Healing the wounds of codependency is critically important for family members and friends of loved ones with alcohol or other drug use disorders.  What this means and how to do it is explained in today’s post by Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT, a frequent guest author on this site. As Darlene writes, [until healed] “We continue to behave according to the early system of accommodation that operates outside our conscious awareness. We’re guided by beliefs we never question, such as the common codependent beliefs, “If I’m loved, then I’m lovable,” and “If I’m vulnerable (authentic), I’ll be judged and rejected.” Moreover, we interpret our experiences in ways that fortify fallacious, archaic beliefs.”

Darlene is the author of Codependency for Dummies and Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You, and her latest eBook is titled, Dealing with a Narcissist, 8 Steps to Raise Self-Esteem and Set Boundaries with Difficult People. She can be reached at info@darlenelancer.com or you may wish to follow her on Facebook or visit her website www.whatiscodependency.com.

Healing the Wounds of Codependency by Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT

Codependency is both learned and passed on generationally. It starts in childhood, usually because of codependent parenting, including being raised by an addict or mentally or emotionally ill parent. To survive, we’re required to adapt to the needs, actions, and emotions of our parents at the expense of developing an individual Self. That adjustment cost us our individuality, authenticity, and our future quality of life. The beliefs and behaviors we learned then led to problems in adult relationships. An example is, “I must not cry (or express anger) to be safe, held, and loved.”

Effective parenting requires that parents see their child as separate individuals. They must attune to, empathize with, and honor their child’s experience. This allows us to feel safe and helps to develop an autonomous self. With codependent caregivers, we instead attune to them. We perversely organize our mental state to accommodate our parents.

For example, how can a child navigate safety and fill his or her need for love with an inattentive, anxious, critical, or controlling parent? An anxious or abusive parent makes us anxious and fearful. A controlling parent extinguishes self-trust and initiative. A critical or intrusive parent squelches us, producing insecurity and self-criticism. These early patterns skew our perceptions of ourselves, our work, and our relationships. All of these and other dysfunctional parenting styles breed shame—that we’re bad, inadequate, and unlovable.

We developed a codependent persona, employing strategies of power, pleasing, or withdrawal to endure dysfunctional parenting. Appropriately using all of these is healthy, but codependents compulsively rely mostly on only one or two. In Conquering Shame and Codependency, I describe these coping mechanisms and personalities as The Master, The Accommodator, and The Bystander. The beliefs and behaviors we learned then lead to problems in adult relationships.

The Cost of Not Healing the Wounds of Codependency

Early insecure attachments with caregivers necessitate that we sideline our spontaneous felt experience. Over time, our personality and reactions solidify. Our ability to self-reflect, to process new information, to adjust, and to respond becomes impaired. Our reactions become rigid and our cognitive distortions feel absolute.

Consequently, our individual development is hampered by the selective inclusion and exclusion of data that might provide conflicting information. We develop a template of “should’s” and restrictions that operate beyond our awareness. We do so because at an archaic, psychic level the alternative feels terrifying that we’d risk losing our connection to another person (i.e., parent) and people in general. In support of this, we project our parents’ reactions onto other people.

For many codependents, setting boundaries or asking for their needs feels selfish. They have a strong resistance to doing so, notwithstanding that they’re being exploited by a selfish, narcissistic, or abusive partner.

The Challenge of Recovery

The antecedents of our codependent personality are buried in our past. Some of us recall a normal childhood and aren’t able to identify what went wrong. Thus, our thinking and reactions go unquestioned and are obstacles to learning from experience. Additionally, trauma’s effect on the nervous system makes it both difficult and frightening to uncover our feelings. Modifying our reactions and behavior feels perilous.

We continue to behave according to the early system of accommodation that operates outside our conscious awareness. We’re guided by beliefs we never question, such as the common codependent beliefs, “If I’m loved, then I’m lovable,” and “If I’m vulnerable (authentic), I’ll be judged and rejected.” Moreover, we interpret our experiences in ways that fortify fallacious, archaic beliefs. An unreturned text confirms that we’ve displeased someone. This can even happen in therapy when we want to be liked by our therapist or fear his or her displeasure, boredom, or abandonment. A friend (or therapist’s) lapsed attention proves that we’re a burden and/or unlikeable.

The Process of Recovery

We can heal our childhood trauma. In recovery, we learn missing skills, self-love, and healthy responses. Learning thrives in a safe, nonjudgmental environment, different from the stultifying one we grew up in that continues to dominate our mind. We need an atmosphere that welcomes experimentation and spontaneity where we can challenge the prohibitions embedded in our unconscious. Take these steps:

1. Seek therapy with a competent therapist.
2. Attend Codependents Anonymous meetings, and work with a sponsor.
3. Get reacquainted with your feelings and needs. This can be a difficult process. Feelings live in the body. Pay attention to subtle shifts in your posture, gestures, and moods and feelings, such as deflation, numbness, anger, guilt, anxiety, hopelessness, and shame. Especially notice sudden shifts from feeling confident to insecure and present to numb or distracted. You may have just shifted from your real Self to your codependent personality – how you felt in childhood.
4. Explore triggers that shift in your mood and feelings and their associated beliefs, thoughts, and memories.
5. Do the exercises in Codependency for Dummies and Conquering Shame to accelerate this process.
6. Challenge your beliefs. See “Deprogramming Codependent Brainwashing.”
7. Write down and confront negative self-talk. Use the e-workbook 10 Steps to Self-Esteem to challenge your beliefs and inner critic.
8. Experiment, play, and try new things.

© Darlene Lancer 2020

To read Darlene’s more in-depth coverage of this topic, please click on her article,  “Healing the Psychic Wounds of Codependency.”