Codependency Tips
Read these 11 Codependency Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Substance Abuse tips and hundreds of other topics.
Danger of Codependency
Almost everyone has some codependency tendencies. Many people enjoy helping and caring for other people. Indeed it would be a cold world without caring people. But when caring for and helping other people become more important than caring for one's self and responsibilities, something is wrong. That person's world loses balance. So much time, energy, and emotion is spent to help the needy person that everything and everyone else are neglected.
Am I codependent?
If you identify with the following statements, then you may want to seek help for codependency.
My good feeling about who I am stems from being liked by you.
My mental attention focuses on solving your problems or relieving your pain. Your struggle makes me unhappy.
My mental attention is focused on pleasing you or protecting your or making you do things my way (for your own good).
I feel important when I solve your problems or relieve your pain.
My fear of rejection controls what I say and do.
I value your opinion and way of doing things more than my own.
I am not aware of how I feel. I am aware of how you feel.
I give to you and do things for you so that will like me, love me, stay with me.
Recovery for Codependency
Codependents can recover, but they must accept the need for a personal recovery program. Codependents must learn to recognize and change destructive thought patterns, feelings, and behaviors. They must accept themselves as individuals of worth with the right to be happy and to pursue personal needs and desires.
And they must separate themselves from any relationship that continues to feed the sickness of co-addiction.
Pain of Codependency
The codependent is often angry and full of self-pity because the dependents do not appreciate the sacrifices the codependent is making for them.
The codependent has low self-esteem and therefore needs others to validate his/her worth. The addict in the codependent's life "needs" them, making the coaddict feel needed and wanted, even when being used and abused.
Codependency's Effect on the Family
When the parents or caregivers of a family are locked in addiction and codependency, the whole family suffers. All energy is focused on the addict to the exclusion of everyone else. Children learn early not to think, talk, or feel.
Lies are told to cover missed work, forgotten appointments, and embarrassing events created by the addict. Uncertainty rules the household because members are either in chaos or are fearful of when the chaos will start again.
Addicts and codependents are usually angry and, either directly or indirectly, the children receive the brunt of that anger. Children that grow up in these conditions carry lifelong emotional baggage and often repeat, with their own children, the pattern of addiction/codependency that they hated so much.
More codependent personality traits
Codependents will have many of the following personality traits:
1. Dependency--feel incomplete without someone to care for
2. Poor Communication Skills
3. Weak or non-existent personal boundaries
4. Lack of trust
5. Anger
6. Sexual problems
Results of Codependency
Codependent behaviors go beyond helping and caring for others. They are self destructive in that the codependent's personal needs and wants are never acknowledged or satisfied.
The codependent desires validation from others and seeks it in other emotionally unhealthy people. The illness of addiction breeds only more addiction often in the form of co-addiction (codependency).
Profile of a Codependent
The codependent focuses on solving other people's problems and relieving other people's pain, forgetting in the process to care for their own needs.
The codependent ignores his/her personal moral values in order to connect with the dependent (someone who believes lying is wrong, will lie because the dependent "needs" them to).
The codependent puts his/her own hobbies and interests on hold in order to focus on the dependents hobbies and interests.
Personality Traits of Codependency
Codependents will have many of the following personality traits:
1. Caretaker
2. Low self-worth
3. Repressed feelings
4. Obsession with the feelings of others
5. Controlling
6. Denial--inability to face personal truths
Defining codependency
The codependent person is basically addicted to an addict. The codependent can become so obsessed with the need to care for and control the addict that they ignore and deny their own feelings, desires, and needs.
The codependent will tell lies for the addict, make excuses for unexcusable behavior, and even blame themselves for the addicts behavior and attitude.
Eventually, codependents becomes angry and bitter because they feel unappreciated and used. As a result, they often work harder to make the addict behave, creating an endless cycle of pain and disappointment.
Co-addiction
Co-addiction is the original name for what is now known as codependency.
See Definition of Codependency.
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