Wow, it’s been a long time since I wrote!

Codependency is a big topic. As I started taking notes on the causes, symptoms, treatments, etc. I realized how big and sort of got stuck. So now I’m back ready to break it down into all the parts it needs.

Codependency is always a
learned behavior. Its main
cause is from a child’s
emotional needs not
being met, and I found
two definitions and setups
that would predispose a person
to develop this behavior.

1. Codependency is an excessive emotional or psychological reliance on another person or when two people have unclear boundaries such that it’s difficult to know where one person ends and the other begins. The latter is known as enmeshment. This may be due to parents’ absence, illness, addiction, or abuse. If the adult’s problem is abuse, the child can develop survival skills and coping mechanisms to keep the parent happy in order to minimize the abuse. The child learns over time that their own feelings aren’t going to be acknowledged so they learn to tune them out, or perhaps expressing their own feelings brings more punishment or abuse. They begin to feel responsible for the behavior of everyone that lives there. If the problem is a parent’s illness or addiction, the child may become the caretaker in order to keep the household running. Again, they feel responsible. And finally, if the parent is absent due to work, divorce, or death, the child can learn to cope by assuming it’s their fault, they’re not lovable, and they strive harder and harder to keep the people in their life happy so they won’t leave.
2. This quote is the second definition…
   This is also a form of enmeshment. Many times, there is a parent with an illness or an addiction, and the child becomes their caretaker. Also common are silent unwritten family rules that limit open communication. Perhaps the addiction or illness isn’t public knowledge, so everyone pretends family life is going fine. These unwritten rules may also include prohibiting open expression of feelings, honest communication, realistic expectations such as making mistakes, selfishness, trust in others and one’s self, playing and having fun, and rocking the boat through growth or change even if it’s healthy and beneficial. (Just having the restrictions listed above, without the addiction or illness, can also create a propensity to be codependent.) Because the child is busy taking care of the parent and is not allowed to express their feelings or share their thoughts, they develop an obsessive need to help others even when they don’t need helping. This obsession of caretaking, helping, controlling can be the only thing that gives them a sense of worth, which easily then slips into self-repression, low self-esteem, and abandonment or self.

It’s easy to see how an impressionable child learns survival skills and develops coping mechanisms. Therapists at both ACCFS and Timberline taught about how to transition these skills into useful resources. It might be through developing a positive way to use that skill or it might be through opposite action.  For example, if a child’s survival skill is to hide in the face of conflict, a transformative action might be to retreat to safe place to read the truth of scripture or to pray. The opposite action would of course be to stay in the disagreement and work through it.  If a child’s coping mechanism in the face of correction is anger, the transformative action would be to use up the energy created by the anger through physical exercise and then talk about their feelings when calmer.

With speaking and listening comes connection.  Connection creates a space to share our thoughts, feelings, desires, mistakes, heartaches – in a nutshell, to be vulnerable.  But just because there is a speaker and a listener doesn’t mean one should be vulnerable.  We don’t approach someone we’ve never met and share our sorrows, our shame, our fondest dreams and desires.  We are free to be vulnerable with those who’ve earned the right to hear our stories.

Brené Brown has been a Shame Researcher for over 15 years.  She strives to understand why people feel shame, what helps them get out of it, and how we can help each other out of it.  She has a couple fabulous TED talks and has written a number of books.  Many of the ideas around vulnerability come from her.  In the latest of her works that I’ve read, she writes that…

• Shame is universal – male and female, all races, all ages, all cultures; every human will and does experience shame.
• We can all develop Shame Resilience – “the ability to recognize shame, to move through it constructively while maintaining worthiness and authenticity, and to ultimately develop more courage, compassion, and connection as a result of our experience.”
• Shame needs three things to grow – secrecy, silence, and judgment.

To overcome the secrecy and silence shame craves, we have to be vulnerable in sharing with someone else.  Because we all feel shame, we know that there are others who will be able to understand how we feel and why; we only need to find those that won’t continue the judgment towards us that we’ve already started. So, who is willing to listen to our shame stories in a way that doesn’t cause more shame? Who has earned the right to hear you or me because we know they will be empathetic?  And who are we giving the gift of empathy to such that they have an avenue for vulnerability?  Finding one, two, or a handful of people to be vulnerable with is essential to overcoming shame and moving on from it.

First, a list of actions that destroy the ability to be vulnerable (don’t share with those that do these and strive to not do them yourself around others):

1. The listener who actually feels shame for the speaker. They gasp and confirm how horrified the speaker should feel, and many times the speaker ends up making the listener feel better.
2. The listener who responds with sympathy instead of empathy, by saying things that mean “I feel sorry for you.”
3. The listener who can’t listen in empathy because they’re too disappointed in the speaker’s imperfections.
4. The listener, who being uncomfortable with vulnerability, will scold the speaker or look for someone to blame. Examples are “How could you let this happen?” and “Who did this to you; let’s go take care of them!”
5. The listener, who being uncomfortable with vulnerability, refuses to acknowledge that you can actually be crazy and make terrible choices – “You’re exaggerating. Everyone loves you. You’re perfect.”
6. The listener who tries to one-up the speaker with their own stories.

The opposite of these is, of course, listening with empathy.

Brené’s tools in building shame resilience are courage, compassion, and connection.

When we have the courage to be vulnerable, speaking our heart, asking for things we need, asking questions when it feels awkward, sharing our excitement over something just for us, and expressing to another how we’re all in this together, all making mistakes at times, there is a ripple effect.  Others see that it’s okay to be vulnerable too.

When we share compassion with others as equals, not as wounded and healer, or teacher and student, but as equals – in this together, all making mistakes, having the ability to offer help to each other AND receive it from each other – the avenue to vulnerability opens wide.

When we build connections (Brené’s definition – energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued; when they can give and receive without judgment; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.), there is also a ripple effect.  We are hard wired for connection and relationship.  But connection only happens on a two-way street.  Brené says, “Until we can receive with an open heart, we are never really giving with an open heart. When we attach judgment to receiving help, we knowingly or unknowingly attach judgment to giving help.”  She says that when we are always the one helping, we probably derive self-worth from helping others while striving to be self-sufficient.

References from The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown, Ph.D. L.M.S.W. 2010