How I broke free from codependency — and learned the meaning of loving relationships

Jasjyot Singh Hans for NPR

If you haven’t laid awake at night worrying about relationships, we are not the same.

For most of my life, bedtime meant rumination. I’d agonize over a crush. I’d analyze work emails in my mind, wondering how I made a coworker feel. I’d ponder a friend’s depression, a family member’s extended job search and whether my elderly neighbor felt lonely. It was lonely and exhausting.

If you value empathy and community, it’s normal to lose a bit of sleep over social bonds (research shows that caring about others positively impacts our well-being). But if worrying about others is negatively affecting your life, or if you have an unhealthy reliance on others for self-worth, that may be a sign of a behavior called codependency.

“Codependents are people who love other people more than they love themselves,” says Melody Beattie, author of Codependent No More, a central text on the subject. It can look like saying yes to others when you mean no, dropping everything to rescue a friend in crisis or the inability to stop worrying about a family member in distress. 

While this concept lacks an official diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, codependency can lead to negative emotional consequences, says Beattie. That includes a deep need for approval from others, a pattern of avoiding conflict or a tendency to ignore one’s own needs.

Do you have codependent tendencies?

A couple of years ago, I started to recognize a gap in the kinds of relationships I wanted — mutual, healthy, loving, happy — and the kind of relationships I actually had — distant, one-sided and (occasionally) unhealthy.

The space between desire and reality led me to examine whether I had codependent tendencies. If you are wondering the same, Beattie offers some questions to ask yourself.

• Do you prioritize others’ needs over your own? Anxiety and low self-worth can contribute to codependents not being able to set the boundaries they need to take care of themselves, so they let others “run riot over their life,” says Beattie. This can inflict feelings of anger, resentfulness and hurt — and contribute to issues like depression or staying in harmful situations for too long.
  
• Do you have a habit of trying to fix other people’s problems? Codependents tend to over-involve themselves in others’ lives. When we base our relationships on feeling needed or entangling ourselves in other people’s pain, we can neglect ourselves -- and that can contribute to self-hate and self-disgust, Beattie says.
  
• Does a loved one's addiction or illness consume your life? If a codependent is attached to an alcoholic, for example, they may focus all their energy on helping their loved one get or stay sober. Or they may stay home because they think it will help their partner avoid the temptation to drink. In this definition, codependents follow a dysfunctional relationship pattern. They are only OK if the other person is OK. 

After thinking through my own pattern of behaviors, I realized that yes — I had some codependent ways of relating to the world, especially with my propensity toward worrying about others. I thought: if I just helped my friends, colleagues and neighbors, maybe I’d get the connection I craved in love, work and life. 

How to break free from codependent relationships

When we derive value from supporting others to the detriment of our own health, we risk the quality of our relationships. To break out of this pattern, try shifting the focus from others to ourselves. Here are a few ways to do that.

• Seek professional help. If you think you might be codependent, talk to a therapist who can help you explore and change your behaviors. You can also join a support group. Codependents Anonymous, a 12-step program, has a list of groups on their website.

• Relinquish control with boundaries. Before we rescue, caretake or worry too much about others, Beattie says to consider your motivations. Are you trying to help? Or are you trying to control another person? Boundaries can help you practice self-care by setting limits around how much physical and mental space we give others. 

• Care for yourself before you care for others, says licensed marriage and family therapist Shawn Michael Howard, who is in the process of legally changing his name to Adesola Nnamdi. “A person knows if they're in a place to help someone if they've gotten sleep, if they’ve fed themselves, if they've taken care of themselves.”
  
• Identify your wants and needs. Grab a pen and paper and write down what you want and need, whether that’s your deepest secrets or most lighthearted wishes, says Nnamdi. When I was first starting to heal from codependency, for example, I wrote down that I wanted reciprocal relationships. Knowing this — and acting on that information — can be the start of healthier bonds. 

With the help of a therapist and support groups, I began to unpack my relationships. I realized that my codependency tricked me into thinking that closeness is achieved through performing care. But I learned that true care is mutual. Little by little, I stopped losing sleep counting the ways I should give. 

Whenever I need a reminder of what to keep working toward, I say an affirmation from The Language of Letting Go, a book of daily meditations by Beattie. Today, I will be open to giving and receiving the healthiest love possible. 

Gina Ryder has worked as a reporter, editor and educator for over a decade. 

The audio portion of this episode was reported by Gina Ryder, produced by Margaret Cirino and edited by Meghan Keane and Malaka Gharib.

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