Quotes About Codependency

Except for normal human emotions we would be feeling anyway, and twinges of discomfort as we begin to behave differently, recovery from codependency is exciting. It is liberating. It lets us be who we are. It lets other people be who they are.

A codependent person is one who has let another person's behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person's behavior.

As Thomas Wright writes in an article from the book Co-Dependency, An Emerging Issue, "I suspect codependents have historically attacked social injustice and fought for the rights of the underdog. Codependents want to help. I suspect they have helped. But they probably died thinking they didn't do enough and were feeling guilty.

Don't give up hope. It took many of us twenty years or more to acquire these protective behaviors we umbrella with the word codependency. It may take as much time as that to let go of them.

Whatever problem the other person has, codependency involves a habitual system of thinking, feeling, and behaving toward ourselves and others that can cause us pain. Codependent behaviors or habits are self-destructive. We frequently react to people who are destroying themselves; we

Many codependents are barely surviving, and most aren't getting their needs met.

Codependency is normal behavior, plus. There are times we do too much, care too much, feel too little, or overly engage. We forget where the other person's responsibilities begin and our responsibilities stop. Or we get busy and have so much to do that we neglect ourselves.

Sometimes, the things we do to protect ourselves turn on us and hurt us. They become self-destructive. Many codependents are barely surviving, and most aren't getting their needs met. As counselor Scott Egleston says, codependency is a way of getting needs met that doesn't get needs met. We've been doing the wrong things for the right reasons.

I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people's problems they didn't have time to identify or solve their own. These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively, about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The

wrote codependency is "an emotional, psychological, and behavioral condition that develops as a result of an individual's prolonged exposure to, and practice of, a set of oppressive rules—rules which prevent the open expression of feeling as well as the direct discussion of personal and interpersonal problems."2

react is important here. However you approach codependency, however you define it, and from whatever frame of reference you choose to diagnose and treat it, codependency is primarily a reactionary process. Codependents are reactionaries. They overreact. They under-react. But rarely do they act. They react to the problems, pains

I saw people who had gotten so absorbed in other people's problems they didn't have time to identify or solve their own. These were people who had cared so deeply, and often destructively, about other people that they had forgotten how to care about themselves. The codependents felt responsible for so much because the people around them felt responsible for so little; they were just taking up the slack.

We're learning, through trial and error, to separate our will from God's will. We're learning that God's will is not offensive. We've learned that sometimes there's a difference between what others want us to do and God's will. We're also learning that God did not intend for us to be codependent, to be martyrs, to control or caretake. We're learning to trust ourselves. . . . and the power to carry that through.

LOW SELF-WORTH Codependents

Sometimes codependents were blamed; sometimes they were ignored; sometimes they were expected to magically shape up (an archaic attitude that has not worked with alcoholics and doesn't help codependents either).

described codependency as "a set of maladaptive, compulsive behaviors learned by family members to survive in a family experiencing great emotional pain and stress … Behaviors … passed on from generation to generation whether alcoholism is present or not.

Earnie Larsen, another codependency specialist and a pioneer in that field, defines codependency as "those self-defeating, learned behaviors or character defects that result in a diminished capacity to initiate or to participate in loving relationships

When a codependent discontinued his or her relationship with a troubled person, the codependent frequently sought another troubled person and repeated the codependent behaviors with that new person. These behaviors, or coping mechanisms, seemed to prevail throughout the codependent's life—if that person didn't change these behaviors.

OBSESSION Codependents

Most recovering addicts and alcoholics have codependency underneath.

Before I list the things codependents tend to do, however, I will make an important point: Having these problems does not mean we're bad, defective, or inferior. Some of us learned these behaviors as children. Other people learned them later in life. We may have learned some of these things from our interpretation of religion. Some women were taught these behaviors were desirable feminine attributes. Wherever we learned to do these things, most of us learned our lessons well.

We frequently react to people who are destroying themselves; we react by learning to destroy ourselves.

It's clear now that codependency isn't a fad, as some people once claimed. It's come full circle. As family illnesses, from alcoholism to Alzheimer's disease, continue to become openly discussed by more people, so does the number of people seeking help for codependency increase.

We aren't the people who "make things happen." Codependents are the people who consistently, and with a great deal of effort and energy, try to force things to happen.