we are all codependent

“I am afraid to face the world. I am afraid to be criticized, blamed, make a mistake, fail to do something. I believe I am incapable of taking care of myself, in particular managing my money and investments.”

From My Journal, Day 2

It was discovered, surprisingly, that family members of alcoholics and other addicts benefit from the addition much like an addict does. Moreover, addict’s closed ones often encourage and support the addiction.

This relational dynamic is termed codependence. Some deny that there is such a thing as a codependent relationship outside of the context of a clinically diagnosed addiction. Afterall, “no man is an island” and we all must depend on each other to a degree. Many confuse codependence with interdependence. Although, both phenomena describe the dependent nature of a relationship, the latter is characterized by healthy dependence, whereas the former exhibits unhealthy dependence. The definitions of “healthy” and “unhealthy” dependence are challenging to agree upon, and the matter is further clouded by the notion of adaptability. While a few attempt to set a more objective measure for healthy dependence, e.g., the ideas of love one may come across in Buddhist teachings, others advocate that any form of an adapted behavior is healthy as long as it serves all parties involved. The latter is particularly propagated by psychotherapy. 

Enabling one’s addiction does serve an addict by helping them escape reality, as well as it serves an enabler by absolving them of personal responsibility. As long as one is focused on someone else’s issues, they do not have to face their own. Thus, an addict is trapped in their addiction, and an enabler is stuck on deflection. This is the dance of codependence.

I was a codependent. Rather more accurately, I have seeds of codependence within me. Perhaps, we all do. Perhaps, when environmental conditions are favorable, the seeds of codependence sprout in all of our lives. Those seeds certainly germinated and grew into a rampant invasive foliage in the garden of my life.

I was a rather independent, at times rebellious, child. I insisted on walking to school by myself. I did homework without anyone’s assistance. I did not come to teachers for help, nor did I need my parents to check my work. I did well in school, regardless. I never cared for study groups, nor did I care for friend circles. I had friends, but I resented the hierarchy inherent to any social pack. So, I enjoyed much of my time alone.

I have been living alone and providing for a rather comfortable life for many years now. I thoroughly enjoy my financial self-reliance, and I found living alone to be the most enriching fulfilling experience I have had so far. In fact, I found it to be more profound than any relationship, platonic or otherwise, I have ever had. I dreamt of living alone when I was a child, and now that I do, it never grows old or tiresome on me.

I have always cherished my alone time. And I have always admired my sovereignty.

Yet, I found myself obsessing over and chasing after romantic relationships for as long as I could remember. I feared that come holidays and birthdays I would have no friends to enjoy a party with. There had never been a time when I was not entangled in some friendship drama and hung up on a man I dated or wanted to date. Both persisted in my life like weeds infesting a neglected flowerbed.

I routinely got up at five in the morning and went for a run before starting my workday, but I depended on a man to wake me up on a weekend. I scheduled home and car repairs and paid bills, but I depended on a man to check my mail. I regularly spoke up in meetings, but I followed behind a man’s back in a restaurant. I made good money, but I needed a man to tell me what to do with it. I had good taste and a developed sense of style, but I let a man dictate how I dressed. I was a deep thinker and a skilled debater, but I allowed a man to censor me.

I savored the peace and quiet of my home, but I talked incessantly and uncontrollably around friends. I had deep understanding of and empathy for others, yet I indulged in gossip and criticism at their expense with friends. I developed insights into human nature and cultivated wisdom in my solitude, and I shared the “Woe is me” attitude with friends. I had great ambitions and solid work ethic to support them, yet I acted like I had no choice but to be overworked and overwork myself in front of friends. I had the strength to pull myself through and out of the darkest of depressive episodes, but I constantly lost my composure and threw my hands up in helplessness and despair around friends.  

Around others, I entered a dream-like state, unconscious of myself and unaware of others.  

I showed up as a strong independent woman, as cliché as it sounds, when I was alone. And I was once again a child – powerless and helpless – in my relationships.

It was an interesting dichotomy. It was mental really. I was able to shapeshift between the two states and their associated roles as little as within a single day.

In my childish state, I required constant reassurance via text messages, phone conversations and in person. I frequently got upset, and I needed to be calmed down and talked off a ledge (figuratively speaking). I lost sight of my own strength, endurance and independence. I questioned whether I had those anymore. I was so dependent on external validation, I could not cope with simple everyday frustrations without picking up my phone, complaining and venting.

There were many reasons to explain these maladaptive behavioral patterns. They were a response to an early life trauma, an inheritance of multigenerational trauma, a product of our culture and societal expectations, and a mechanism to cope with my immediate environment. Whereas trauma and culture planted the seeds of codependence within me in rather complex and unavoidable ways, my environment watered those seeds.

Within the boundaries of my personal microcosm, which included my platonic and romantic relationships, I was consistently subjected to the very things I feared to face in the greater macrocosm, that is the world as a whole. I experienced blame, criticism, disrespect, deception, control and manipulation. I simply did not know that I deserved better. Some attempted to change me and led me to believe that I was the flawed and troubled one, that I needed saving and fixing, which is the conviction I further reinforced through therapy. The support I experienced was ingenuine and inconsistent. My challenges and pain served as an ego boost to others. Like many, I was a victim of gaslighting. I was drenched in gasoline, and I blew up in response to the slightest spark only to be faulted and fault myself for it, and then look for more ways to fix and change myself.

In reality, my environment needed to change. My environment nourished the seeds of codependence within me. The seeds were within me, but the food supply was not. The seeds remain within me, but I am conscious of their existence now, and I am aware of my environment. I accept all that I am and all that I have the potential to become – healthy and dysfunctional, – and I reject the influences that nurture the worst of me.  

It is not about eradicating the seeds of codependence within us. It is not about exterminating any seeds that give rise to various parts of our shadow self or shadow aspects of our collective. That is akin to death. There simply cannot be light without darkness. Rather, it is about bringing awareness to those, otherwise hidden, parts of ourselves. It is about accepting and respecting our dual nature. It is about utilizing the tools of awareness, understanding and patience to consciously cultivate the environment within and outside of ourselves wherein the seeds of all that we desire to be may flourish, and the seeds of that which harms us and those around us may remain dormant.