CODEPENDENCY:  A basic human condition where we turn outward to others instead of to God for our identity, our value, our love.

 

Started in the Garden. Adam and Eve had everything they needed including harmony and peace with God and each other. Their sin drove them to shame, and shame drove them away from their relationship with God and disconnected from each other. Now they are looking to each other to fill the needs only God can provide for – for their identity, value, love and security. They blame each other and call each other out and make them bear the weight of why the relationship isn’t working.

 

A system of survival. Basic fundamental needs for love, connection, intimacy, treated with dignity, value, to be in community, nurtured, cared for – are not met. We enter into mode of survival. I’m going to find a way to get my needs met – so I’ll do whatever I have to.  I’ll make myself needed to become important. I’m going to be caregiver, meet everyone else’s needs.

 

How Was Codependence Developed

Through a lack of legitimate needs – mental, physical, emotional, spiritual.  That lack caused us to have a feeling of abandonment, because for the first 15 years of life, children need affection and love expressed in healthy ways, including physical touch.  Abandonment makes us feel inherently and irreparably worthless, which brings on shame.  

 

So to deal with the pain, we will either try to numb ourselves with substances, check out of life through depression, or try to control others and situations so that we can obtain what we’ve never had – unconditional love and acceptance.

 

Who Qualifies?

◦People raised in dysfunctional family systems (chemically dependent)

◦People raised in performance-driven family systems

◦People with unhealthy adult relationships

◦People in caregiving roles, always giving but not receiving

◦People in ministry that feel burned out

◦Chemically addicted people who have a root of codependence

◦Anyone unable to connect authentically the Spirit of God

 

Family Systems

Normally, there is a Stressor in the family.  It could be an addict, or someone who is simply out of control.  That person becomes the hub of the wheel and the family revolves around that person, either trying to control, help, fix or appease that person.  They have to think about how the Stressor will react if they do or say something, so after a while, they don’t know where their life ends and another’s starts, they are so unhealthily entwined together.

 

John Bradshaw: Codependence is most common family illness because it happens to anyone in any dysfunctional family. There is a primary stressor consisting of:

– Drinking or work addiction;

– Hysterical control of everyone’s feelings;

– Physical or verbal violence;

– Member’s sickness or hypochondriasis;

– Parent’s early death;

– Divorce;

– Parent’s moral/religious righteousness;

– Parent’s sexual abuse;

 

The home becomes a fearful and insecure place.  It could be erratic anger, or everyone keeping to themselves and pretending everything is ok.  Everyone goes into survival mode, trying to get their needs met, so no one gives love to anyone else.  No one’s needs get met, no matter how every tries.  It can even become a competition as everyone vies for a parents’ love.

 

A wife of an addict is going to be overwhelmed with picking up the slack of her spouse.  She may have to work extra to make up finances, plus take care of the children.  She will be emotionally exhausted, and have nothing left to give the children.  She may ignore the children, take out her anger on the children, fall into depression and check out from the family – but in all cases, the children fall into the background while the mother just tries to survive what is going on with her husband.

 

It could be a family sickness that absorbs everyone’s attention and energy, or maybe workaholism, or mental illness, or bad parental modeling from an abusive family of origin.   No matter what, the children who need love, stability, acceptance and safety do not get it from their family.  They feel ashamed, like there must be something wrong with them for their parents to not love and give to them.  So they take that shame with them into the world and try to control people and situations so they can get someone to love them.

 

Love is conditional upon your performance.  If you are good (whatever the standard is for your family), then you will hopefully be rewarded with love.  If you are bad, it will be withheld. Children quickly recognize that what they do matters more than what they truly feel or experience. They do not understand or see their inherent core value and worth. They learn to position themselves to please their parents or rebel when they cannot live up to the standards imposed on them. They learn that love is not free, but instead comes with strings

 

Children need parent’s time, attention and direction for at least 15 years. If they don’t get it, they are abandoned. ABANDONMENT sets up COMPULSIVITY. They have never had their needs met by their parents, so their cup has a hole in it that is the FUEL that DRIVES COMPULSIVITY. Person looks for more and more love, attention, praise, booze, money, excitement, etc.

Drivenness, compulsion hallmark of growing up in alcoholic home. Impossible to relive childhood, so must be dealt with in adulthood. Compulsions won’t go away in time, must be acknowledged and dealt with.

 

Family members try to overcome the problems in different ways. Some do good, others rebel when they feel it is useless and they will never be or do enough to receive love.

 

Family roles can be very messed up. Unhappy parents can try to get the love they need from their children, or in the absence of one parent, put a child in the role of a parent, basically causing them to forfeit their childhood.  Or the parent can be miserable and take out their misery on the child. There can be verbal, physical, emotional and sexual abuse.  60 – 70% of people with codependence have a history of sexual abuse.

 

The role of father as protector and provider, called to love and take care of his family, often gets abdicated, leaving the rest of the family to pick up the slack which they were never meant to bear.  The role of mother as nurturer and house manager, supportive of her husband, can devolve into a criticizer who tears down instead of builds up her family members.

 

Children can be stuck in the middle of arguments between parents, or can be vilified as the scapegoat, or put on a pedestal as the saint.  Children might cope by being the hero, trying to fix everything, or the clown to try and make people feel better. Everyone is trying to feel better, regardless of which role they play, and everyone is trying to get someone to love and accept and pay attention to them.  

 

Now codependency occurs on a sliding scale, from a little to a lot.  No family is perfect, but healthy families recognize problems and work together to solve them.  Any member’s problem is a family problem, and it isn’t ignored or set aside or condemned.  They work as a whole and don’t throw off responsibility for that problem on just one person.

 

They recognize everyone’s differences and do not judge or grade on performance.  They love no matter whether the child has succeeded or failed, gotten it right or wrong.  There will be consequences and appropriate discipline for misbehavior, but the child is never devalued because of their lack of performance.

 

The bottom line with codependency is that we are taught we MUST get unconditional love from people.  But that’s a lie – no one can do that for you.  It is the greatest lie of all – that’s why when you find someone that you think will finally love you completely and accept you wholly, you get disappointed.  That is for two reasons –

 

You will always choose people who are equally broken as you are, only in a complementary way.  If you are shame based, you will pick people that you feel are basically less than you in some way so they can never judge you.  You also will pick someone that you can be important to, or who will need you enough to never reject you.  Or you can find your value in fixing people – only when they don’t get fixed, you get upset with them, because they are getting in the way of you feeling good about yourself for doing good.  Or eventually you come to despise them because you really don’t like who they are – they aren’t good enough.

 

Most importantly, only God can provide the love that you are asking for.  Now check yourself as I say that.  Most of you probably felt an Ugh! When I said that. You are saying, “But I want someone with flesh on.” That is because our Codependency tells us that it must be a PERSON, another human being, that must love us completely and wholly accept us – to make up for the people who didn’t do that before.  However, just like Adam and Eve, people can’t ever love you as you need to be loved. They are all broken, too. What you are looking for doesn’t exist – it’s a fairytale.

 

For those of you who say you must have someone with flesh on for it to count, how many here have ever had a long distance relationship?  Or how do you even feel when someone flirts with you?  You can be on cloud nine without ever touching a person.  It has nothing to do with flesh on – it only has to do with your beliefs about what makes you valuable and worthwhile – and someone told you it has to be another person.

 

OK, so let’s talk about being wanted and admired by another person.  Let’s say you like a guy and he doesn’t like you back.  How do you feel?  Worthless.  But what if this guy’s best friend likes you just the way you are, but you don’t like him.  How do you feel?  Worthless.  Why????  Someone liked you, so doesn’t that give you value?  No, it has to be someone you choose.  But that makes no sense.

 

You are picking and choosing who would give you worth.  Maybe it is only thin blonde men, maybe tall dark and handsome men.  Maybe jocks, maybe musicians, maybe scholars.  Whatever it is, you are making up rules about whose affection will give you worth.  

 

My question to you is, WHO TOLD YOU THAT ANOTHER PERSON HAD TO WANT YOU (AND IN PARTICULAR, SOMEONE THAT YOU ALSO WANT) THAT GIVES YOU WORTH AND VALUE?

 

A parent, a friend, society and media?  The point is that you are making a choice regarding whose admiration will give you value, aren’t you?  It really just depends how you feel at the moment. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett couldn’t stand Darcy in the beginning, and she couldn’t care less how he thought of her.  But by the end, she loved him and couldn’t bear the thought of him being somewhere and thinking evil of her.  Fickle feelings determine which person will and will not give you value.  It is subjective human thoughts and feelings that are driving your quest for value.

 

What if you have 2 friends giving you their opinion on your hair.  One thinks it is awful, the other wonderful.  Whose opinion will you choose?  Why?  If you are insecure, you’ll go with the awful designation, just in case someone else thinks it is awful.  But if you really love your hair, you’ll go with whoever agrees with you.  Again, subjective reasoning is running the show.

 

What if your mother thinks you are worthless, but your husband thinks you are wonderful – whose opinion will you choose?  What if your mother thinks you are wonderful but your husband thinks you are worthless – whose opinion will you choose?  Or will you be one of those who has to have EVERYONE like them, or they feel worthless?  It is absolutely impossible for everyone to like you just as you are.  Everyone has character flaws, so that is an unreasonable expectation that will make you miserable for the rest of your life.

 

But what if a gorgeous prince showed up and fell in love with you, and you liked him.  How would you feel?  He was smart and loving and kind and rich and thought the world of you, and promised to protect and take care of you.  Would he be enough to make you feel valuable?

 

Well, just such a prince exists.  He is actually the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, and if you are a Christian and don’t believe that He is really real, a real person, a real entity with feelings and desires and needs, then this is your real problem.  You can actually have your love needs meet

 

At some point, you are going to have to decide whose opinion of you you are going to base your self-worth on.

 

CHARACTERISTICS OF CODEPENDENCY:

 

CARETAKING:

– think and feel responsible for other people;

– feel anxiety, pity,  guilt when another has a problem;

– feel compelled/forced to help a person solve their problem;

– feel angry when their help isn’t effective;

– anticipate others’ needs;

– wonder why others don’t do same for them;

– say yes when they mean no, do what they don’t want to do, do more than their fair share, do others’ responsibilities;

– don’t know their own wants/needs or don’t acknowledge that they are important;

– please others, not self;

– feel/express anger for injustice done to others, not to self;

– feel safest when giving;

– feel insecure, guilty when someone gives to them;

– attracted to needy people;

– needy people attracted to them;

– bored, empty, worthless if no crisis, problem to solve or someone to help;

– abandon routine to respond and do something for someone else;

– over-commit themselves;

– feel harried, pressured;

– believe deep inside others are somehow responsible for them;

– blame others for their own situation;

– blame others for their own feelings;

– believe others are making them crazy;

– feel angry, victimized, unappreciated, used.

LOW SELF-WORTH:

– from troubled, repressed, dysfunctional families;

– deny family was troubled;

– blame themselves for everything;

– criticize themselves for everything (how they think, feel, look);

– angry, self-righteous when others blame or criticize them;

– reject compliments or praise;

– depressed from no praise (stroke deprivation);

– feel different from the world;

– think they are not good enough;

– feel guilty spending money or doing unnecessary or fun things for themselves;

– fear rejection;

– take things personally;

– victim of abuse, neglect, abandonment or child of an alcoholic;

– feel like victims;

– tell themselves they can’t do anything right;

– afraid of making mistakes;

– ask themselves why it is tough to make decisions;

– expect perfection from themselves;

– ask why can’t they ever do things to their own satisfaction;

– have a lot of “should”s;

– feel a lot of guilt;

– feel ashamed of who they are;

– think their lives not worth living;

– try to help others live their lives instead of living their own life;

– get artificial self-worth from helping others;

– strong feelings of low self-worth (embarrassment, failure) from other’s failures and problems;

– wish good things would happen to them;

– believe good things will never happen to them;

– believe they don’t deserve good things and happiness;

– wish others would like and love them;

– believe others couldn’t like and love them;

– try prove that they are good enough for others;

– settle for being needed;

REPRESSION:

– Push thoughts and feelings out of awareness from fear and guilt;

– afraid to let themselves be who they are;

– appear rigid and controlled;

– are numb emotionally, feeling nothing, appearing passive;

OBSESSION:

– terribly anxious about problems and people.

– worry about the silliest things;

– think and talk a lot about other people;

– lose sleep over problems or other people’s behavior;

– worry;

– never find answers;

– check on people;

– try to catch people in acts of misbehavior;

– feel unable to quit talking, thinking, worrying about other people or problems;

– abandon their routine because they are so upset about another person or thing;

– wonder why they have no energy;

– wonder why they get nothing done

CONTROLLING:

– Lived through traumatic events, especially with people who were out of control, which caused the Codependent person sorrow and disappointment;

– Afraid to let people be who they are, and to allow events to happen naturally;

– Don’t see or deal with fear of loss of control;

– Think they know best how things should turn out and how people should behave;

– Try to control events and people through helplessness, guilt, coercion, threats, advice-giving, manipulation, domination;

– eventually fail in efforts or provoke people’s anger;

– get frustrated and angry;

– feel controlled by events and people

DENIAL:

– ignore problems, pretend they are not happening;

– pretend that circumstances are not as bad as they are;

– tell themselves it will be better tomorrow;

– stay busy so they don’t think about things;

– get confused;

– get depressed or sick;

– go to doctors for tranquilizers;

– become workaholics;

– spend money compulsively;

– overeat;

– watch prob get worse;

– believe lies, lie to self;

– ask why am I going crazy?

– drink to self medicate, ease pain, mask problems

DEPENDENCY:

– not happy, content, peaceful;

– look for happiness outside;

– latch onto others and things, terrified fear of loss of who or what they think can provide happiness;

– no love, approval from parents;

– don’t love themselves;

– believe and/or worry that others can’t or don’t love them;

– desperately seek love, approval;

– seek love from people incapable of loving;

– believe others are never there for them;

– must prove that they are good enough to be loved;

– don’t take time see if people are good for them or if they love or like them;

– center lives around people;

– relationships provide all good feelings;

– lose interest in their own lives when loving others;

– worry others will leave;

– don’t believe they can take care of themselves;

– stay in relationships that don’t work;

– tolerate abuse to keep people loving them;

– feel trapped in relationships;

– leave bad relationships for new bad relationships;

– wonder if they will ever find love;

POOR COMMUNICATION:

– blame, threaten, coerce, beg, bribe, advise;

– don’t say or know what they mean;

– don’t take themselves seriously or thinks others don’t, or they take themselves too seriously;

– indirectly ask for need, want;

– difficult knowing or getting to point;

– gauge words to achieve desired effect;

– say what they think will please, provoke, manipulate people;

– won’t say NO;

– talk too much or talk about other people;

– avoid talking about themselves, their problems, feelings, thoughts;

– say every- or nothing is their fault;

– believe their opinions don’t matter, wait to hear others’ opinions first;

– lie to protect people they love and themselves;

– Difficult time expressing emotions honestly, open & appropriately;

– talk in cynical, self-degrading or hostile ways;

– apologize for bothering people;

WEAK BOUNDARIES:

– forbid behavior then gradually tolerate it;

– let others hurt them repeatedly;

– wonder why they got hurt;

– complain, blame, try to control while staying in the same situation;

– finally get angry;

– become totally intolerant;

LACK OF TRUST:

– don’t trust themselves, feelings, decisions;

– don’t trust others;

– try to trust untrustworthy people;

– think God abandoned them;

– lose faith and trust in God;

ANGER:

– feel very scared, hurt, angry;

– live w/people who are scared, hurt, angry;

– afraid of their own and others’ anger;

– think people will leave if their anger appears;

– think others make them feel angry;

– afraid to make others angry;

– feel controlled by others’ anger;

– repress angry feelings;

– cry, depressed, overeat, sick, get even, hostile, violent temper outbursts;

– punish people for making them angry;

– have been shamed for feeling angry;

– place guilt, shame on themselves for feeling anger;

– feel increasing amount of anger, resentment, bitterness;

– feel safer with anger than hurt feelings;

– wonder if they will ever NOT be angry;

SEX PROBLEMS:

– caretakers in bedroom;

– have sex when they don’t want to and would rather be held, nurtured, loved;

– have sex when angry or hurt;

– refuse sex from anger at partner;

– afraid of losing control;

– difficult time asking for needs in bed;

– withdraw emotionally from partner;

– don’t talk about it;

– force themselves to have sex;

– reduce sex to a technical act;

– wonder why they don’t enjoy sex;

– lose interest in sex;

– make up reasons to abstain;

– wish partner would die, go away or sense feelings;

– have strong sex fantasies about other people;

– consider or have affair;

MISCELLANEOUS:

– extremely responsible or irresponsible;

– martyrs for causes that don’t require sacrifice of themselves or others;

– difficult to feel close to people;

– difficult to have spontaneous fun;

– overall passive response to codependent person

– cry, hurt, feel helpless;

– overall aggressive response – violence, anger, dominance;

– combine passive/aggressive resp;

– vacillate in decisions, emotional;

– laugh when feel like crying;

– loyal to compulsions and people even when it hurts;

– ashamed about family, personal or relationship problems;

– confused over the nature of their problems;

– cover up, lie, to protect people from problems;

– do not seek help, problems are not bad or important enough;

– wonder why the problem does not go away

PROGRESSIVE (later stages):

– lethargic, depressed, withdrawn, isolated;

– lose daily routine, structure;

– abuse, neglect children, responsibilities;

– feel hopeless, think about suicide;

– plan escape from trapped relationship;

– become violent;

– become seriously emotionally, mentally, physically ill;

– eating disorder;

– addicted to alcohol, drugs;

 

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The Tree

Tree is beautiful and hosts many creatures. But soil is not cultivated, roots stunted, soil depleted. Little nourishment can get through. Takes care of everyone and no one takes care of it. Branches extend into lives of others. Pruning is cutting back on control and care of others enough to give you a chance to replenish your needs.

Your value, relships and security are based on being a nesting place for others. Rescuer, savior, martyr, holds things together for everyone else. Perhaps you don’t believe the tree deserves a place in the world apart from its usefulness and appearance. You do these things so others won’t leave you. What compels you is hidden in the soil of your past.

 

Go through cafeteria line fixated on next person’s tray. Will THEY make the right choices? We don’t look at OUR tray, with poor, unhealthy choices. Others close to us dump their GARBAGE on it and we CONSUME IT, denying conseq of OUR OWN CHOICES for PARTAKING of “meals” destroying our own mental and physical health, and call it Christian or spiritual behavior.

 

Codependents spend their lives believing that they are worthless, and trying to earn their worth by getting others to approve, like, love them.  But it only lasts for a little while, because they will always find fault with you.  Why?  Because you have faults!  If you weren’t afraid that you were worthless, you wouldn’t mind facing the fact that you are a saint that sometimes sins and who has a bent toward selfishness and doing things your own way instead of God’s way. But since you feel ashamed and fear there really is something irreparably wrong with you that disqualifies you from ever being accepted and loved, you can’t take criticism.

 

We all want someone to say, I know all of your flaws, but I still love you 100%.  Nothing you can do will ever turn me away from you.  But there is only one person who has ever said that He will never leave nor forsake you.  That is Jesus. He is your husband / you betrothed and you are his bride.  Your Father who created you designed you just as you are, knowing how you would end up, because he saw all of your days before you were ever born and still chose to have you born on the earth.   

 

He says I see your flaws, and love you in spite of them – but I won’t just sit there and not say anything about them.  I will point them out to you so we can work on them together.  Your flaws in no way devalue you or lesson my love for you – they just come with the territory of being human.  But you won’t feel completely secure in my love as long as you are looking for perfect human love, because it doesn’t exist.   You have to make a choice about whose love you are willing to receive and whose opinion you are going to accept as the basis for your value and worth.