Clients often come to psychological counseling with this question. To better understand how to deal with a problem, you need to see its roots.

Codependency is just one of the symptoms of a neurotic (a person with a neurotic personality disorder). Therefore, it is important to understand what this disorder is. A neurotic disorder affects the ability to meet a person’s basic needs for self-preservation, pleasure, and development. A neurotic doesn’t care about his feelings, development, or health. A person stops focusing on himself and his needs. He is unbearably bored, meaningless and lonely with himself. It is this pain from loneliness that pushes a person to relieve it in dependent relationships (codependency) or in addictive behavior (drugs, smoking, alcohol, overeating). However, such dependence can also be socially approved (workaholism, religiosity).

When a neurotic's attention shifts to another object or person, he avoids the pain of facing his inner world and its chaos. 

Moreover, the object itself and its feelings in this case are not at all important, what is important is the process of focusing on the object - to suffer or to admire, there is no difference, the main thing is to be absorbed by the object 24 hours a day.< /p>

For example, a man can constantly tell everyone what a wonderful wife he has (of course, thanks to him) or, on the contrary, constantly reproach her for ingratitude and lack of attention to his person.

Both admiration and suffering are equally good at helping to focus on the object, and, therefore, dull the pain. 

A neurotic refuses to be real, suppresses his desires, remains silent, steps on the throat of his own song, avoids conflicts and showdowns. He passively expects others to satisfy his needs, avoiding responsibility and choice in every possible way. He always chooses others, not himself.

The roots of this behavior are in childhood, at the age of 2-3 years, when the child completes a number of developmentally important tasks. The most important task of this period is to establish trust between mother and child. If this task was not realized or was not fully realized, then the child does not develop a clear sense of his “I”. This happens when a child’s spontaneous behavior is ignored, condemned or causes attacks of anger in parents, he is shamed for “wrong” behavior (tears, disobedience). Then the child clearly understands that being oneself is punishable, bad and unsafe. The baby stops trusting his reactions and feelings and no longer relies on himself and his inner strength. The locus of control - one's own internal strength - is transferred outward - to others, creating an external locus of control.

It is this projection that forces codependence on another - who has this inner strength. Only this other can now fill the needs and lack of significance and integrity.

When a person grows up, the pattern he has learned grows with him. The ignored self, weak and helpless, does not know its desires, feelings, aspirations and needs. A person tries to be comfortable and guess the desires of other people without realizing himself in life.

Codependency occurs when two psychologically dependent people meet. Everyone takes from these relationships what they need to complete their personality. Thus, all attention is transferred to the partner, on whom the survival of the frail “I” depends. The expectations from such a relationship are unrealistic; no person can fill this hole in self-esteem that the Self needs. This is a breakthrough that gives rise to constant grievances, scandals, and claims. But despite all the pain of such relationships, the pain from one’s own emptiness and loneliness is much stronger - that’s why both tenaciously hold on to each other, trying to cope with life, sometimes such marriages are quite long. Even when one of a codependent couple recovers and can no longer withstand an unhealthy relationship or leaves it for another reason (death, moving), the neurotic does not suffer alone for long, as a rule, he immediately finds another object of dependence.

The question arises? How can a person refuse such a wonderful painkiller as a codependent relationship?

Where can I find the strength to face the pain of loneliness? How to recognize your irresponsible attitude towards your needs? It's difficult.

This is why codependents realize their pain only when something happens to the object of addiction (the wife leaves, the son leaves) and then he understands that he needs the help of a psychotherapist.

It is actually possible to get rid of codependency. The path is not very simple and long, but it is real. Like going to the gym or changing your diet. You need to develop your autonomy and “pump up” your frail “I.”  This is a feasible task for those who are ready to work on themselves. You can do this on your own, listening to your feelings and desires, developing self-confidence, or you can use the services of a psychotherapist or sign up for a consultation with a psychologist if you need support along this path.

Online psychotherapy and psychological consultations have proven their effectiveness. You can sign up for a consultation with me by clicking on the button below - I will help you in your fight against neurotic personality disorder and codependency.

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