AlissaWhen I used to hear the term “codependency”, I’d think of that TV show, Intervention. I’d picture the poor mothers of drug addicts who kept giving their kid money, knowing they’d buy drugs with it. Or, I’d think those couples who are attached at the hip and can’t do anything apart. You know, the ones who may as well share one name like “Brangelina” or “Kimye”.
In other words, I never would’ve described myself as a codependent person. I value independence and freedom in my relationships. I don’t enable bad behavior. I love doing my own thing. I could never be codependent, could I? Actually, I could be codependent. And in some ways, I was.
Codependency involves sacrificing one’s personal needs to try to meet the needs of others. Someone who is codependent has an extreme focus outside themselves. Their thoughts and actions revolve around other people, such as spouses or relatives.
Someone who is codependent often builds their identity around helping others. They may “depend” on others to validate their self-worth. A codependent person may deny their own desires or emotions to get this approval.
https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/codependency
By this definition, I realized I did have codependent behaviors. In fact, quite a few of them. It helped me to recognize that always putting other people first wasn’t noble, it was unhealthy.
Here are four of the sneaky signs of codependency that I discovered in myself.
1. You do everything in your power to make everyone around you feel better.
Being a caring person is a valiant trait, right? It’s wonderful to be kind, nurturing, helpful. But, when does this cross the threshold of being a healthy trait to being something toxic?
Maybe this will sound familiar. Any time my significant other was angry, sad, upset, irritable, it always felt like my responsibility to fix it. He never put that responsibility on me; he never asked me to make things better or bend over backward for him. But, as an empathetic person, I always felt uncomfortable feeling his pain and wanted to make him feel better as quickly as possible.
While it’s natural to want to help the people we love, it becomes toxic when we’re unable to function properly if our partner is in a bad mood. For me, my mind would be consumed by how he was feeling. I’d be sick to my stomach over it and had a hard time focusing until I knew things were better.
What I’m learning? It’s completely healthy and natural for my partner to experience negative emotions sometimes. Unless I’ve done something to contribute to it, it’s not my responsibility to fix it for him, nor does he expect that. Instead, I can be there for him as a loving pillar of strength, understanding, and compassion. I’m learning to separate my emotions from his and allow him the dignity of having his own experience.
2. You’re constantly putting everyone else’s needs first.
Want to know a quick recipe for resentment? Always putting other people’s needs before your own. Hello, I’m so guilty of this. And, speaking from experience, this doesn’t make you a selfless person. It makes you a person who isn’t respecting themselves enough to take care of their own needs.
You can chalk it up to being easygoing, others needing more than you, whatever. When you’re always putting other’s needs before your own, you are showing yourself, and others, that you don’t value yourself very highly. This is a problem because we teach people how to treat us. If you’re never making your needs a priority, people will learn not to prioritize them either.
This is a sign of codependency because we’re letting other people’s needs and feelings dictate the way we live our lives. We aren’t even considering what we may need. The fix here? Start asking for what you need. Start small. For me, this looks like choosing what movie we watch, deciding what we have for dinner, or taking my time to text a friend back instead of always dropping everything.
3. You’re always leaning on others to make the decisions.
Self-trust is a biggie. It’s one of the aspects of myself that I’m working on the most right now. Codependent folks tend to have lower self-esteem, resulting in a lack of trust in themselves to make decisions. Again, speaking from experience, I often just assumed that others knew better and were more equipped to make decisions than I was.
Like I said in the previous section, we teach people how to treat us. When we’re always leaning on others to make the decisions, even small ones like where we’re going for dinner or what movie we’re watching, we send the message that we’re pushovers. People learn that we don’t care either way which makes it easier for them to bulldoze over us and call all the shots. That’s not fun, is it?
Learning how to trust yourself is so, so major. Having trust in yourself is having confidence. It’s empowerment. It’s knowing that you can rely on yourself to figure things out, make good choices, and live the life that’s best for you. To learn more about how to build trust in yourself, check out this blog post I wrote all about it.
4. You value the opinions of others more than you value your own.
Do you need validation from others before you act on anything? Are you totally deflated if you only get a few “likes” on Instagram? In the age of social media, it’s really easy to get caught up in other people’s opinions and validation because we can get it so instantaneously. Instead of using our own thoughts and feelings as a compass, we get addicted to relying on what other people think.
When we’re consistently valuing the opinions of other people more than our own, we’re living our lives based on what we think other people want. If we’re constantly looking for outward approval, we’ll never find internal satisfaction because we’ll be crippled at the first sign of disapproval. When we’re always looking to others, we are, again, not trusting ourselves, seeing our worthiness, or living life on our own terms.
Living for others is no way to live.
In fact, according to the best-selling book, The Five Regrets of the Dying, people’s number one regret on their death bed is: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
I don’t know about you, but that thought alone is enough to get my butt into gear. I want to live a life that makes me feel empowered, confident, and brave. When I was stuck in my patterns of codependency, I was at the mercy of everyone else’s whims and emotions. I was out of tune with my own personal strength, intuition, and needs. I was living for everyone else.
If you recognize that you have some of these codependent tendencies, don’t worry! Becoming aware of it is the first step. And if you’ve been this way your whole life, it’s not easy to just change it right away. Be patient with yourself. Start with small, attainable shifts that help you build your self-trust. Over time, you’ll see your confidence grow. Each time you say “no”, stand up for yourself, or say what you need, it’s like you’re casting a vote for yourself. You’re rooting for you.
Your life is a gift and it’s yours to live. Give back, care for others, but don’t forget to show yourself, love, too.
With love,
Alissa
To read more about codependent personalities, check out this article from Everyday Health.
