How Do You Become Codependent?

Does anyone choose to be codependent?  In all my years of counseling, I have never met someone who consciously chose to be codependent in a relationship.  I have known people who chose not to change their codependent behavior once they became aware of it, but they never chose to be codependent.  So how does codependence happen?

Typically, we learn how to be in relationship through the families we grow up in.  In other words, if your family of origin had codependent dynamics, you likely learned those dynamics too, and brought them into your adult relationships.  Sometimes people develop codependent behavior as a means of tolerating a difficult situation in their family of origin.  The codependent tools become a means for survival or management, and usually these tools are not exchanged for healthier ones until you hit a crisis—which sends you (hopefully) into counseling, where you learn about your codependent dynamics.

Here’s a fictitious example.  Jane grew up in a codependent family:  her father was an abusive alcoholic, and her mother ‘walked on eggshells’ around him, so as not to upset him.  If her mother complained or tried to stand up for herself and the children, Jane’s father blew up, throwing things, breaking things, and even at times pushing Jane’s mother physically.  He was a ‘mean drunk’, demanding and critical, and all the family members just kept the peace by not confronting him in any way.  Once in a while, Jane’s mother would yell back, but the penalty she suffered for this only reinforced keeping her mouth shut.

What does Jane learn in this situation?   Here are some probable lessons learned, which are not typically learned at a cognitive level, but rather at an emotional level, unstated:

• Confrontation is dangerous, so don’t do it.  Keeping quiet is safe.
• Jane father’s needs are the priority; your needs are not important, so don’t have any needs because they won’t be met.
• If you are hurting, just handle it.  No one can do anything anyway.
• Emotions are hard to handle, if not dangerous, so just pretend you don’t have any so you (and your father) stay under control.
• Your role is to support and keep the peace.

There are more perhaps, but you can see what is ‘inherited’ in this family situation.  How you react also depends on your personality tendencies.  Many people react internally, and so are more likely to become codependent in the typical fashion.  But some are more external in their reaction, and rather than comply (codependently) with this horrible scenario, they act out and become belligerent, in an effort to change the dynamic.   They might become a ‘competitive’ problem in the household, causing distress along with the addicted father.   When you are a child, you are powerless, and have very few options open to you to make a bad situation better.   Because of this, if a child responds by complying, doing his best not to stir up trouble, this response can become roots for codependence.

So when Jane starts to date, what kind of boy will she respond to?  What will her choices be?  She will likely not even know she has choices, first of all.  And when someone is codependent, it isn’t magic that makes a man (in this case) who is demanding find a woman like Jane.  She doesn’t consciously choose him anymore than he consciously chooses her—but a man similar to her father will see in her the compliance and malleability he needs in a woman, and she will see someone who needs her support, so the two connect.  And the cycle begins again.

There are many ways codependence works in relationships; the usual addiction (drugs/alcohol) does not have to be present.  Here are a few examples:

• A domestic violence relationship is codependent.  There is enough ‘love’ expressed between the two that the victim believes it is worth staying for it, but the victim typically cannot express needs.  Her focus is on him.   
• Mental illness can create a codependent scenario.  If the family walks on eggshells around someone with mental illness, there is a codependent dynamic which constrains everyone’s way of relating.
• Control can mask as religiosity in a family: a husband who demands strict obedience and uses the Bible as a bat to subdue any opinion other than his own, creates a codependent response in his wife and children.  He may look God-honoring, but his behavior dynamics are about controlling others who obey in fear.
• A family in which there is someone who is helpless for valid reasons—like someone with chronic illness, or someone who is disabled or unable to work—can create a codependence in a relationship if s/he needs the focus on him/her at all times.  The spouse becomes the support and ‘do-er’ in the relationship and takes no time for his/her needs.

Please understand these examples are possible situations for codependence.  Not all families with disability or mental illness, for example, have codependent dynamics.  But these situations create a fertile ground for such.  The issue is imbalance in the relationships—where one person’s needs, legitimate in their roots perhaps, override everyone else’s needs.

What you can see in these examples is the basis for the dynamic the codependent has with the dependent—or the person of focus.  In drug addiction, the alcoholic is the dependent, and the codependent is the spouse, parent, or child.  In this and the above examples, the codependent is as ‘addicted’ as the target addict:  the codependent has a compulsive connection to the dependent in the relationship, and often struggles to get free, once aware of this dynamic. 

Next time, I will address what perceived and subconscious benefits the codependent has (the basis for the codependent’s addiction), and what she gains in this relationship.

Blessings,
Priscilla

Priscilla Ortlip MSW, LCSW, ACS

Founder and Executive Director
Christian Counselors Collaborative
www.cccpgh.org

Disclaimer: I am a professional, licensed clinical therapist in the state of PA, but this blog is not a therapeutic venue—anything I state here is not for treatment or to address anyone’s specific emotional or mental health need. If you are experiencing immediate distress, call 911. If you would like to consider counseling with the CCC, please call Tom Laird at 1.855.222.2575.

What Is Codependence?

You have probably heard about codependence.  This term developed from the field of addiction, describing the relationship between an addict and someone in relationship with the addict.  The ‘codependent’ is one who is ‘psychologically dependent on the (addict) in an unhealthy way’ (Dictionary.com).  In Love Is A Choice, by Hemfelt, Minirth, and Meier, codependence is defined as: ‘an addiction to people, behaviors, or things.  Codependence is the fallacy of trying to control interior feelings by controlling people, things, and events on the outside.  To the codependent, control or the lack of it is central to every aspect of life’ (p.11).  That is a complicated definition, because there is so much involved in a codependent relationship.  I hope to help decipher some of the aspects of this relationship over the next few blogs. 

On the surface, codependence appears to be a very benign if not benevolent way to be: codependents are typically helpful, ‘be there for you’ kinds of people.  And from my years of counseling people with codependence, I believe it is a natural way to be for those whose hearts are kind and helpful.  At her root, the codependent is not manipulative.  But when you look at codependent behavior, you could conclude that the codependent exhibits controlling and even manipulative behavior.  It is an interesting contradiction, and I will get into the dynamics of it as we unpack this issue.

What does codependent behavior look like?  Well, a typical codependent is defined through relationship with an addict.  (The addict too, is codependent in this relationship.  The ‘co‘ suggests they need each other in this codependence, but for different reasons, meeting different needs.)  So, for example, the wife of a drug addict might be codependent by tolerating addicted behavior (which can often be abusive), helping protect the addict from the law or his boss, making excuses for him when he cannot get to work, etc.  Some codependents actually purchase the cases of beer so that there is always alcohol in the house for the alchoholic!  I have often seen codependence in a parent, tolerating addicted behavior of a child: the adult son, for example, who cannot hold a job, who continues to ‘borrow’ money from his parents, and who crashes at their home because he cannot support himself.  Some parents live like this for years, because they do not want to see their son on the street, homeless, or helpless.  I can only imagine how difficult this situation would be for a parent.

No doubt you have heard of the term ‘tough love’, which refers to ways of dealing with an addict.  Tough love refers to setting up boundaries around the addict’s behavior, so that any codependent behavior stops.  The rationale is this: if you continue to make excuses for the addict, you help contribute to the addict’s ‘comfort’ in not changing.  If he has a reliable place to crash, then he will never reach ‘rock bottom’ and never have to deal with his addiction.  These principals are all essentially true.  As difficult as it may feel for a parent (using the same example), you must let the addict ‘crash and burn’ so that he recognizes that HE must do something to change for his own survival.  No one else can help him.  Codependents try to help in their kind ways, but inadvertently prevent the addict from getting free from addiction.

If you look beneath the surface of this codependent behavior, you can consider that there are different subconscious reasons someone might be codependent with an addict.  Let’s use this parent and addicted son example again.  The codependent behavior is not intended to prevent healing, although that’s essentially what the codependent does.  Rather, the codependent behavior may be driven by a desire to: avoid the pain and grief of seeing your son suffer; avoid being without the relationship (if he becomes homeless, or goes into treatment); avoid focus on other broken relationships; avoid facing your own problems and issues.  When you are wrapped around someone else’s issues, you have no time to deal with your own.  Codependents become as trapped as the addict in life focus.

To become free from codependent behavior, you have to be willing to explore your own subconscious motives.  Again, these are not malicious motives, but survival motives, usually—ways of doing and being which meet a need from years ago.  Once you find a way to cope with brokenness (trauma, abuse, emotional injury) you stick to it, because it has helped you survive.  Learning about your behaviors helps you understand them, and helps you choose to change them.  And there is wonderful freedom in that change!  I see it all the time, by God’s grace.

I will begin to address some of the less obvious situations where there is codependence, in the next blog. 

Blessings,
Priscilla

Priscilla Ortlip MSW, LCSW, ACS

Founder and Executive Director
Christian Counselors Collaborative
www.cccpgh.org

Disclaimer:  I am a professional, licensed clinical therapist in the state of PA, but this blog is not a therapeutic venue—anything I state here is not for treatment or to address anyone’s specific emotional or mental health need.  If you are experiencing immediate distress, call 911.  If you would like to consider counseling with the CCC, please call Tom Laird at 1.855.222.2575.

 

Emotional Pain

The topic of pain is one which has been addressed by far more intellectual and theologically trained minds than mine.  But I raise this topic, because emotional pain is a pertinent issue when it comes to counseling. Discomfort (at the low end of the ‘pain’ scale) and trauma (at the high end of the ‘pain’ scale) both can bring us to the point of wanting to talk to someone.  I have learned personally, and have observed through my years of counseling others, that emotional pain, although at times devastating, can present an opportunity to learn about ourselves, about God and our relationship with Him, and about how to effectively journey on in this life.  Pain is a part of life.

Physical pain is pretty straightforward.  We get hurt, we go to the doctor or hospital, get treated, and wait for the physical healing.  Because we know that once a bone is set, for example, it’s only a matter of time for the bone to heal and everything can return to ‘normal’, there isn’t much to process with this kind of pain in itself, other than learning patience perhaps!  [There are exceptions to this simple example, such as chronic pain, pain which reveals a serious illness, or physical disability which causes pain.  But these exceptions move us toward the issue of emotional pain.]

In comparison, emotional pain presents with complexity on many levels.  As with physical pain, we have differences in tolerance, and how we handle the accompanying emotional distress.  Some may withdraw, others may become aggressive, and still others may carry on without acknowledging the pain.  If the pain is deep enough, no matter what we do, it will express itself in some way, and often the way it expresses itself becomes intolerable, and leads the heart to seek relief.  Counseling is one way to help bring relief.

I see emotional pain as an indication of the disparity between what God has intended for us as His children, made in His image, and how we interact with and experience each other in our fallen world.  Specifically, I see ‘made in His image’ to mean being branded with the essence of God: love, which we are created to give Him and each other.  If I had to summarize the main cause for pain brought to counseling, I would say it is because we have experienced something other than the love God has created us to give and receive.  Of course in any relationship, we can experience disappointment and anger, to name two common emotions.  But emotional distress which cries for counseling usually belies some level of hurt, fear, unforgiveness, anger, sorrow—all of which are contrary to the heart of love. 

We are capable of wounding each other to great depths.  And typically, the depth of the hurt reflects the depth of the relationship.  When we are deeply connected, such as in family relationships, and someone wounds with, for example, abusive behavior, it is particularly poignant and challenging to understand what that person has done, through the eyes of grace and forgiveness. 

This kind of hurt can be processed in counseling, when one has finally acknowledged the pain, and seeks to rise above it, overcoming the impact.  Part of processing pain, is letting you feel it.  As I have mentioned before, some Christians think they are not supposed to feel sad, broken, or angry, for example.  But if we don’t ‘own’ the feelings, then we can’t truly submit them to God for His healing.  Recognizing the depth, understanding the impact, and acknowledging our own imperfect responses, prepares us to bring our brokenness to the feet of Christ.  And that’s where it gets good!

I have had the privilege of walking alongside people who are broken in many different ways, and I see over and over, how God brings comfort out of anguish, forgiveness out of resentment, and compassion out of anger.  Emotional pain is challenging for us all; but what pain can eventually transform into, through God’s love and grace, is incredible! 

Blessings,

Priscilla Ortlip

MSW, LCSW, ACS

Founder and Executive Director
The Christian Counselors Collaborative

www.cccpgh.org

Disclaimer:  I am a professional, licensed clinical therapist in the state of PA, but this blog is not a therapeutic venue—anything I state here is not for treatment or to address anyone’s specific emotional or mental health need.  If you are experiencing immediate distress, call 911.  If you would like to consider counseling at the CCC, please call Tom Laird at 1.855.222.2575.