What is codependence?

A codependent is one who has allowed themselves to be influenced by another person’s behaviour and is obsessed with the idea of controlling that person’s behaviour.

That other person could be a child, an adult, a lover, a husband, a brother, a sister, a grandfather, a grandmother, a parent, a client, or a close friend. They may be an alcoholic, a drug addict, they may have a mental or physical illness, be a normal person who is occasionally obsessed by gloomy feelings, or may be one of those people mentioned above.

However, the core of the definition, as well as the recovery process, does not lie in the other person, despite our conviction that they are the basis of everything. It must be sought in ourselves, in the way we allow the behaviour of others influence us, and in the way we try to influence them – in that obsession, control, obsessive “helping” and caring, in the low self-esteem leading to self-hatred, self-restraint and constant anger and guilt we experience, in the strange dependence upon strange people, the attraction to eccentricity and its tolerance, focussing on the others, leading to withdrawal from one’s self, problems in communication and in intimate relationships and to a constant headlong sinking into sadness, even depression.

The codependence is a psychological state in which an individual feels emotionally bound to the other. In such states they do not feel valuable, important. They think he cannot handle life alone. They feel confused. Guilty. They think that they are not good enough to be happy and live in peace. They feel alone and misunderstood. They think they are going crazy. But in fact they are codependent. When this happens – when codependence occurs, it lives its own life. It is as if you one has contracted pneumonia or a bad habit. Once one is infected, there is no escape. If a person wants to get rid of it, they are the one who has to do something about it. It does not matter who is to blame. The codependence is one’s own problem, and solving one’s own problems is their own job.