35 - Symptoms of Codependency

Sep 3

Episode Highlights:

The Boy & The Ogre: Finding Freedom from Codependency by Chip Dodd

A story/workbook for helping codependents find freedom from codependency.

You are gifted, and there is a world in need of your gifts.

Loneliness is the biggest pain that people are facing now. What people need is to be known from the inside-out, rather than distracting ourselves from our loneliness (need for genuine relationship) through social media.

Diagnosing and Treating Co-Dependence by Timmen Cermak

5 Things God designed us to find fulfillment in:

1. We are created to use the development of our inborn self-awareness through feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope to find and live in authentic relationship.

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2. With that in-born self-awareness, we are able to be “response-able” to our inner make-up. (We’re created to develop the ability to respond to our outside life by using our inborn makeup: feelings, needs

desire, longings, and our hope. We need our “makeup” affirmed and confirmed so we can keep being

able to use it, so we can grow “response-ably” which ultimately becomes responsibility.)

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3. We are created to find genuine relational connection through being “response-able” and through using our inner self-awareness.

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4. We are created to initiate our lives from our hearts, with others who have the same capacity. (We are looking to connect with others who are also living a life of relational fulfillment. They are aware that we are all 99.9% the same.) "It's a Small World"

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5. We are created to be in relationship with others, God, God’s creation, and the others in it.

When we live our lives fully out of the 5 fulfilments, we are able to be healthy grownups who do what Jesus said in Matthew 7:7.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

Matthew 7:7 is for grownups; grownups are just children who have gotten older and who have remained fully present in their lives. Grownups are able to live out of their fully present lives.

Jesus encourages grownups to:

Ask so they can receive.
Seek so they can find.
Knock so the door will be opened to them.

By asking, seeking, and knocking, these grownups are already in touch with how they are made through the 5 fulfilments, Jesus offers these 3 promises for them to find connection.

The 3 promises are responses to our asking, seeking, and knocking.

Jesus promises that when we:

ASK – we will receive an answer/response

SEEK – He will be available to be found

KNOCK - the door will be opened

This process allows for multiplication of goodness, sharing, nurturing, and encouraging.

“Shared joy is double joy, and shared sorrow is half sorrow.” – Swedish proverb

Codependency is separating from the 5 fulfillments and losing the capacity to ask, seek, and knock because we don’t trust that asking, seeking and knocking will get us what we want, since we have to meet the needs of others before our needs are valuable.

What are we doing if we aren’t living in the 5 fulfilments and asking the 3 questions? We are living in codependency.

Codependency isn’t a badness. Addiction isn’t a badness. They are both ways of attempting to get our needs met and finding fulfillment without having to be vulnerable.

People who live in codependency and addiction are refusing to be vulnerable with their true selves. They avoid feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope because expressing them and exposing their true, God-given unique selves makes them vulnerable.

Codependency is not a badness. it is an impaired attempt to belong and matter without having to ask, seek, knock.

Codependency is the loss of self-awareness, self-assertiveness, self-care, and it becomes self-neglect.

You doubt your self-worth. You wonder if you are valuable. You are uncertain if you belong and matter.

Self-worth:

is something you come into life with
is inherent
can’t be lost
can’t be added to
can only be expressed
comes from the inside to be expressed

Once you lose connection to your self-worth, you begin to start to try to earn your worth (performance.)

Self-esteem:

is built through performance (Anything that is built can be torn down.)
is not inherent
can be lost
can be added to

Self-esteem is a rollercoaster trap of codependency. (I’m only worth as much as I’ve done/accomplished well.) Self -esteem is built from the outside

Self-worth is strong and comes from within a person.

Self-esteem is fragile and is built by the world around you and your experiences.

Self-esteem is built by winning and accomplishing. If my performance receives your approval, I’m okay. If my performance doesn’t generate your approval, I’m not okay.

A codependent person believes that their worth is equal to their performance.

Codependency wears us out. We become chronically stuck in codependency.

Codependency truly is an addiction. It’s a set of required compulsive behaviors that I have to perform, in spite of negative consequences.

“The Parable of the Rich Fool” Luke 12: 16-21

In codependency, we seek counterfeit fulfillment in place of being vulnerable with our neediness. These counterfeit attempts often turn into addictions. While these addictions harm us terribly, they feel good and successfully satisfy us for a short time.

Addictions successfully work to take us away from having to deal with life on a healthy, emotional level. (alcohol, drugs, exercise, sex, shopping, gambling, food, control, codependency, etc.)

These counterfeit attempts (alcohol, sex, drugs, food, control, etc.) to avoid neediness and vulnerability do feel good. BUT, once they start to work, we become enslaved to them. Once you’re enslaved (addicted,) you don’t know how not to be enslaved.

When you become enslaved (addicted,) you no longer ask, seek, or knock. You refuse to be needy.

Addiction leads to a crash. Addiction does not sustain a person.

When someone is living in addiction, it isn’t just that person who crashes; they take their family and those who love them into the crash with them. There are a lot of casualties.

The internal, anxious demand to perform creates an external locus of control. You look on the outside to see how much you can control in order to make yourself okay on the inside. This is addiction.

Symptoms of Codependency

1. Chronic self-doubt –You second guess everything you do before you do it and/or after you do it. Instead of asking for feedback in order to grow and gain the capacity to do it well or better, you ask for feedback to make sure you met their approval.

What does it take to be willing to grow? Humility. Most codependents don’t have humility (healthy shame.) They have toxic shame.

Chronic self-doubt is a fear of rejection that is connected to the fear of abandonment.

If I don’t perform well, you will abandon me. Examples:

If I don’t make good grades, you will withdraw from me emotionally, because you need my performance to be good so that you feel better about your parenting.
If I don’t get hits and make great defensive plays on the baseball field, you’ll be embarrassed of me and reject me.
If I don’t make the dance team, you’ll be ashamed of me and withdraw your love.
If I don’t make lots of money, you will be unhappy and embarrassed around your friends.

2. You invest your self-worth in your ability to meet others expectations. (Performance)

Example: If the coach smiles at me, I’m ok. I’m worth something.

If the coach looks at me with disgust, I’m not okay. I’m worthless.

If I’m not worth much to the coach, what would make him keep me around? Then you ask yourself,

“Do I even belong and matter?” and “Will I be abandoned?” (fear of rejection).

I begin to anticipate the coach’s rejection and become anxious.

I do not address my fear.

I do not ask, seek, and knock.