Mad, dysfunctional families

[EasyToEatTiger]

I come from the above. The effects have been devastating and affected every aspect of family members lives to the detriment. My mum has a brilliant team of mental health workers looking after her and one of them suggested my dad may be codependent. I didn't know what codependent was so I looked it up. Check, check, check..... I have been therapised since I was a teenager and never come across codependency. I'm not sure really what to think, apart from I have no desire to start going to Coda www.coda-uk.org/index.php?page=patterns-characteristics-of-co-dependency meetings.

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Do you have a question? Sorry but I'm not sure what you're looking for with your post?
Feel free to come and visit us on the Stately Homes thread where we all have bonkers families.

I wonder how often codepenency is recognised, or if it is part of another diagnosis, or if it just isn't mentioned. It seems to be a pretty massive umbrella term for dysfunction.

I came across your thread and realised that I had also been in therapy for some time without having ascribed my own issues to codependency. I also then went and read about it and recognised myself in so many articles. It was a little scary and my default instinct - being a codependent - was to feel terribly self critical and ashamed that this might be what I was grappling with too. However, I came across Darlene Lancer on YouTube and some books on Amazon, and she deals with it in a very compassionate and empathic way. I've had some marriage problems for years and I think that codependency on both our parts is a major contributor. So, look her up, I hope you find it useful too!