What does Codependency mean?

[sunshine702]

I just had a horrible therapy session with a therapist (going to try to get my money back from Better Help). It started with her sending me a worksheet on Codependency prior to our one and only session.! I kept telling her that I never really understood that word and didn't want to use it but That I could talk about Attachment styles that I understood those a lot better and that was similar work.! That I sort of felt the word made "trying in a relationship" psychologically wrong and bad and that something was wrong with the "codependent" and that is why I didn't like it.  Well she kept using it and kept blaming me for my "deficits  that were making me codependent". I felt massive blame shame - it was the opposite of therapeutic for me.  By the fourth time I stood up for myself and said I did not think we were a good match and that we should end the session.

Can I ask you guys what you make of the word?  Maybe I just need to understand it better but either way I am getting a new therapist.  It's like speed dating and she is a nope!

[sunshine702]

For me FORCING that word on me was like forcing people to say Domestic Violence VICTIM - some people want to use SURvIVOR to give them some agency in the situation.  I don't think I did anything wrong trying to get the relationship to work!

[square]

I agree that the codependent label is often co-opted as a bid to victim blame.

And in the case where someone may indeed show signs of codependency, slamming the label down their throat is not going to help anyone.

To do so without even determining that it is a factor is unprofessional as hell.

There is an assumption that the ONLY reason someone may tolerate abuse is due to codependency. This ignores other factors such as FOG, frog boiling, financial limitations, disability, lack of outside support, religious or other beliefs, etc.

Anyway, to your question.

My understanding of codependency is that it describes when someone benefits from someone else's dysfunction, and seeks to continue it.

Examples:

The spouse of an alcoholic feels superior due to being able to overcompensate for their spouse's dysfunction. They prefer having the spouse be a mess and be able to complain to them, children, family, and friends how useless the spouse is and how great they are.

A mother of an adult child runs around constantly bailing them out of messes due to the child's poor decisions. The child demands the parent provide babysitting to otherwise neglected minor children, provide financial support, and run errands, and verbally abuses the parent. The parent feels like they are needed, saving the grandchildren, and preventing homelessness, squalor, etc., for the family.

[sunshine702]

So my ex partner was language abusive I think and that is what this therapist was as well.  The gas lighting of all of it.  That your THOUGHTS are wrong and that you are lying if you are trying to talk about the nuance for YOU.  Power and control and emotional abuse —Through words.

If someone wants to use say toxic as opposed to Narcissistic so be it.  I use the term difficult out in the world when describing my mom.  People understand that better.

[sunshine702]

I sort of snapped at the end of the session when she told me my deficits caused my codependency and asked "what did I do to have the coffee cup slapped out of my hand with such force?!"  What did I do?!!  The answer is nothing. She rattled off her credentials as a domestic violence therapist.   Big whoop lady - I know!  this was abusive and toxic.   And I left.  I am calling a spade a spade now. Was I a saint? no.  But did I deserve to be raged at.  No! I became less and less in the relationship. 

There were good days. We did try.  Uhug therapy is supposed to be a safe place and a gift to figure things out.  This was not that

[Rebel13]

That therapy session sounds terrible sunshine! I'm really glad you asserted yourself and ended it when it wasn't helping you. Finding a therapist that is a good match is so hard, in my opinion. I'm starting the process again after my last therapist retired during the pandemic. I wish you luck in finding someone who helps you!

As I recall, "codependency" was pretty popular back in the '80s and '90s when I was a young person leaving home and starting to explore therapy and healing. It came out of addiction medicine, like square's examples demonstrate. At that time, the research we have now on trauma didn't exist. I remember trying to fit the "adult child of alcoholics" paradigm around my experience, even though my parents weren't alcoholics or addicts, because that's all there was, in both therapeutic and self-help resources. Some feminists have since written about "codependency" describing typical female socialization in some cultures. (Charlotte Davis Kasl is one writer/therapist who did work in the addiction/codependency framework but in a way that at least I thought was pretty feminist and helpful for women. Her book "Women, Sex and Addiction" changed my life.)  There are also similarities to the term "neurotic," which comes from psychoanalysis I think? And it's also in some ways related to ChumpLady's term "chump." For me, the important takeaway is that all these words can refer to the tendency some of us have to feel responsible for other people's actions, feelings, happiness and well-being. I don't like labels and I certainly don't think people should be blamed for being abused -- but understanding these tendencies helps me a lot to understand the reasons why I do things. Where did that worry come from? Why did I make that choice? Why are other people's needs more important to me than my own? How did I learn that I was in charge of making everyone around me happy, and that if I didn't, bad things would happen? Why did I think it was okay for people to treat me badly? Why did I make excuses for them? What story did I tell myself about the relationship to keep myself in it? Some people don't care about the why, and they only need to learn what red flags to look for, what questions to ask themselves. And that's really great. But for me, understanding the backstory was a necessary part of not getting stuck there.

[MaxedOut]

A trauma trained therapist I saw a few years ago specifically did not like using the term and would gently push back on its use. In part for the description creep, in part because similar behaviors and in some cases dynamics can be part of loving relationships, maladaptive, abusive, and probably more. And probably also the victim-directed part (she was part of an SA center).