Co-dependency in Relationships

Maybe you have continued to notice one-sided relationships and inability to say no in your life. You fear that if you stop doing for others, start saying no, start asking for what you want, you'll be left alone. Even when you are around others you feel lonely. You feel lonely because you know deep down no one truly knows you because you don't allow others to truly see who you are. You hide behind what people want versus who you really are. You've gotten so good at this, you sometimes don't even know you're doing it. All you do know is that there's a deep sense of loneliness, emptiness, fatigue from doing so much, possibly even chronic health issues that are worsening such as migraines, autoimmune issues, or fibromyalgia. You are completely worn down, but don't know how to stop doing what you're doing.

Co-Dependency is a chronic thought and feeling pattern that becomes a way of being. In short, co-dependency is an addiction to people pleasing, an addiction to caretaking, an addiction to a particular person, or particular people.

The issue may have developed when you were a child or through a relationship in which you were exposed to abuse, addiction or a partner who was emotionally unavailable. More often than not though, these issues are rooted in the temperament of someone who is generally empathic and highly sensitive combined with a childhood wherein that sensitive or empathic child became a caregiver by default to a parent who was either abusive, lacked emotional attunement, struggled with addiction, or even a mental health issue. The parent was unable to fully care for the child and may have intentionally or unintentionally relied on the child to meet their needs instead of the other way around. Then a habit takes shape. The child feels better when they can help their caregiver. The child is essentially regulating their own nervous system by regulating their caregiver's nervous system.

That dysregulated child then becomes a dysregulated adult looking for other dysregulated individuals who they can regulate in order to regulate themselves. The individual unconsciously finds others who also need taking care of. This can bleed into not only a relationship with a significant other, but with friendships, strangers, in relationships with colleagues and coworkers as well as family members. Because these issues are usually deeply engrained and rooted in childhood, it takes time to work through the layers of trauma and habits that stem from that trauma because in some ways it does mimic an addiction, but it is also something that is possible.

If this sounds like you, you're in the right place. Through therapy, we will peel these layers back through modalities such as Brainspotting, EMDR, Internal Family Systems, Psychoeducation about Co-Dependency as well as practical and applicable solutions you can begin implementing outside of session to make the necessary changes.

Eventually you can lead a life where you not only love yourself, but can fully be yourself with and around others. You have a tribe who gets you. You also feel comfortable being alone and actually even enjoy it as much as you enjoy being around others because being alone no longer equates to loneliness for you.