavior in a relationships going forward. Sometimes, this is the best form of amends.

Judaism requires amends be made to anyone you’ve harmed. It proposes a solution if you’re rejected. Attempt to apologize two more times, after which you’re absolved of any wrongdoing.

Doing this step on a daily basis keeps your conscience clear and builds your self-esteem: Were you resentful, dishonest, or afraid? Is there something you’re keeping to yourself you need to discuss? Is there anyone to whom you owe amends today? List three things you did well today. List what you’re grateful for.

Step Eleven reminds you to regularly surrender to God’s will. Both prayer and meditation “improve” your partnership with God, when practiced daily. Otherwise, anxiety, control, and resentment return in reaction to the frustrations and hurts of everyday life. But by including God in your decisions, you gain confidence and peace that soothe anxiety and restlessness.

Codependents have trouble with patience. They believe they have to do something, and they rush into action that causes more problems. Step Eleven reminds you to stop forcing solutions or worrying about how a relationship, confrontation, job interview, business deal, or exam will turn out. It helps you align with God’s plan — even if you define that as reality! You learn to surrender to what is. It can be summed up as, “Thy will be done.”

Carrying the message should also be informed by the Twelve Step program tradition of relying on “attraction rather than promotion.” The best way to do this is to be an example. Although suggesting a Twelve Step program might be appropriate, nagging someone to get help for his or her codependency is codependent and violates Step One. Instead, help others problem-solve and find their own solutions without giving advice. Show compassion, set appropriate boundaries when necessary, and help clarify the person’s options, which may include attending a meeting or seeking therapy.

Some people think the idea that you should be perfect and not make mistakes comes from a sense of pride. Actually, it comes from shame. Either way, it’s the shame core of your codependency that blows your “mistakes” out of proportion. It makes you feel terrible and worse than others for making them and at times judgmental and impatient with people for their mistakes.