Are you wondering if you're codependent?
Well,
We're gonna talk about seven signs to know for sure and how to start the recovery process.
But first,
My name's Michelle Ferris.
I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist,
And I'm so glad you're here looking at codependency issues because they can really do a number on your relationships and your self-esteem.
So let's get started.
So first,
When you have codependent tendencies,
Your self-esteem is based on what you do for others rather than who you are as a person.
So what I mean by that is instead of being able to love and validate your own perceptions,
Your value comes from external sources,
Like your relationship,
Like your job,
Like your volunteer positions that you take,
Even your relationship status,
Because all of those are external things that codependent people use to define their worth,
Okay?
So instead of building self-esteem from the inside out,
They build it from the outside in,
And that's where it gets really tricky.
Now,
The next one is you don't really know what you need or want And this is partly because you're externally focused,
Right?
So when I'm focused more on everybody outside of myself,
I'm not going to be paying attention to me.
I'm going to be paying attention to what other people want.
And that's how codependent people are typically raised.
They're raised to think of others first,
Themselves last,
Okay?
And that's a painful way to live,
But that's a huge part of codependency.
The next one is you tend to lose yourself in relationships because you need other people to like you in order to feel good about yourself.
So your happiness totally depends or mostly depends on how other people are feeling.
So if your partner or your kid or your best friend is having a great day and is feeling connected with you,
You're super happy.
When they're not so happy,
When they're angry,
When they're upset,
When they're annoyed,
You take it on.
And it's really,
Really hard for you to have a boundary between what somebody else feels and what you feel.
You take it on as yourself.
So that's how the codependent loses themselves in relationships,
Is they glob onto somebody and then they don't really know how to separate.
They don't have a line between where they end and the other person begins.
They have those connections because they're lifelines and they're survival tools.
They're not just,
Oh,
I'm happy to be in a relationship.
It's,
I need this relationship in order to feel okay about myself.
That's a whole other ballgame and that's what codependency looks like.
The next one is you can't say no or set boundaries very well because you're really afraid of upsetting others or having a potential conflict.
So what happens is that as a result,
You hide those feelings of disappointment,
Of anger,
Because they're not okay to share.
And a lot of times this starts in childhood where you learn growing up that your feelings aren't validated and they're not important.
So you learn it's just better to stuff them.
And that's really hard because in a relationship,
You're not gonna be able to be yourself.
And that creates a lot of anxiety and a lot of overwhelm for the codependent.
And sometimes they don't recognize that their anxiety is really a lot having to do with them stuffing their own emotions.
Because when you're stuffing your own emotions,
That takes a lot of energy instead of actually allowing them to come up and out,
Which is the healthy way to go.
Now,
The next one is you attract people who are difficult.
This could be the narcissistic person who tends to be more self-centered and self-focused and doesn't really care so much about what you say or your opinion on things.
They have trouble with empathy.
These tend to be really difficult and challenging people to be in relationship with.
And they can also be very abusive when they gaslight you or make you think that you're wrong so that they can be right because that's a lot of what narcissistic people do is they want to be right because that's how they hold on to their self esteem.
Now,
The other way that codependents tend to attract difficult people is through addicts and alcoholics.
They see them as,
Oh,
I can rescue them,
Or they have so much potential,
They're such great people,
If only they didn't drink.
And the hard part with that is that we can't control whether or not somebody's gonna get sober,
And that can be a really painful lesson.
The other one is that if you attract people with difficult personalities.
Somebody who isn't necessarily empathetic or flexible or able to have a committed relationship with you.
That can trace back to childhood where maybe their personality traits that are difficult kind of mimic those of your parent or a caregiver in your life that made a huge impact.
Because often we get drawn to the familiar,
Especially when it's dysfunctional because we know it.
The unfamiliar is always typically scarier.
The next one is,
If you're codependent,
You have a really hard time letting go of people.
You will stay connected well past the expiration date of that relationship.
And the truth is,
And this has been a very painful lesson for me as well,
Is that most people aren't necessarily going to be in our lives forever.
But the codependent gets really scared around that because they would rather hold on to an abusive or dysfunctional relationship,
Even if it isn't serving them,
Rather than risk being left alone with themselves.
Because they don't have a connection with themselves,
They have a connection somewhat compulsively to staying connected to that other person.
So that can be a very big telltale sign of codependency too.
Now the last one is you tend to expect perfection from yourself and other people.
So for instance,
When you make a mistake,
It's really hard to let go of it.
You might ruminate and worry and obsess about it for weeks because it's really hard to let go of behaviors that you're not proud of.
Because you weren't taught,
Most likely in your childhood,
That it was human to make mistakes and that we don't have to be perfect.
But a lot of times,
Codependent people get the message to be quiet,
Be good,
And making mistakes is just not tolerated.
Now,
The other aspect of the perfection is we tend to expect perfection from other people because codependent people give so much more than the average person that they end up expecting the same in return.
And what's confusing about that is that we don't say that.
Codependents are notorious for not being able to say what they need.
So I really hope you've enjoyed this video.
I'm so glad you're here willing to learn.
It takes a lot of courage.
