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Codependency...

5 replies

EasyToEatTiger · 27/03/2015 20:41

I am told by my mum's social worker that my dad is probably codependent. I have just looked it up and yes, check, check check... The whole thing. It casts a different light on my upbringing and gives a name to unmitigated hell. I absolutely recognise that it is more than easy to self diagnose online and that it not for me to diagnose myself. Just feeling rather confused and wondering how other people have coped with codependency either as a child of codependent parents or as part of an adult relationship?

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EasyToEatTiger · 27/03/2015 21:42

??? Is this such a lonely place to be?

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Nospoon · 27/03/2015 22:40

Hi Easy,

I'm sorry I don't have much advice for you, if anything, I may need your input.

I have recently started therapy, and have found out that I am a codependent personality. I am currently working on repairing my inverted boundaries and re-examining the behaviours that seem to put me in a pattern of abusive relationships.
I actually got the push to seek help by lurking on here and reading the advice given to others.

The thing that jumped out to me in your post was that you felt damaged by the fact that your father was codependent. I am a father of a young girl and a baby boy, and the idea that I may be causing them damage is highly distressing. I feel it's bad enough that their mother and me are modelling an EA relationship for them. I am desperate to change all that and make my children's lives as good as possible.

If you don't mind, could you please tell me which behaviours of your parents/father affected you most and in what way?
How do you wish your father had reacted?
Sorry to use your situation, but your post struck a chord and made me post for the first time too:)

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EasyToEatTiger · 28/03/2015 00:05

I know very little about it I'm afraid, and what I read online frankly could apply to just about anyone. What is positive though, is that codependency is not a personality trait. It seems that it is a dysfunctional way of behaving which we get used to, having experienced it in some form, and it becomes a habit, a way of coping.

Despite decades of therapies and psychiatrists, I have not come across codependency before. It is just now in relation to my dad, and it could be nothing or something. I will mention it to the family therapist.

Well done for seeking help. It may have been part of my problems, but they all had clinical names! You'll find an easier way. Really you will.

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springydaffs · 28/03/2015 09:34

Not many ppl know what codependency actually is op. I think ppl assume codependency is a couple being v enmeshed with one another - which technically is true of a codependent relationship of course but it's much more than that!

As it has taken you years and years to stumble across codependency I expect most ppl haven't yet.

Have you been to coda? There is also a recovery community for adult children of dysfunctional families to tap into - various support groups - which you get to hear about through eg coda.

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EasyToEatTiger · 28/03/2015 09:51

I have had a look at Coda. It seems that only recently codependency refers to a broader population than alcoholics and addicts. It is a kind of relief that there is a name for the horror of it all.