Thank you for this - this is the first time I've read about the "fawn" response.... so very interesting & it makes total sense. It's like the origin of the people-pleasing behaviors that follow in other relationships throughout life.

Great article all around!

Oh good, glad to hear it was useful for others too. That’s a great website, he has such excellent info on how childhood experiences shape a person, and how they get manifested in adult behaviors. Good stuff!

Control is a huge part of being codependent. I'm realising the last couple of weeks I'm trying to control things but it's actually making things worse. I'm exhausted. Mental energy depleted. Need to learn to give up and surrender.

"Many of us have been trying to keep the whole world in orbit with sheer and forceful application of mental energy.

Control is an illusion, especially the kind of control we’ve been trying to exert. In fact, controlling gives other people, events, and diseases, such as alcoholism, control over us. Whatever we try to control does have control over us and our life".

In AA, they say that if you need to control your drinking it is already controlling you. I often say to myself that the only difference between alcoholics and the people close to them are that the people close to them don't get chips, birthdays and accolades. Futile and fearful efforts to control are at the heart of all of this, that's why the first three steps are all about giving it up. If you can truly give up fearful efforts to control, then everything changes. We are not so very different from the alcoholics we love.

I agree completely we are not so different. Fear is a big part of that need to control. Also it takes do much effort.

:You_Rock_

Codependency is the paradox of using another person to fill your own needs while at the same time ignoring those needs yourself. It's like siphoning your gas to someone else's tank and expecting your car to run.

So true. I will add to that, using another person to fill your own needs, that has no capacity to do so, not even for themselves, in fact they are probably unaware of what needs are. What a paradox as you say.

Quote from melody Beattie ↓

There’s no need to be embarrassed to be (and stay) Codependent No More.

No need to be ashamed to have gone through the process of allowing codependency (in a negative way) to impact our lives, and then learning to stop trying to do what’s impossible (control others) and start focusing on the possible: taking good care of ourselves. Consciously and in a way that takes others and (at last) ourselves into consideration when making decisions.

Feeling embarrassed about different stages of life we experience on the way to becoming who we are now is no different from cringing when we see pictures of how we wore our hair 25 years ago. We can feel that way; but it isn’t necessary. We were doing what we thought best – at that time.

We weren’t crazy – even at the height of our obsessing and controlling. We were codependent on unhealthy factors in our decisions and behaviors.

To many millions of us, that revelation was and still is a huge relief. We set ourselves free to live our lives in a way that was and still is in our best interests.

No shame in that.

I was watching a Hoarders episode yesterday about a man with obvious mental health issues, who had stopped functioning basically after being threatened with his life. He developed severe PTSD symptoms. His wife tried to help him for a while but then realized that she was sacrificing her family (herself and two daughters) in her quest to help that man who wasn't helping himself. So she had him move out. Boom.

In my mind it was totally reasonable what she did, and I was cheering her on. But for some reason, in my life, given an analogous situation, I was helpless to do the same. That's codependency.

That makes total sense I too was unable to do it. I was and continue to be codependent, but work on it. I have found now that my addiction is gone (ex addict) I am looking for new addictions and currently am doing too much exercise and eating.

I'm just doing the eating without the exercise so you are doing well!

Looking for external things to comfort you is easier than looking within, not because you are not willing to do the work (you more than are) but the essence of that is not there yet.

You have to accept yourself, just the way you are. What is it, about yourself, that you don't like. What negative self-talk are you participating in. What tapes are you playing from others that are holding you back.

I don't mean to be all airy fairy here, which it kind of sounds like but something is blocking you here.

Is making that leap to accepting yourself too big a leap? Who told you that you can't?

Codependency is me thinking I can fix other people while not recognizing that I have my hands full just fixing me.

I definitely feel like I was reading my own story. I have come up with countless plans to fix him or the problem, and obviously they didn't work . And I feel bad and guilty for thinking that it's ok for me to be happy because I know he's hurting himself and there is nothing I can do. I'm exhausted from the rillercoaroll, holding everyone else in the family up, and holding the rest of our world together.

Very insightful Trailmix, I really do feel blocked at the minute, a bit deflated/depressed almost. Those old tapes do seem to be cropping up more, that I'm not good enough, attractive enough, I'm getting older now I'll never meet someone who truly loves me, and the fact my confidence has taken a hit shows me how unstable my apparent new found confidence was.

Accepting myself just the way I am sounds lovely but I find it challenging at the moment. I know happiness is an internal job and been making good strides but lately I'm being overly critical of my looks and weight, even though I'm exercising more than ever, 6 mile runs some days and walks. I'm sure I look good but it's believing it. What it boils down to is I'm looking externally again. Need to bring my focus within.

Codependency was having my entire day ruined with anxiety because I worried that I said or did something wrong (my perception) and people won't like me....and doing whatever I could to "make it up" to those people or try to become someone I wasn't.

I saw this post yesterday and thought you might appreciate it Glenjo:

https://www.soberrecovery.com/forums...rgiveness.html

Thanks Trailmix that was helpful. Think I need to stop being so hard on myself and accept where I am. I'm feeling a bit deflated/depressed and that's ok, it's where I am. I'm torturing myself trying to "get back to" where I thought I was earlier in year in terms of being positive and upbeat, moving on. I don't feel like I'm there and that's ok, no point lying, but hopefully this too shall pass. A few extra pounds doesn't define who I am, but the self criticism is something I need to stop. Codependent.

in it's most simplistic form, Bill W said the 12 step program boiled down to: Clean House, Trust God, Help Others.

i think that is helpful to remember a big part of WHY we bother to trudge along Recovery Road. or even share the planet. we are not alone. we can get out of ourselves and do good deeds that benefit someone ELSE who is not us. when we do so selflessly, we reap all kinds of awesome rewards - community, humility, empathy and some downright joy.

we don't "work on ourselves" in isolation or in some timewarp. life goes on, the world spins, the sun rises and falls, time marches onward. if ALL we do is focus on our "healing", to the exclusion of other things, we've lost the plot. recovery is about being a whole human, and a productive member of society,