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

by Melody Beattie

codependency is “an emotional, psychological, and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual’s prolonged exposure to, and practice of, a set of oppressive rules—rules which prevent the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal and interpersonal problems.”

A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect them and who is obsessed with controlling that other person’s behavior.

Detachment is not detaching from the person we care about but from the agony of involvement.

I was like a puppet with strings hanging out, inviting and allowing anyone or anything to yank them.

That is the problem: we are reacting without thinking—without honest thought about what we need to do and how we want to handle any given situation. Our emotions and behaviors are being controlled—triggered—by everyone and everything in our environments. We are indirectly allowing others to tell us what to do. That means we have lost control. We are being controlled.

We aren’t the people who “make things happen.” Codependents are the people who consistently, and with a great deal of effort and energy, try to force things to happen.

My question is this: Who’s controlling whom? Maria learned she was not controlling her husband or his drinking at all. He and his alcoholism were controlling her.

Caretakers look so responsible, but we aren’t. We don’t assume responsibility for our highest responsibility—ourselves.

Many codependents have been taught other ways to be caretakers. Maybe we believed these common lies: don’t be selfish, always be kind and help people, never hurt other people’s feelings, never say no, and don’t mention personal wants and needs because it’s not polite.

Stop focusing on other people. Settle down with and in yourself. Stop seeking so much approval and validation from others. We don’t need the approval of everyone and anyone. We only need our approval. We have all the same sources for happiness and making choices inside us that others do. Make a home for yourself within yourself. Find and develop your own internal supply of peace, well-being, and self-esteem. Relationships help, but they cannot be your source. Taking care of yourself is a huge job. Stop expecting other people to do it.

The surest way to make ourselves crazy is to get involved in other people’s business, and the quickest way to become sane and happy is to tend to our own affairs.

“I am responsible for myself.” I am responsible for leading my life. I am responsible for tending to my spiritual, emotional, physical, and financial well-being. I am responsible for identifying and meeting my needs. I am responsible for solving my problems or learning to live with those I cannot solve. I am responsible for my choices. I am responsible for what I give and receive. I am responsible for setting and achieving my goals. I am responsible for how much I enjoy life, for how much pleasure I find in daily activities. I am responsible for whom I love and how I choose to express this love. I am responsible for what I do to others and for what I allow others to do to me. I am responsible for my wants and desires. All of me, every aspect of my being, is important. I count for something. I matter. My feelings can be trusted. My thinking is appropriate. I value my wants and needs. I do not deserve and will not tolerate abuse or constant mistreatment. I have rights, and it’s my responsibility to assert these rights. The decisions I make and the way I conduct myself will reflect my high self-esteem. My decisions will take into account my responsibilities to myself. My decisions will also take into account my responsibilities to other people—my partner, my children, my relatives, my friends. I will examine and decide exactly what these responsibilities are as I make my decisions. I will also consider the rights of those around me—the right to live their lives as they see fit.

Giving ourselves what we need isn’t difficult. We can learn quickly. The formula is simple: in any given situation, detach and ask, What do I need to do to take care of myself ? Then listen to your higher self and respect what you hear.

Giving ourselves what we need means becoming our own counselors, confidantes, spiritual advisors, partners, best friends, and caretakers in this exciting, new venture we have undertaken—living our own lives. We base all our decisions on reality, and we make them in our best interests. We consider our responsibilities to other people because that is what responsible people do, but we also know we count. We try to eliminate “shoulds” from our decisions and learn to trust ourselves. If we listen to our higher selves, we will not be misled. Giving ourselves what we need and learning to live self-directed lives requires faith.

We may have learned to disguise our true feelings about ourselves by managing the way we present to others—our hair, body, clothing, where we live, whom we associate with—it’s all about exteriors. We may boast of our accomplishments, but underneath the trappings lies a dungeon where we secretly and incessantly punish and torture ourselves. At times, we may punish ourselves openly before the whole world by saying demeaning things about ourselves. Sometimes, we may allow people to hurt us, but our worst beatings go on privately, inside our minds.

Our low self-worth or self-hatred is tied to all aspects of codependency: martyrdom (refusal to enjoy life), workaholism (staying so busy we can’t enjoy life), perfectionism (not allowing ourselves to enjoy or feel good about the things we do and the way things are), and procrastination.

“Each time you learn to act as if you are valuable, not desperate, it gets easier to repeat that new behavior in the future,” Toby Rice Drews advises in Getting Them Sober.

We have faith that all is well, and we have grown from our experience. We deeply believe our present circumstances—every detail of them—are exactly as they ought to be for the moment. Despite our fears, feelings, struggles, and confusion, we understand everything is okay even if we lack insight.

Our feelings can also provide us with clues to ourselves: our desires, needs, and ambitions—the things that keep us moving forward in life. They help us discover ourselves, what we’re really thinking, what we feel passionately about.

We may shut down our deep needs—our need to love and be loved—when we shut down our emotions. We may lose our ability to enjoy human touch. We lose the ability to feel close to people—intimacy. We lose our capacity to enjoy the pleasant things in life.

Feelings aren’t wrong. They’re not inappropriate. We don’t need to feel guilty about feelings.

We appropriately respond to our emotions. We examine the thoughts that go with them, and we accept them without repression or censorship.

If you’re in doubt about what action to take, if the feeling is particularly strong, or if the action you decide to take is radical, pause until you’re peaceful. Let the path ahead become clear. In other words: detach.

The following activities help me get in touch with my feelings: physical exercise, writing in a journal, talking to people I feel safe with, and meditation.

It may be the first time we have felt safe expressing anger. This can cause more conflicts.

We probably don’t even want to hear our anger expressed.

Somewhere between homicidal rage and biting our tongues lies a way to get past our angry feelings—the old ones and the new ones.

Believing lies, lying to ourselves (denial), chaos, stress, low self-esteem, and a stomach full of repressed emotions may cloud our ability to think. We become confused. That doesn’t mean we can’t think.

Decisiveness is hindered by worrying about what other people think, telling ourselves we have to be perfect, and telling ourselves to hurry.

Remember, decisions don’t have to be made perfectly. We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t even have to be nearly perfect. We can just be who we are. We’re not so fragile that we can’t handle making mistakes.

There’s nothing in the world like going where we want to go, getting what we want, solving a problem, or doing something we always wanted to do.

We carefully choose our words to manipulate, people please, control, cover up, and alleviate guilt. Our communication reeks of repressed feelings, repressed thoughts, ulterior motives, low self-worth, and shame.

Why are we afraid to let people know who we are? Each of us must answer that question. John Powell says it’s because who we are is all we’ve got, and we’re afraid of being rejected.2 Some of us may be afraid because we’re not sure who we are and what we want to say.

Many of us don’t like and don’t trust ourselves. We don’t trust our thinking. We don’t trust our feelings. We may think our opinions don’t matter. We don’t think we have the right to say no. We’re not sure what we want and need; if we do know, we feel guilty about having wants and needs,

Taking care of myself is a big job. No wonder I avoided it for so long. —anonymous

Or we’re born into a family with existing alcoholism, addiction, or abuse. We may not consciously register that our lives are traumatic or psychologically devastating when we live with the same behaviors and trauma every day. To cope, to keep the balance, we often internalize, normalize, deny, ignore. We go on to develop our own repertoires of psychological tics, self-harming behaviors, and other addictive or self-hating patterns, including the beliefs that we’re not lovable, that we’re not enough, and that for some reason, somehow, we deserve this mess.

What’s most important at the end of each day is that we like ourselves and enjoy our lives.

Life shapes us the way the winds shape a tree.

detachment, a non-rescuing approach to people, not controlling the objects of our attention, directness, paying attention to ourselves, and becoming undependent.