Codependence, or co-dependency, as it’s also called, involves the opposite of emotional development and emotional regulation. Co-dependent people have learned to suppress and avoid emotions and disregard their own emotional needs.
Mental Health America offers this description of Co-dependency:
“Co-dependency is a learned behavior … an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also known as “relationship addiction” because people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive. The disorder was first identified about ten years ago as the result of years of studying interpersonal relationships in families of alcoholics. (…) Today, however, the term has broadened to describe any type of co-dependent person from any dysfunctional family.”
mhanational.org/issues/co-dependency, Retrieved 7/17/2020
In a dysfunctional family, the family members do not model (or even permit) good emotional regulation or emotional development. Problems are not acknowledged. Normal emotional development is sacrificed. As Mental Health America observes, “…family members learn to repress emotions and disregard their own needs. … They develop behaviors that help them deny, ignore, or avoid difficult emotions. They detach themselves. They don’t talk. They don’t touch. They don’t confront. They don’t feel. They don’t trust. … The co-dependent person typically sacrifices his or her needs to take care of a person who is sick. When co-dependents place other people’s health, welfare, and safety before their own, they can lose contact with their own needs, desires, and sense of self.”
Some examples of co-dependent behavior, from Mental Health America, are a wife covering for an alcoholic husband, a mother making excuses for a child skipping or being late to school, or a father “pulling strings” to keep his child from suffering the consequences of delinquent behavior. The problem behavior and “rescuing” becomes self-perpetuating and self-defeating for both people.
In a codependent relationship, I become responsible for your happiness, and I make you responsible for mine. I can “enable” your behaviors or addictions, so you are not responsible for them, and don’t need to deal with the consequences of them yourself. To avoid my own sadness, low self-esteem, or fear of abandonment, I make myself needed and indispensable to your well-being.
The Mental Health America site lists characteristics of codependent people and offers a questionnaire to identify signs of co-dependency. The article notes that “The first step in changing unhealthy behavior is to understand it” and ends with “Hope lies in learning more. … Reaching out for help and assistance can help someone live a healthier, more fulfilling life.”
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