Codependent No More Quotes

“I feel guilty when I don’t live up to other people’s expectations of me. I feel guilty all the time,”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“For many years, Randell believed his duty was to worry about people and get involved in their problems. He called his behavior kindness, concern, love, and, sometimes, righteous indignation. Now, after getting help for his problem, he calls it codependency.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“if we want to get rid of it, we have to do something to make it go away. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Our codependency becomes our problem—and our challenge. Solving our problem is our responsibility.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“wounded healer” to the way in which a healer’s own soul disease and pain can train them to help others heal.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Hurt people hurt people, even sometimes their kids.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Yet these codependents who had such great insight into others couldn’t see themselves. They didn’t know what they were feeling. They weren’t sure what they thought. And they didn’t know what, if anything, they could do to solve their problems—if, indeed, they had any problems other than the other person.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“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.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“there is nothing wrong with your religion”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More

“What we resist, persists.” “Little by slowly.” “We don’t have to like it; we just have to accept it.” “Easy does it.” “One day at a time.” “My soul can be at peace.” “God, grant me the serenity / To accept the things I cannot change, / Courage to change the things I can, / And wisdom to know the difference.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“They were controlling because everything around and inside them was out of control. Always, the dam of their lives and the lives of those around them threaten to burst and spew harmful consequences on everyone and nobody but them seem to notice or care. I saw people who manipulated, because manipulation appeared to be the only way to get anything done. I worked with people who were indirect because the systems they lived in, seemed in capable of tolerating honesty. I worked with people who thought they were going crazy because they had believed so many lies that they didn’t know what reality was. I saw people who have gotten so absorbed in other peoples problems that they didn’t have time to identify or solve their own.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More

“If my husband is happy, and I feel responsible for that, then I’m happy. If he’s upset, I often feel responsible for that too. Then I become anxious, uncomfortable, and upset until he feels better. I try to make him feel better. I feel guilty if I can’t. And he gets angry with me for trying. And it’s not only with him that I behave codependently,” she said. “It’s with everyone: my parents, my children, guests in my home. Somehow, I just seem to lose myself in other people. I get enmeshed in them.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Nobody has ever loved us in a way that met our needs.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“The worst aspect of caretaking is that we become and stay victims. I believe many serious self-destructive behaviors—substance abuse, eating disorders, sexual disorders—are developed through this victim role.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“One common denominator was having a relationship, personally or professionally, with troubled, needy, or dependent people. But a second, more common denominator seemed to be the unwritten, silent rules that usually develop in the immediate family and set the pace for relationships.9 These rules prohibit discussion about problems; open expression of feelings; direct, honest communication; realistic expectations (e.g., we are all human, vulnerable, and imperfect); selfishness; trust in other people and one’s self; playing and having fun; and rocking the delicately balanced family canoe through growth or change—however healthy and beneficial that movement might be. These rules are common to alcoholic family systems but can emerge in other families too.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“When a codependent discontinued their relationship with a troubled person, the codependent frequently sought another troubled person and repeated the codependent behaviors with that new person. These behaviors, or coping mechanisms, seemed to prevail throughout the codependent’s life—if they didn’t change these behaviors.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Even recovering alcoholics and addicts noticed they were codependent and perhaps had been long before becoming chemically dependent.8 Codependents started cropping up everywhere.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“As professionals began to understand codependency better, more groups of people appeared to have it: adult children of alcoholics; people in relationships with emotionally or mentally disturbed persons; people whose partners had chronic illnesses;”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“In an article from the book Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue, Robert Subby writes that 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.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“The chemically dependent partner numbs the feelings and the nonabuser is doubled over in pain—relieved only by anger and occasional fantasies,” wrote Janet Geringer Woititz in an article from the book CoDependency, An Emerging Issue.1”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Many of us react as though everything is a crisis because we have lived with so many crises for so long that our reactions have become habitual.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“The longer this lifetime goes, the more convinced I am that our primary responsibility in life is to find a way to make peace with ourselves, our past, and our present—no matter what we face and no matter how often we need to do that.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“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.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Make life easier for you.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Sometimes things happen, and for a variety of reasons I may not end up where I wanted to go. If I change my mind or problems beyond my control interfere, I find myself doing something other than what I had planned. Timing and exact circumstances may vary. That’s okay. I usually end up someplace that’s better for me. That’s where acceptance, trust, faith, and letting go come in. But at least I’m not driving aimlessly through life.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“For instance, saying, “If you loved me you wouldn’t drink” to someone struggling with alcoholism makes as much sense as saying, “If you loved me, you wouldn’t cough” to someone with pneumonia. A person with pneumonia will cough until they get appropriate treatment for their illness. A person struggling with alcoholism will drink until they get the same. When people with compulsive disorders do whatever it is they’re compelled to do, they’re not saying they don’t love you—they’re saying they don’t love themselves.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“In an article from the book Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue, Robert Subby wrote 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 Eamie Larsen, another codependency specialist and a pioneer in that field, defines codependency as “those self-defeating, learned behaviors or character defects that result in a diminished capacity to initiate or to participate in loving relationships.”
― BEATTIE MELODY, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Worrying and obsessing keep us so tangled m our heads we can’t solve our problems.”
― BEATTIE MELODY, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They underreact. But rarely do they act.”
― BEATTIE MELODY, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“Talk about your feelings. Take responsibility for them. Feel whatever feeling you have. Nobody made you feel. Someone might have helped you feel a particular way, but you did your feeling all by yourself. Deal with it. Then, tell yourself the truth about what happened.1 Was someone trying to sock it to you? (If in doubt about whether to interpret something as an insult or rejection, I prefer to believe it had nothing to do with me. It saves my time and helps me feel good about myself.) Were you trying to control someone or some event? How serious is the problem or issue? Are you taking responsibility for someone else? Are you angry because someone didn’t guess what you really wanted or what you were really trying to say? Are you taking someone’s behavior too personally? Did someone push your insecurity or guilt buttons? Is it truly the end of the world, or is it merely sad and disappointing? 4.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

“I’d like to make a motion that we face reality.”
― Melody Beattie, Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself