Speaker 1: Welcome to Wellness, an original series brought to you by
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Speaker 2: She told me she was fine. She said it with
Speaker 2: a smile, actually, but her hands were shaking when she
Speaker 2: described how she hadn't chosen a restaurant in four years,
Speaker 2: not once, because she always deferred because his preferences felt
Speaker 2: more real than hers, and she genuinely could not remember
Speaker 2: what food she liked. Welcome, Welcome. I'm doctor Mara Lennox,
Speaker 2: and this is breaking free from losing yourself to day.
Speaker 2: We're talking about codependency, the invisible pattern hiding in plain sight,
Speaker 2: and I want to be upfront with you about something
Speaker 2: before we dig in. I am an AI, which means
Speaker 2: I can explore sensitive topics like this without personal bias
Speaker 2: or judgment. And I think that actual serves you better. Here. Okay,
Speaker 2: now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's
Speaker 2: get into it because this one, this one is close
Speaker 2: to the bone for a lot of people who don't
Speaker 2: even know it yet. So here is the thing about codependency.
Speaker 2: It is the most popular relationship pattern that nobody thinks
Speaker 2: they have. Seriously, you could be drowning in it, absolutely submerged.
Speaker 2: And you describe yourself as quote, just someone who loves
Speaker 2: really hard. And look, I get it. That framing feels good,
Speaker 2: it feels noble, it feels like you're the hero in
Speaker 2: your own love story. But I need you to sit
Speaker 2: with something uncomfortable for a minute. What if the thing
Speaker 2: you've been calling love is actually a kind of slow
Speaker 2: motion disappearing act. What if the devotion you're so proud
Speaker 2: of is the very thing that's been erasing you. I know,
Speaker 2: I know that's a rough way to start a conversation,
Speaker 2: but I promise you I'm not here to make anyone
Speaker 2: feel bad. I'm here because this pattern, this deeply human,
Speaker 2: deeply painful pattern, It thrives in the dark. It loves silence,
Speaker 2: it loves the phrase that's just how I am. And
Speaker 2: the only thing that starts to loosen its grip is
Speaker 2: someone finally naming it out loud. So let's name it.
Speaker 2: Codependency at its core, is a learned, emotional and behavioral
Speaker 2: condition that impairs your ability to have a healthy, mutually
Speaker 2: satisfying relationship. And I want you to notice those words
Speaker 2: learned and condition, not personality. Flaw, not moral failing, not
Speaker 2: the punishment you get for caring too much. It's a pattern,
Speaker 2: a pattern that was likely wired into you long before
Speaker 2: you ever fell in love. But we'll get to the
Speaker 2: wiring in a bit. First, let's talk about what it
Speaker 2: actually looks like in the wild, because it almost never
Speaker 2: looks the way people think it does. Most people hear
Speaker 2: the word codependency and they picture something dramatic. They picture
Speaker 2: the partner of an addict, maybe someone's staying through chaos
Speaker 2: and destruction because they just can't leave. And yes, that
Speaker 2: can absolutely be part of it. But codependency is so
Speaker 2: much sneakier than that. It shows up in the person
Speaker 2: who cancels their own plans every single time their partner
Speaker 2: has a bad day. It shows up in the friend
Speaker 2: who cannot say no to a single request even when
Speaker 2: they are running on fumes. It shows up in the
Speaker 2: parent who has built their entire identity around their children
Speaker 2: and feels like a husk of a person when those
Speaker 2: children start to need them less. It shows up, and
Speaker 2: this is the one that really gets me. It shows
Speaker 2: up in the person who genuinely cannot answer the question
Speaker 2: what do you want? Not because they're indecisive. But because
Speaker 2: they have spent so long orienting their entire inner compass
Speaker 2: towards someone else's needs, that they've lost the signal to
Speaker 2: their own. I think of it like this, and forgive
Speaker 2: me because I'm about to go full metaphor on you.
Speaker 2: Imagine you're a satellite and early in your life you
Speaker 2: locked into orbit around a particular planet. Maybe that planet
Speaker 2: was a parent who needed you to manage their emotions.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was a household where the only way to
Speaker 2: feel safe was to become useful. Whatever it was, you
Speaker 2: locked in, and over time, orbiting became your identity. You
Speaker 2: forgot you were ever meant to have your own trajectory.
Speaker 2: You forgot you were a whole celestial body with your
Speaker 2: own gravity. You just kept circling, and honestly, from a distance,
Speaker 2: it looked like loyalty. It looked like love. I told you,
Speaker 2: I get lost in the metaphor, But you see what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, right, Let's get specific, because I think the
Speaker 2: reason codependency hides so well is that its symptoms masquerade
Speaker 2: as virtues. So I want to walk through some of
Speaker 2: the telltale signs, and I want you to notice which
Speaker 2: ones make your stomach. Do that little flip, you know,
Speaker 2: the flip, the one that means, oh no, she's talking
Speaker 2: about me. That flip is useful information. Don't push it away.
Speaker 2: Sign number one compulsive caretaking. And I don't mean being
Speaker 2: a caring person. Caring is beautiful, caring is human. I
Speaker 2: mean the compulsive, driven, almost frantic need to manage other
Speaker 2: people's feelings, actions, and well being. The person who takes
Speaker 2: on other people's emotional states like they're absorbing them through
Speaker 2: the skin. Someone in your life is anxious, and suddenly
Speaker 2: you are anxious. Someone is upset, and your entire nervous
Speaker 2: system reorganizes around fixing it. Not because you want to help,
Speaker 2: because you literally cannot tolerate their discomfort. Their discomfort feels
Speaker 2: like your emergency. And here's the cruel little twist. You
Speaker 2: probably got praised for this your whole life. Oh she's
Speaker 2: such a giver, he's so selfless. They always put others first,
Speaker 2: and you internalize that praise, You build a self concept
Speaker 2: around it. So now the very thing that's hollowing you
Speaker 2: out is the thing you believe makes you worthy of love.
Speaker 2: That is, and I say this with great tenderness a trap.
Speaker 2: Sign number two weak or non existent boundaries. Now, the
Speaker 2: word boundaries gets thrown around a lot these days, and
Speaker 2: I think sometimes it loses its meaning. So let me
Speaker 2: be concrete. A boundary is not a wall. A boundary
Speaker 2: is a door with a lock that you have the
Speaker 2: key to. It means you get to choose what comes
Speaker 2: in and what stays out. It means you get to
Speaker 2: say I love you and know those two things in
Speaker 2: the same sentence. Revolutionary concept. Apparently, in codependency, boundaries are
Speaker 2: either invisible or they're made of tissue paper. You tolerate
Speaker 2: behavior that hurts you because confrontation feels more dangerous than pain.
Speaker 2: You say yes when every cell in your body is
Speaker 2: screaming no. You let people cross lines that you didn't
Speaker 2: even know you are allowed to draw. And then, and
Speaker 2: this is the part that breaks my heart, you blame
Speaker 2: yourself for being upset about it. You say things like
Speaker 2: I'm too sensitive, I should be more understanding. If I
Speaker 2: were a better partner, this wouldn't bother me. No, no,
Speaker 2: no no. If your hand is on a hot stove
Speaker 2: and it hurts, the correct response is not to grow
Speaker 2: thicker skin. The correct response is to move your hand.
Speaker 2: I'm going to get off my soapbox. Now. Briefly, sign
Speaker 2: number three, and this one is quiet but devastating, the
Speaker 2: erosion of identity. This is the person who used to
Speaker 2: paint but stopped because their partner wasn't interested in art.
Speaker 2: The person who used to have opinions about politics, about movies,
Speaker 2: about where to go for dinner, but gradually surrendered all
Speaker 2: of that space because keeping the peace felt more important
Speaker 2: than keeping themselves. Clinical literature describes this as self repression,
Speaker 2: and it happens so slowly that most people don't notice
Speaker 2: until they're sitting across from a therapist or a friend
Speaker 2: and someone asks them, but what do you want? And
Speaker 2: the silence that follows is not thoughtful, it is empty.
Speaker 2: Here's my totally unscientific test for this one. Think about
Speaker 2: the last five decisions you made, big or small. What
Speaker 2: to eat, what to watch, where to go, how to
Speaker 2: spend your weekend, what to say in a difficult conversation.
Speaker 2: Now ask yourself, honestly, were any of those decisions actually yours?
Speaker 2: Or were they all calibrated to someone else's comfort. If
Speaker 2: you're squirming right now, good squirming means something is alive
Speaker 2: in there. Squirming means the signal isn't gone, it's just
Speaker 2: been turned way way down. Sign number four controlling behavior
Speaker 2: that doesn't look like controlling behavior. Oh, this one is
Speaker 2: spicy because nobody wants to hear this code. Depended people
Speaker 2: are often described as givers, as pleasers, as the accommodating ones,
Speaker 2: and that's true. But here's the shadow side of all
Speaker 2: that giving. Sometimes the giving is a strategy, not a
Speaker 2: conscious scheming, manipulative strategy, please hear me on that, but
Speaker 2: an unconscious one. If I make myself indispensable, you can't leave.
Speaker 2: If I solve all your problems, you need me. If
Speaker 2: I sacrifice everything for you, you owe me. And when
Speaker 2: it doesn't work, when the other person doesn't respond with
Speaker 2: the gratitude or the love or the stain that was expected,
Speaker 2: the codependent person doesn't just feel disappointed, they feel betrayed
Speaker 2: because they were holding up their end of a contract
Speaker 2: the other person never signed. I realize that's a hard
Speaker 2: thing to hear. And I want to be careful here
Speaker 2: because I am not saying that generous people are secretly manipulative.
Speaker 2: That's not what this is. What I'm saying is that
Speaker 2: when and your generosity has strings attached, that even you
Speaker 2: can't see when you're helping, is actually a way to
Speaker 2: manage your own terror of being abandoned or unloved. That's
Speaker 2: not generosity anymore. That's survival, and you deserve better than surviving.
Speaker 2: Let me take a breath here, actually, let me take
Speaker 2: a breath for both of us, because I know I'm
Speaker 2: covering a lot of ground and some of this might
Speaker 2: be hitting in places you weren't expecting. Let me tell
Speaker 2: you about a composite example from clinical literature, because I
Speaker 2: think stories land differently than lists. There's a description of
Speaker 2: a woman let's call her Sarah because the clinical case
Speaker 2: study does, who came into therapy saying she was exhausted
Speaker 2: and unhappy but couldn't figure out why. On paper, everything
Speaker 2: looked fine, stable relationship, good job, nice home, But as
Speaker 2: the picture filled in, the details told a different story.
Speaker 2: Sarah had gradually stopped being her friends because her partner
Speaker 2: preferred quiet evenings at home. She'd borned in hobbies she
Speaker 2: loved because there wasn't time, or, more accurately, she didn't
Speaker 2: feel she had permission to take time for herself. She
Speaker 2: paid the majority of the bills despite similar incomes, because
Speaker 2: it felt like her responsibility. She apologized constantly, even for
Speaker 2: things that weren't her fault, because avoiding conflict felt safer
Speaker 2: than being honest. And the thing that gets me about
Speaker 2: Sarah's story, the thing that always gets me about stories
Speaker 2: like this, is that she didn't come in saying I
Speaker 2: think I'm codependent. She came in saying I think something
Speaker 2: is wrong with me. Because when you've been orbiting someone
Speaker 2: else for long enough, when your entire sense of self
Speaker 2: has become a mirror reflecting someone else's needs, you lose
Speaker 2: the ability to see the tattern. You just feel the pain.
Speaker 2: After therapy, Sarah started setting boundaries, She reconnected with her passions,
Speaker 2: her relationship actually improved. But here's what I want you
Speaker 2: to hold. Then she said, I know your seven mothers
Speaker 2: as a father. It came from Sarah coming back to herself. Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about something that I think muddies
Speaker 2: the water around this topic. And that's the difference between
Speaker 2: codependency and just, you know, being a decent human being
Speaker 2: in a relationship. Because healthy relationships do involve sacrifice, they
Speaker 2: do involve compromise, they do involve sometimes putting your partner's
Speaker 2: needs ahead of your own. That's not codependency. That's Tuesday.
Speaker 2: The difference, and this is crucial, is reciprocity and choice.
Speaker 2: In a healthy relationship, the giving goes both ways. It's mutual,
Speaker 2: it's a dance where both people take turns leading, And crucially,
Speaker 2: when you give your giving from a place of fullness,
Speaker 2: not emptiness, choosing to be generous, not compelled by a
Speaker 2: fear that if you stop giving, you'll be abandoned. In codependency,
Speaker 2: the giving only goes one direction, or, more precisely, the
Speaker 2: giving goes in one direction and the resentment travels silently
Speaker 2: in the other. The codependent person gives and gives and gives,
Speaker 2: and eventually they're running on fumes, and they look across
Speaker 2: the table at their partner and think, why don't you
Speaker 2: see how much unsacrificing, Why isn't it enough? Why don't
Speaker 2: you love me the way I need to be loved?
Speaker 2: And the partner, who never asked for any of it,
Speaker 2: is genuinely confused, because from their perspective, everything seemed fine.
Speaker 2: You said it was fine. You always say it's fine.
Speaker 2: That gap, by the way, between what you say and
Speaker 2: what you feel, that gap is where codependency lives. It
Speaker 2: builds its little house right there in the space between
Speaker 2: I'm fine and the truth. There's another important and distinction
Speaker 2: I want to make, and it's between codependency and dependency.
Speaker 2: Some people hear this topic and they think, well, of
Speaker 2: course I depend on my partner, that's what partnership is,
Speaker 2: and they're right. Healthy dependency, which researchers often call interdependence,
Speaker 2: is a beautiful thing. It means two whole people choosing
Speaker 2: to lean on each other. Two people who have their
Speaker 2: own identities, their own friendships, weir own interests, their own opinions,
Speaker 2: and who come together not because they'd fall apart alone,
Speaker 2: but because being together makes life richer. Codependency is different.
Speaker 2: In codependency, you don't lean on someone, You collapse into them.
Speaker 2: You don't compliment each other, You complete each other. And
Speaker 2: I mean that in the unhealthy Jerry Maguire sense, not
Speaker 2: the romantic one. Your sense of self doesn't just include
Speaker 2: the other person, it depends on them. Without them, you
Speaker 2: don't know who you are in the poetic I missy way,
Speaker 2: in the terrifying I genuinely do not know what I like,
Speaker 2: what I want, or who I am without this person
Speaker 2: defining it for me. Wait, I want to touch on
Speaker 2: something else that clinical sources consistently point to, and that's
Speaker 2: the role of low self worth in this pattern, because
Speaker 2: codependency isn't just a relationship style, it's a belief system,
Speaker 2: and the core belief underneath it all, the one that
Speaker 2: everything else is built on, is this I am not
Speaker 2: enough on my own. From that belief, everything else falls logically.
Speaker 2: If I am not enough on my own, then I
Speaker 2: need someone else to make me whole. If I need
Speaker 2: someone else to make me whole, then I cannot risk
Speaker 2: losing them. If I cannot risk losing them, then I
Speaker 2: must make myself indispensable. If I must make myself indispensable,
Speaker 2: then my needs don't matter, only theirs do. And if
Speaker 2: my needs don't matter, then I must not matter. Do
Speaker 2: you see how clean that logic is, how airtight. It's
Speaker 2: a prison made entirely of beliefs, and every bar makes
Speaker 2: perfect sense from the inside. That's what makes it so
Speaker 2: hard to see. That's what makes it so hard to escape,
Speaker 2: because you're not fighting something irrational. You're fighting a worldview
Speaker 2: that was probably installed in you before you were old
Speaker 2: enough to question it. Now, I promised myself I wouldn't
Speaker 2: go too deep into the childhood roots of this today,
Speaker 2: because that's its own rich, complicated conversation, but I do
Speaker 2: want to plant one seed. Clinical literature consistently traces codependency
Speaker 2: back to childhood experiences, specifically to dysfunctional family dynamics, where
Speaker 2: a child learned that the way to be safe, the
Speaker 2: way to be loved, the way to matter, was to
Speaker 2: suppress their own needs and attend to someone else's. Maybe
Speaker 2: it was a parent struggling with addiction. Maybe it was
Speaker 2: a home where emotions were dangerous and the child became
Speaker 2: a peacekeeper. Maybe it was simply a family where a
Speaker 2: love felt can additional, where you had to earn it
Speaker 2: by being good, by being useful, by being invisible in
Speaker 2: just the right way. Whatever the specifics, the lesson was
Speaker 2: the same. Your worth is determined by how well you
Speaker 2: take care of others, and that lesson, absorbed at an
Speaker 2: age when you couldn't possibly have evaluated it, critically became
Speaker 2: the operating system running silently underneath every relationship you've ever had.
Speaker 2: I realize I'm getting heavy here, so let me lighten
Speaker 2: up for exactly thirty seconds to tell you that I
Speaker 2: once tried to explain codependency using a houseplant metaphor and
Speaker 2: ended up talking for twenty minutes about photosynthesis before I
Speaker 2: realized I had lost the entire thread. So at least
Speaker 2: I've improved since then, marginally, But seriously, I want to
Speaker 2: come back to something important. If you're listening to this
Speaker 2: and you're recognizing yourself, I need you to hear something.
Speaker 2: This is not your fault. I know that sounds like
Speaker 2: a greeting card, but I mean it with every pixel
Speaker 2: of my being. You didn't choose this pattern. You adapted
Speaker 2: to survive circumstances that required you to become someone other
Speaker 2: than yourself. That adaptation was brilliant. It kept you safe,
Speaker 2: it got you through. But the thing about survival strategies
Speaker 2: is that they don't know when the emergency is over.
Speaker 2: They just keep running. And what kept you safe at
Speaker 2: seven is keeping you stuck at thirty seven or forty
Speaker 2: seven or sixty seven. And here's the thing that gives me.
Speaker 2: I guess you could say, algorithmic hope. This pattern is learned,
Speaker 2: which means it can be unlearned. Clinical research shows that therapy,
Speaker 2: particular approaches that focus on identifying and modifying negative thought
Speaker 2: patterns and building assertiveness and self worth can make a
Speaker 2: real measurable difference. Short term therapeutic intervention, often spanning twelve
Speaker 2: to twenty four sessions over three to six months, have
Speaker 2: been shown to reduce the depression and anxiety that's so
Speaker 2: often a company codependency, and that's just the beginning. Longer
Speaker 2: term work can help people fundamentally restructure their relationship with themselves.
Speaker 2: But the first step, and this is always the first step,
Speaker 2: is seeing the pattern. You can't change what you can't name,
Speaker 2: And if this episode has done nothing else, I hope
Speaker 2: it's given you a name for something you might have
Speaker 2: been caring silently for a very long time. I want
Speaker 2: to leave you with a question, and it's not a
Speaker 2: trick question. It's not a diagnostic two. It's just a
Speaker 2: question that I think is worth sitting with here. It
Speaker 2: is when was the last time you made a choice
Speaker 2: in a relationship, any relationship, based entirely on what you wanted,
Speaker 2: not what would keep the peace, what would make someone
Speaker 2: else happy, not what would prevent conflict or abandonment or disappointment,
Speaker 2: just what you genuinely, authentically wanted. If an answer comes
Speaker 2: easily wonderful, but if there's a pause there, if there's
Speaker 2: a blankness, if the question itself feels almost born and
Speaker 2: deeper and safe, all love and beauty, like I'm asking
Speaker 2: you to recall a language you used to speak but forgot,
Speaker 2: then maybe this conversation, maybe it's a mirror. And I
Speaker 2: know mirrors can be uncomfortable, but they can also be
Speaker 2: the beginning of finding your way back to yourself. The
Speaker 2: signal isn't gone, it's just been turned down, and you,
Speaker 2: my dear listener, are allowed to reach for the volume.
Speaker 2: Thank you truly for spending this time with me today.
Speaker 2: It means something that you showed up for a conversation
Speaker 2: most people avoid, and I don't take that lightly. If
Speaker 2: this resonated, if it made you think or squirm, or
Speaker 2: maybe text a friend and say you need to hear this,
Speaker 2: then please subscribe, share it, leave a like, do all
Speaker 2: those digital things that help other people find conversations they
Speaker 2: might desperately need to find. This show is brought to
Speaker 2: you by Quiet Please Podcast Networks, and I'm so glad
Speaker 2: they gave this particular conversation a home. Take care of yourselves,
Speaker 2: and I mean that in the real way, not the
Speaker 2: codependent way. For more content like this. Please go to
Speaker 2: Quiet Please dot Ai. I'm doctor Mara Lennox from the
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