Five Difficult Truths About Codependency

And why they’re crucial to recovery.

I’ve struggled with codependency my entire life.

For most of it, I never gave codependent relationships much thought. I thought they had little to do with me, and I judged them harshly. Codependents were those who couldn’t stand on their own two feet without help — and I wasn’t that person.

Except that I was.

For decades I avoided facing my struggles with codependency. I told myself I was unlucky in love, blaming my failures on my partners. I hid my insecurities behind a carefully crafted mask, never allowing anyone close enough to see beyond my façade.

I arrived at rock bottom following the epic disintegration of my marriage. Broken wide open, I began to accept responsibility for my part and looked at my long string of failed relationships with a brutally cold eye. What I saw pierced through my worn, tattered heart.

As an Adult Child of an Alcoholic (ACA), I was completely unaware of the codependency that began in childhood and weaved its way through every facet of my being, affecting how I interacted with the world around me. Codependency became part of my DNA, as I changed and adapted to protect myself from the excruciating feelings of rejection and insecurity I suffered as a child.

Codependency often revolves around addiction in the family but can develop in any family system that discourages the open expression of feelings and direct, honest communication. As our needs go unmet, we feel ashamed of our traumatic emotional wounds, low self-esteem, and low self-worth.

We retreat deep into ourselves — into our world of emptiness and isolation, devoid of the meaningful connections we crave.

Growing up feeling unsafe and alone, we subconsciously craft a collection of self-defeating coping mechanisms that define how we relate to people in our relationships. We learn early on to develop controlling behaviors designed to make ourselves feel safe.

Many of these traits and behaviors are well documented, including people-pleasing, rescuing, fixing, poor boundary setting, poor communication skills, hyper-vigilance, and perfectionism. We unconsciously use them as we continually look outside ourselves to fill our empty voids. Codependency is amplified in our romantic relationships, a primary source of validation and self-worth.

Healing requires a lot of deep inner work, and we often need help unravelling our codependent behaviors one strand at a time. The hard work of recovery requires us to take an honest look at some hard-to-swallow truths about codependency:

We manipulate our way into connection.

We learned early on that people-pleasing and rescuing was an effective way to feel connected. We twist ourselves into perfect partners as a way to get the love and affection we crave. Ultimately, we turn to manipulation to prove our self-worth and soothe our intense fear of abandonment.

With the focus on our partners, our own darkness can remain hidden. Driven by insecurity and fear, we’ll attempt to meet all our partner’s needs, trying to stay just ahead of the feelings of low self-worth that threaten our ability to connect.

We love bomb.

We are motivated by our greatest fear: That we are unlovable and unworthy of the love we desire so badly. Desperately trying to avoid that, we’ll go overboard with our show of love and affection in a blaze of fireworks and shooting stars that light up our dark sky. It’s a dazzling show of flowers, romance, poems, gifts, dinners, affection, favors, and compliments that fills the air like confetti landing at the feet of our star-struck lovers.

We’ll set the bar unsustainably high, and chase those initial days for the rest of our relationship. As time goes by, we will slowly slide back to reality, terrified that we’re one misstep away from losing the love we have.

We struggle with Love Addiction:

Love bombing might be manipulative and unsustainable, but it feels great as dopamine-driven euphoria keeps us lost in the clouds of a blissful high.

We are powerless against the potent cocktail of chemical reactions that come with new relationships. We are quickly overwhelmed, becoming addicted to the intense feelings of pleasure as we lose ourselves in the excitement of love.

Addiction obliterates the line between our individuality and our relationship. Blinded by euphoria, we’ll ignore red flags and take huge emotional risks without a care in the world.

We abandon ourselves.

Those of us struggling with codependency can be extremely generous and giving — we just haven’t learned to show that kindness to ourselves. We focus our generosity on our partners, often sacrificing what we need in the process.

We self-abandon each time we turn away from ourselves. Ironically, while we struggle with fear of abandonment, we’re quick to abandon ourselves to stay connected to our relationship. Trading our needs in return for security and safety, we merge into our relationships until we no longer exist without them.

We self-sabotage.

We aren’t comfortable with feelings of prosperity and joy, anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop because we don’t feel deserving of the feelings we have. Our insecurities leave us hyper-vigilant, always searching for signs of trouble confirming our deepest fears — that we are unloveable.

We react to this anxiety by creating narratives filled with insecurity and rejection, leaving us feeling isolated and alone, wrapped inside the familiar childhood feelings we’ve carried through adulthood.

Without encouragement to grow as individuals, we become resentful as we navigate the tight spaces between people-pleasing and conflict avoidance. We’re unwilling and unable to advocate for ourselves and our needs. Our lives grow smaller over time, and the love we once thought would set us free now wraps us like a straight jacket.

Unflattering as these traits may be, they are the guideposts that lead us through recovery. It takes courage to look at the parts of ourselves we’re most ashamed of and drag them into the light. But acknowledging and embracing our behaviors allows us to move through shame and heal our wounds.

Learning to accept our imperfections frees us to form healthier connections with ourselves and others. Nurturing ourselves and learning to meet our own needs within interdependent relationships builds self-trust and self-esteem.

We’ve suffered long enough. We may be imperfect and flawed, but we’re worthy of all the love and belonging the world has to offer. If we can embrace ourselves with courage and grace, we just might find the healthy relationships we’ve always deserved.

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