Co and Counter Dependent Behavior
 

Codependent Relationships Dynamics part 3 - Codependent & Counterdependent Behavior

By Robert Burney
"I spent most of my life doing the Serenity prayer backwards, that is, trying to change the external things over which I had no control - other people and life events mostly - and taking no responsibility (except shaming and blaming myself) for my own internal process - over which I can have some degree of control. Having some control is not a bad thing; trying to control something or somebody over which I have no control is what is dysfunctional."
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney

Attempts to control are a reaction to fear. It is what we do to try to protect ourselves emotionally. Some of us (classic codependent behavior) tried to control through people pleasing, being a chameleon, wearing a mask, dancing to other people's tunes. Some of us (classic counterdependent behavior) protected ourselves/tried to be in control by pretending that we didn't need other people. Either way we were living life in reaction to our childhood wounds - we were not making clear, conscious choices. (If our choice is to be in an abusive relationship or not to be in a relationship at all, that is not a choice - that is reacting between two extremes that are symptoms of our childhood wounds.)

Both classic codependent and classic counterdependent behaviors are part of the condition/disease of codependency in my definition. They are just two different extremes in the spectrum of behavioral defense systems that the ego adapts in early childhood. The ways in which we got hurt the most in childhood felt to our egos like a threat to survival, and it built up defenses to protect us.

While the classic codependent had their sense of self crushed (it is 'self' destroying to feel that love is conditional on pleasing others, living up to the expectations of others - even if our parents never raised their voices to us) in childhood to the extent that confrontation (owning anger, setting boundaries, taking the chance of hurting someone, etc.) feels life threatening, so the classic counterdependent feels like vulnerability (intimacy, getting close to/being dependent on other people) is life threatening.

Both the classic counterdependent and codependent patterns are reactive codependent traits that are out of balance and dysfunctional. We do need other people - but to allow our self worth to be determined in reaction to other people is giving power away and setting ourselves up to be victims. It is very important to own that we have worth as the unique, special being that each of us is - not dependent on how other people react to us.

This is a very difficult process for those of us who have classic 'codependent' patterns of trying very hard to get other people to like us, of feeling that we are defined by how others think of us and treat us, of being people pleasers and martyrs. Classic codependent behavior involves focusing completely on the other (when a codependent dies someone else's life passes in review.) Having no self except as defined in relationship to the other. This is dishonest and dysfunctional. It sets us up to be victims - and causes one to not only be unable to get one's needs met, but to not even be aware that it is right to have needs.

A classically codependent person, when asked about themselves, will reply by talking about the other. Obviously, before someone with this type of behavioral defense can experience any self-growth, they have to first start opening up to the idea that they have a self. The process of owning self is frustrating and confusing. The concept of having boundaries is foreign and bewildering. It is an ongoing process that takes years. It unfolds in stages. There is always another level of the onion to peel. So, for someone whose primary pattern is classically codependent, the next level of growth will always involve owning self on some deeper level. A very important part of this process is owning the right to be angry about the way other's behavior has impacted our lives - starting in childhood.

Classic counterdependent behavior focuses completely on the self and builds huge walls to keep others out. It is hard for those of us who exhibit classically 'counterdependent' behavior patterns to even consider that we may be codependent. We have lived our lives trying to prove that we don't need others, that we are independent and strong. The counterdependent is the other extreme of the spectrum. If our behavior patterns have been primarily counterdependent it means that we were wounded so badly in childhood that in order to survive we had to convince ourselves that we don't need other people, that it is never safe to get close to other people.

Each of us has our own spectrum of behavioral defenses to protect us from being hurt emotionally. We can be codependent in one relationship and counterdependent in another - or we can swing from co to counter - within the same relationship. Often, someone who is primarily counterdependent will get involved with someone who is even more counterdependent and then will act out the codependent role in that particular relationship - the same can happen with two people with primarily codependent patterns.

Both the classic codependent patterns and the classic counterdependent patterns are behavioral defenses, strategies, designed to protect us from being abandoned. One tries to protect against abandonment by avoiding confrontation and pleasing the other - while the second tries to avoid abandonment by pretending we don't need anyone else. Both are dysfunctional and dishonest.

Okay, I obviously have to get this book... ;)

I lifted this from the love2meu or maybe it's love2ume - if you google Toxic Love it comes up as one of the first few sites. burney and beattie pretty much wrote the books on codependency.

another awesome book is the Dance of Anger...I sent that book flying across the room a few times cuz it hit too close to home. fortunately paperbacks are pretty resilient!!!! :)

it's amazing the more we read, the more we dig, we find out how much it's been about US instead of THEM.

I just bought the Dancer of Anger. I hope I don't toss my iPad across the room.
:react

Funny thing, I had the book years ago and gave it away! Yep!! Who me?? I didn't need it. :lmao

Haha!! I know what you mean. I'm currently reading Women Who Love Too Much, and that's how it's been with me - I'm reading it very slowly, only one chapter at a time, because it's hitting too close to home. I guess it should have been a warning signal when just reading the PREFACE hit a bunch of my triggers, LOL!! I hadn't even gotten to Chapter 1 and was already like, "WHOAAAAA.....this book is gonna be hard to get through, it's hitting a little too close to home!!" ;)

I found the site. So is the excerpt above taken from the book, The Dance of Wounded Souls? Or is there another book on there that I'm missing?

nope you got it. :) you don't have to get EVERY book this week...take your time...one book at a time, is that how the saying goes??? LOL

ooo, here's an idea...these books should come with a target you can tape to the wall, and then you can track your score, like darts!

LOL!! Well, if it's a target showing how deep our codependency is, I'd probably have to go so far off the chart that I'd have to start keeping track on the wall!! :lmao

Yeah, I'm gonna have to delve into this more myself. I don't really identify with the classic checklist of codependent behaviors (although I do have many, I don't check every box)...but this COUNTERdependency stuff sounds eerily familiar!!! I know somebody like that!! Who could it be????.....Hmmmmmm....

ok, then it should come with a sharpie too!

look at you being all cute and playful!

Thanks for the thread. Very interesting! :)

Good therapy session today. :) (That is, providing the above post was directed at me, lol! And even if it wasn't, I still had a good therapy session today.) ;) The only bad part is having to wait until next week to go again...!! Guess that's a good sign, huh? ;)

I'm certainly a classic codependent. I feel frustration because of my need to please everyone around me. By the way, it's impossible!!

I love people pleasers. You can vacation here anytime. Oh wait, do you cook and clean? ;)

Oh lordy, I definitely used to be a classic codependant. When that went, my counterdependancy surfaced. I finally have a name for it!

My dad died when I was two and my mom was in such a state of bereavement that for my own survival, I had to be the one to try and make her happy. She told me the story that a year after his death, my grandma came to visit and told her she will have to pull herself together as all I was doing all day was to sit quietly in a corner. Most of my life my sole purpose was to keep my mom happy.

I understood perfectly where my desire to keep people happy at all costs came from. At some stage I freed myself from my role, but I have always pushed men away from me. I understood that it was probably from the pain of my dad who "left" me and the consequences. This has not healed and has transferred to many of my relationships, including the ones with women friends and family.

I will definitely get the book. Thank you. Maybe now that I have a name for it, healing is possible.

sunshine...your post brought up a memory...my gramma's funeral, I was about 10 - sitting in the pew with my mom and uncles...crying...and my mom said, oh Theresa Renee please don't cry, I can't get thru this if you cry.

oh well then, i'll just shut down MY grief so you'll be ok mom. ugh.

My, my. See I KNEW that my two ex husbands and the ex long termer had to have caused something in me...counter dependency!

So, you're saying this isn't normal? And neither is the codepenency I show with my kids?

Can we have a name for the happy medium? I would really like to try that one for a while becasue this other stuff is exhausting! :)

Great article, thanks for sharing.

Cece, I think it is called "normal" :rotfxko.

I'm starting to believe that there is no such thing as "normal". There is only "functional" and "dysfunctional".

And still 99.5% of the "functional" people are all over the spectrum of "normal".... EVERYBODY has "issues".

Wait... so that makes us all "normal"!

Spewed coffee all over my iPad at this.......lol. I think my version of the serenity prayer looked something like this:

God grant me the ability to change everything and everyone around me to suit my needs, the tenacity to keep at it until it works, and the ego to enjoy it.

I think I must have been particularly messed up because on any given day I could run the full spectrum between codependent and counterdependent (except I probably skipped the entire middle range).....I could ping pong between the two extremes of that spectrum with great skill. lol. And I thought it was hormones.....lol.

Oh yeah.......

Thanks AnvilheadII for sharing this. I'll be looking up those books today......but I promise to read them one at a time......slowly (hmmmmm.....am I doing that to please you? lol)

The thing that's really funny after doing this for a while, when I see something that screams "well there YOU are", it makes me laugh. It used to make me get verrrrry defensive. Or name the OTHER people who fit the description (denial and blame shift). Crap........I sound like an addict, huh? lol

gentle hugs
ke