Co-dependency from a family therapist's perspective
Co-dependency is a strong emotional dependence on another person, with a desire to control and change their addictive behavior, and an inability to perceive both one’s own and the other’s emotional, mental, and physical boundaries.
Addiction can be seen as a poor solution to a person’s emotional and relationship problems.
Families often use similar coping methods across generations, for example, seeking relief from alcohol or other substances, staying in dysfunctional relationships for years, working too much or exercising too intensely. However, communication between people may remain superficial and shallow, there is a lot of fighting and blaming, and real closeness and warmth are lacking.
These are unconscious patterns that are often not even recognized.
In a family with an addictive disorder, there are three default rules:
don’t feel, don’t trust, and don’t express.
These apply to both the person with addiction and the other family members. In such a family, one cannot experience safe intimacy. The emotional pain is often too big and people try to suppress it at all cost or regulate it with addiction in order to more or less cope with everyday life.
The person with addiction is increasingly distrusted because they do not keep their promises, and the person with addiction does not trust anyone at all. Fights alternate with silence, and resentment keeps building up, the sense of security is temporary and fragile.
Children in such a family might begin to worry excessively about their parents, becoming adults too early. Thus, the emotional development and self-esteem of children get damaged.
Co-dependency has its roots in early childhood experiences
For some reason, parents have not been able to provide their child with an emotionally and physically safe environment to grow up in, to value and reflect on their feelings. Perhaps the parents have struggled with their own feelings and coping, perhaps there has been a serious illness or grief in the family, or the child has been left alone too often.
Thus, the child may begin to seek a way out of painful and uncomfortable emotions by suppressing their feelings. As they grow up, they are at risk of becoming addicted to substances or dysfunctional relationships.
A dysfunctional relationship functions as an addictive substance, helping them not to feel their pain and diverting their attention elsewhere.
No one else can love us enough
if we don’t love ourselves.
If we go looking for love in our emptiness,
we can only find more emptiness.
- Robin Norwood