Needabreak

Or when you find yourself attracted to broken people who trigger your "helping" instinct again and again, even if you do disconnect quickly. It's all about finding someone external, even subconsciously, who you can put your focus on instead of keeping it on yourself.

I used to think that this "helping" thing was love. Now, if I go on a date with someone and start feeling this aspect of my personality triggered, I view it as a red flag. I have neither the time nor the desire to be with adults who "need my help," unless they're elderly, or recovering from an injury or something.

aliciagr

I think Codependency is both of the above.

Its about getting to a point where you derive your own self worth - from how well you "think" you are taking care of another person, guiding their life, fixing their problems, stabilizing their moods. Feeling like your the lead dog, and without you, your advice, your plan, your everything - they would just be lost in the woods and die.

Its about getting a "high" when the other person does what you say, or things go the way you want, or the other persons has a success and you "know" it was really because of your efforts. Or feeling "low" because they are not listening to you, or are in a bad mood and you efforts to make them happy havent worked.

I was confused for a while because often the emotional part is left out of the equation, and the idea is that if you jump out of your hula hoop and do something for someone else that they can do themselves this means your codependent. I dont think so. This can mean many things, and while it can get to a level of unhealthy, usually if this happens long term I think its because there has been a mental shift and your repeating the behavior because your getting something out of it yourself. (The exception being as someone else said, people who are in abusive relationships and feel like they must behave a certain way to prevent more abuse).

I also think codependents who have a pattern of this, will look for vulnerable people who they feel they can control because they are most likely to be accepting of their" help and guidance"

I think it also, puts codependents at risk for being the target of many classes of people who are emotionally unhealthy themselves. People who want to be taken care of, who want to blame others for their problems. They can sense the emotional weakness of the codependent and know how to manipulate their moods and behaviors.

I think this is why there is often a focus on looking for signs of manipulation in an unhealthy relationship. But that can actually run both ways, and also be misapplied to specific interactions, so I think its tricky. I dont think its a good idea for the codependent to feel like they are the victim of these types of people, because it takes responsibility off of their own emotional issues which need addressing.

Needabreak

Very, very wise words.

honeypig

This is exactly where I am right now. I'm in the thick of learning this. Some days I feel I'm doing pretty good, other days I wonder if I've learned anything.

But the fact that I am able to even wonder about it is something I couldn't have done a year or two ago, so progress is being made.

And I think this is a really, really accurate description, at least for my particular flavor of codependence.

FallenAngelina

I think of codependence as looking to another person(s) for emotional guidance when I'm missing it from within myself. To me, the experience isn't about fixing another person, but about feeling that my emotional well being (or ill being) is completely tied to another person's behavior and words.