Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives

Recovery from codependence is a lot like a growing up process - we must learn to do the things our dysfunctional parents did not teach us to do: appropriately esteem ourselves, set functional boundaries, be aware of and acknowledge our reality, take care of our adult needs and wants, and experience our reality moderately.

I have discovered that we, codependents, are very hard to treat. I resisted doing anything people suggested that might have gotten me into recovery sooner. It wasn`t until I experienced enough pain to become willing to do anything to change that I would try their suggestions.

Like all the other defense mechanisms, delusion is invisible to us, making it a serious problem: we don't know we are deluded. We live in an unreal world based on our delusions, but we see that unreal world as reality. Because we can't afford to hear the facts about our lives as they really are, we often get very angry with people who try to point out any fallacies in our delusions. This position leaves us very vulnerable, since both reality itself and anyone with a strong sense of reality tend to threaten the view we have of our world. People in delusion tend to isolate themselves from those who might reveal the truth about their lives.

The best thing we can do for our adult children is to get into recovery for ourselves and set them free to find their own way to recovery.

Not knowing how to be moderate is possibly the most visible symptom of codependence to other people. (...) In other words codependents simply don't appear to understand what moderation is. They are either totally involved or totally detached, totally happy or absolutely miserable, etc. The codependent believes a moderate response to a situation isn't "enough". Only too much is enough.

When children are born, they have five natural characteristics that make them authentic human beings: children are valuable, vulnerable, imperfect, dependent, and immature. All children are born with these attributes. Functional parents help their children to develop each separate characteristic properly, so that they arrive in adulthood as mature, functional adults who feel good about themselves. In addition, children have three other qualities that make it possible for them to mature properly or to survive and cope in spite of remarkable abuse: (1) children must be centered on themselves to develop internally; (2) they are full of boundless energy in order to do the very hard work of growing up; and (3) they are adaptable, so that they can easily go through the maturation process that requires constant adjusting and change. A functional family accepts these traits in their children and supports the children as they move through each stage of development.

Codependents don`t just wake up one day saying "I think I'll move over into maturity and mental health