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

by Melody Beattie

In my group, I saw people who felt responsible for the entire world, but they refused to take responsibility for leading and living their own lives.

I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people’s problems they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own. These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively, about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; they were just taking up the slack.

Hurt people hurt people, even sometimes their kids.

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.”2

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.

I suspect codependents have historically attacked social injustice and fought for the rights of the underdog. Codependents want to help. I suspect they have helped. But they probably died thinking they didn’t do enough and were feeling guilty.

Furthermore, worrying about people and problems doesn’t help. It doesn’t solve problems, it doesn’t help other people, and it doesn’t help us. It is wasted energy.

There’s a saying often attributed to philosopher William James: “If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a fact, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.”

Detachment is based on the premises that everyone is responsible for themselves, that we can’t solve problems that aren’t ours to solve, and that worrying doesn’t help.

Detachment involves living in the here and now. We allow life to happen instead of forcing and trying to control it. We relinquish regrets over the past and fears about the future. We make the most of each day. We live freely.

Detaching does not mean we don’t care. It means we learn to love, care, and be involved without going crazy.

A good rule of thumb is: you need to detach most when it seems the least likely or possible thing to do.

I know you have problems. I understand that many of you are in deep grief over, and concerned about, certain people in your lives. Many of them may be destroying themselves, you, and your family right before your eyes. But I can’t do anything to control those people, and you probably can’t either. If you could, you would have done it by now.

We don’t have to take other people’s behaviors as reflections of our self-worth.

After we rescue, we will inevitably move to the next corner of the triangle: persecution. We become resentful and angry at the person we have so generously “helped.” We’ve done something we didn’t want to do, we’ve done something that was not our responsibility to do, we’ve ignored our own needs and wants, and we get angry about it.

Then it’s time for our final move. We head right for our favorite spot: the victim corner on the bottom. This is the predictable and unavoidable result of a rescue. Feelings of helplessness, hurt, sorrow, shame, and self-pity abound. We have been used—again. We have gone unappreciated—again.

However, at the heart of most rescues is a demon: low self-worth. We rescue because we don’t feel good about ourselves. Although the feelings are transient and artificial, caretaking provides us with a temporary hit of good feelings, self-worth, and power. Just as a drink helps an alcoholic momentarily feel better, a rescue move momentarily distracts us from the pain of being who we are. We don’t feel lovable, so we settle for being needed. We don’t feel good about ourselves, so we feel compelled to do a particular thing to prove how good we are.

Sometimes we rescue because it’s easier than dealing with the discomfort and awkwardness of facing other people’s unsolved problems.

“Undependence” is a term Penelope Russianoff uses to describe that desirable balance wherein we acknowledge and meet our healthy, natural needs for people and love, yet we don’t become overly or harmfully dependent on them.

Ultimately, too much dependency on a person can kill love. Relationships based on emotional insecurity and need, rather than on love, can become self-destructive. They don’t work. Too much need smothers love.

We ultimately become angry and resentful at what we’re dependent on and controlled by because we have given our personal power and rights—our agency—away.