. What does “codependency” actually mean? And how does it relate to you/me... a relatively normal and sane person just willy-nilly living their life in the most appropriate way they know how…
I would go so far as to say a method of becoming a prisoner to anything and everything other than your true self.
🤔 When you worry about "not being good enough", be that in the form of:
- Accumulating more and more credentials in order to prove your value in the world.
- Comparing yourself to others – along any line, money, fitness, body shape, business aptitude, likes on social media, lifestyle, you name it…
- Pushing yourself to constantly “improve” and “do better”, “be better”, “lose weight”, “look younger”, “run faster” etc.
- Avoidance of scenarios where you may face rejection (or perception of failure). This is also linked to an unwillingness to take risks.
- Anxieties around money or your ability to attract or hold value, or the opposite expression where there is an energy of “hoarding resources” in a fear of “it is never enough” and “just in case”.
- A need to be regarded as “professional” or a need to seek perfection in executing tasks or areas of creativity. Creations “never being good enough” and a fixation on perfection to the point of paralysis, or if it is shared and after the fact a mistake is exposed then a sense of deep shame and embarrassment.
🤔 When there is an unconscious need to manage or control other people's behaviour, and a general unease when you are inhabiting the territory of “the unknown”. This may look like any version of the following:
- Feeling stressed when you are waiting for a reply from someone to a message that you have sent, which you really want an answer to. Perhaps someone you have a crush on and you know they have read your text but they haven’t replied??! Or, an email to your boss suggesting a new methodology and he is taking his sweet time acknowledging receipt, or any other manner of scenario.
The general default space is for the codependent to either:
a) expect the worst, rather than the best possible option i.e. it will be quicker to assume the person doesn’t want to speak to them or hates their idea than to assume that they love the idea but just waiting for the right time to engage the moment, or
b) try to control for a response, because the waiting is too uncomfortable, and so will engage in repeated prodding (either as follow-up messages, or seeking alternative ways to connect to “check in” on whether the person received their first message, without trying to be so obvious of course) and/or,
c) dissociating and withdrawing into an avoidance strategy to avoid, cut off, or disconnect from the person or scenario which is causing the anxiety.In the case of the text message to your crush, option c looks like…. Finding yourself starting to “write off” the person with a character assassination – how they actually are not a good fit, and actually you know….. they are this and that and how really it would not work anyway. How you thought this about them but then discovered that etc etc all to prove how you are actually better off walking away from them before they can even have a moment’s peace to reply to your message.
Of course, what often takes place is that when your phone beeps you jump as though lightening has shot up your ass to check if it is them… often only to be disappointed and continue your character assassination with more fervor, or if it is them, forget everything you have just told yourself and back in the land of thinking they are marvelous!
- Having rigid internalized “rules of behaviour” that you subject yourself and others to. This will include all of your “shoulds”. How you or other people “should” behave, think, parent, live, manage their money, lives, relationships, sexuality, communication, spiritual beliefs, moral code etc etc. Essentially being relatively inflexible to how other people operate outside of your worldview of what is considered “normal and appropriate”. (this one can often trip us all up at family gatherings!!…. nudge nudge re upcoming year-end festivities looming)
🤔 Feeling quite porous when it comes to absorbing other people's behaviour or opinions of you, or operating on an imbalance of where do I end and you begin?
- What this essentially is about is having weak or inflexible boundaries. This is characterized by caretaking other people’s feelings or people-pleasing.
Essentially, what this means is that you will manage your own behaviour in order to please or appease another person’s expectations of you, or you will manage your behaviour so as to not upset the other person and/or subject them to uncomfortable feelings.
This can often show up in the parent/child relationship where a parent will want to ensure that the child is emotionally comfortable at all times and fall into the trap of turning themselves into a human pretzel capable of supernatural feats in order to ensure that the child does not feel any form of emotional discomfort.
This equally happens in our adult relationships which is (excuse the tone of judgement here) is even less acceptable given that we are enabling our fellow adult partner to remain infantile and not have to deal with their adult emotions – often leading to an imbalance of power in the relationship where one or both partners “parent and care take” each other.
It also shows up as absolute rigidity and inflexible boundaries where we are right, that is how it is, and the other person had better comply or else.
In both scenarios there is a weakness of feeling safe in relation to other people and their expectations of us.
- This often also looks like saying “yes” when we actually mean “no”, or feeling the need to justify our response if our genuine answer is not what we anticipate the other person wants to hear from us.
Friend: Do you want to come to my party?
Codependent Response: “I would loooooove to, but you know I actually have this thing… not sure the time… gosh let me check and I can get back to you…. Can’t wait to come!”
Non-Codependent response: “Thanks for the invite, but no thanks.”I know that that can sound quite “rude” and blunt… but the truth is you don’t really owe anyone anything! This is a legacy belief of a system which is designed to make people (especially women) have to justify their very existence.
You have a right to say no, with no explanations. Do you want to have sex? No. Any conversation after that falls into coercion and manipulation which well…. Let’s leave that to a topic for another day.
