Love or Co-dependency?

The way we relate as adults is largely shaped by our early relationships modelled by parents/carers. We often go on to repeat these relational patterns whether we are aware of it or not!

If our childhood relationships were not as healthy as they could have been, there is a good chance that this is recreated in your adult relationships, sometimes making life quite difficult.

Co-dependency is a type of unhealthy style of relating/bonding that can leave us with not only an unhealthy way of relating to other adults (and our children), but also ourselves!

If you find yourself experiencing any of the following, there is a good chance that co-dependency has or is playing a part:

• You have low self confidence

• You really really want to be loved.

• You feel low and depressed

• You are a people pleaser

• You find it hard to make independent decisions

• You feel isolated even though you have people around you

• You seek gratification from others and value that more than yourself

• You try to enmesh (an unhealthy level of closeness) with others

• You may have used sexual intimacy as a means to feel loved/ of worth.

• You have low body confidence.

• You reject and are self critical constantly

• You find it difficult to succeed at work.

• You fear change

• You find it difficult to give yourself anything good, favouring giving to others instead.

The above list is not exhaustive but, if you answered yes to many of them, there is a good chance that your low mood, anxiety or depression is linked to co-dependency.

So What is Co-dependency?

The term co-dependency was coined in the 1950’s from Alcoholics Anonymous as an unhealthy, toxic and dependent relationship to alcohol. Alcoholics Anonymous saw that people with an unhealthy, toxic and dependent relationship to alcohol showed symptoms similar to those listed in the points above.

Today co-dependency describes a way of relating in which a person becomes psychologically and emotionally enmeshed (an unhealthy closeness) to another.

This can start in childhood when, perhaps, we feel generally unstable or unsafe because of the way our parents are. As young children, we need them to be okay so they can care for us! This makes sense as, when we are little, we cannot care for ourselves. We need them! This is about survival. If our parents cannot care for us, the biological fear is that we will die! 

So we adapt ourselves to try and make our parents as okay as possible.  A simple example of this is for a child who has experienced an angry reaction to showing emotions (crying / complaining). If the reaction from the parent is repetitively angry or negative, the child will perhaps learn to withhold (keep in or hide) those emotions. When this happens, the child is helping to regulate the parents emotions. This is the start of ‘people pleasing’. 

As you might imagine, for any child, the experiences of feeling unsafe or unstable can be absolutely terrifying. In an attempt to ease the anxiety that is overwhelming, our psychological defences kick in and one of the ways this works to protect us is to make our caregivers ‘okay’ (We meet their needs).

We then carry this way of ‘being okay’ into all other relationships. Which ironically leads mostly to us not being ‘okay’.

So Why Repeat Unhelpful Patterns?

The answer to this in principle is really quite simple:

• We repeat ways of relating because they once saved us from overwhelming anxiety.

Makes sense right? I just want to add that it did not work so well that we did not feel any anxiety, it worked well enough that the anxiety did not psychologically kill us! What I mean by this is that we did not trip over into psychosis.

However, we have to remember that this probably happened mostly when we were very young, naïve, innocent to the world and still developing and still very dependent. So what worked for us when we were in this developmental period, perhaps when we were between 5 and12 say, has become our ‘working model’ to manage insecurities in all relationships.

It has become a maladaptive template from which you solve the problem of insecurity. Ironically, because it no longer is ‘fit for purpose’, it actually creates relationship issues which actually creates more anxiety for those who are insecure!

If you are currently experiencing a number of experiences from the list above, it is quite possible that those maladaptive patterns are still very active and you are perhaps co-dependent!

What does that mean to me?

It mostly means that, perhaps like you did when you were young, you work tirelessly to ensure the other is okay, as you believe that will make you okay! After all, it sort of  worked when you depended on your caregivers right?

So you become dependent on your partner and hypersensitive to their mood changes and behaviours to read signs of how successful you are, or more importantly, if you have got it right enough for them, then you are safe!

Welcome to co-dependency!

Changing Maladaptive Mechanisms

Counselling is really useful in working with and supporting you through reclaiming your ‘self’ back!

What I often experience with co-dependent clients is that they have spent so very much of their existence ‘fixing the other’ (this could be a parent, a partner, a child, a manager, anyone really) in the hope of making themselves feel ‘safe’, they did not learn the tools to do this for themselves!

In my experience as a counsellor, it never ceases to amaze me (and this is from lived experience also), how often someone experiencing co-dependency, does not know what they like, at all!

They find it hard to stick with any hobby, they find it difficult to choose food that they like, rather than basics, the same with clothes, hair colour. In fact, they find it almost impossible to give themselves anything good, that is above necessity. 

Why? Because they have become so adept at giving it to others and meeting their needs, they did not develop this part of themselves!

Once we start to explore these things and this way of thinking in the counselling room, it can be surprising just how much of one’s life is lived like this. 

The first step is becoming aware of this!

Once we are aware, we can explore if this way of being and living is helpful and, if it is not, start to change it. This may not be an easy process which is why counselling is useful in providing much support through this.

The good news is, there is a you that is available more to you and is more resourceful, more capable, more deserving, experiences more joy than perhaps you can currently believe! The list above can change!

I am ready to go on that journey with you. Wanna come along for the ride?