Q&A on Codependency

Where to start, what it looked like for me, and what even is it?

I’m answering your questions about codependency. I’ve heard from many of you this week; thanks for your questions, comments, and texts. Remember, what you read here is my perspective from my personal experience, and it’s not a substitute for advice from your therapist. Now, let’s go!

I hear the term codependency thrown around a lot, but honestly, I’m not even sure what it means. Is it like being dependent on someone else for money? So, I guess I’m asking, what even is codependency?

That’s an excellent question. It is also a big question, bigger than what is possible in this essay,  but I will do my best…

When I first began my recovery almost 20 years ago, the term codependency was essentially used to describe the ‘other’ side of the relationship with a person with an addiction. The person with an addiction was addicted to ‘the thing’ (could be anything, mind you; alcohol, drugs, food, sex, work, you name it), and the codependent (also called co-addict) was addicted to the person with an addiction and also keeping the world around them running, thus enabling the person with an addiction to stay in their addiction. 

Let’s say you are married to an alcoholic, and that person is on the road to sobriety. They would go to AA to learn how to get sober, and you would go to Al-Anon or Coda (Codependents Annonymous) to learn more about how you enabled the person with an addiction and contributed to the addiction in your home. This is oversimplified, of course, but I think you can understand what I’m saying. 

Recently, there has been information released that indicates codependency is actually a trauma response of its own, separate from how an enabler relates to a person with an addiction. Here is the best article I’ve read about this so far.  Codependency is now described as a loss of self due to unmet childhood needs. If a parent cannot meet a child’s emotional needs, the child will attempt to meet the parent’s needs instead so that the parent might have something to give back to them. This is done to survive. But the problem comes, of course, with the child not actualizing their own needs and feelings and losing the sense of self for the parent’s sake. 

When these children grow up, they use the same relational tools (caretaking, controlling, rigid thinking, and a lack of boundaries, etc.) with their partners and other primary relationships as they did with their parents- and the codependent continues to lose themselves in these relationships, even as adults, due to this childhood wounding. This is why we sometimes say that codependents are ‘addicted to others’ as a way to describe this. They look to others to meet their needs or seek approval from others to be ok within themselves. 

What is your biggest piece of advice to someone realizing that they are codependent?

Slow down - waaaayy down. Stop doing, like almost everything. Begin to learn how to look toward yourself and what you need. Start small, baby steps, and when you think you’re taking the smallest step, cut that in half.  Learn how to get inside your body, to come back from ‘out there,’ and get in touch with your heart, your own state of being - your own wants and needs. In every situation, big and small, ask yourself these three questions:

• What am I feeling right now?

• What do I need?

• Who do I want to be in this situation?

I’d also recommend a few books. The Codependent’s Guide to the Twelve Steps by Melody Beattie is a great place to begin, as is almost anything by her. I also love her daily meditation, The Language of Letting Go. These are two books I still refer to even after almost 20 years of recovery. They are bent, dog-eared, and highlighted. (Find all of these books here!)

Then, look into joining a support group. It’s really hard to make changes like this alone. A supportive community is the key to success. Al-Anon and CODA are great places to begin, as is The Adult Children of Alcoholics. Last I checked, all of these organizations have in-person and virtual meetings. 

I’d like to know what was the turning point for you - what did you see from the bird’s eye perspective when you discovered and committed to change?

If you were to take your time machine and go back and see Sara circa the early (mid?) 2000s, you’d see a frantic woman striving to do it all and make it all work. She had a plan ‘mapped out’ and would move hell and high water to ensure the plan of having the ‘right life’  was executed to its fullest potential, no matter what - even if it meant betraying herself. She lived a chaotic life, moving from one fire to the next, crisis after crisis, never realizing she was part of the problem. The biggest problem, of course, was this life she was striving to build wasn’t the life she wanted necessarily, but the life she thought she was expected to live. If you were to ask her, she’d tell you it was the life she wanted. But the truth was, she didn’t even understand herself enough to know she didn’t know what she wanted. She also didn’t know enough to know that she was allowing this army of chaos and confusion to infiltrate all around her. 

In other words, I wasn’t happy or satisfied in life. I looked everywhere outside of myself for that happiness - to my husband, God, our community, and my children. No matter how hard I tried, this quiet nagging of dissatisfaction remained. It seemed like everything, and everyone around me caused me pain and sucked the energy right from my bones. I was tired in all the ways you can be tired.  Eventually, I got to the place where I cried out, ‘I can’t do this anymore - change me!’ And that’s when the miracle happened. 

AA, Al-Anon, and other recovery organizations call this the 1-2-3 waltz. I can’t; God can; I think I’ll let them, which is essentially a quippy summary of the first three steps found in these programs. 

They call it the miracle because once you decide to surrender, you allow room for the universe and its wisdom to take over. (You can call this force whatever you like—I have no opinion about how you refer to it.) When you decide to surrender, you release control of what’s not yours to hold and take control of what is. 

Letting go changed everything, and I began to look at life differently. I had always made my own satisfaction contingent on how closely I could adhere to others’ expectations, needs, and desires of me. I made my ‘rightness’ a product of how closely I aligned with these expectations.  I had very little consideration for myself - what I needed and wanted wasn’t that known or important to me. Living like this allowed me to shirk my responsibility over my life and put it on someone else. I realized it was time to grow up and through all of that. 

Eventually, I began to examine my own happiness and satisfaction internally. I had never lived this way before, and it was scary at first—it didn’t feel natural; it was like a shoe that didn’t fit right. But I took baby steps and did the next best thing each day, and after many days of doing that, I began to reclaim myself. And now, here I am - each day is better than the next. 

Until next time -

S