Page 8 of All the Way to the River

C odependency : excessive emotional or psychological dependence upon another person—typically one who requires an unusual amount of support and attention on account of depression, anxiety, narcissism, mental illness, low self-esteem, trauma, and/or addiction.

An intense feeling of responsibility for another person’s life.

The utter abandonment of yourself in order to fixate upon them .

The belief that by healing them, you will be healed.

The certainty that you will get all the love you have ever required by pouring your love into someone else’s heart.

Not a medical diagnosis per se but a maladaptive set of behaviors that springs from a deeply painful unmet need for love, safety, and approval.

A strategy of living that never, ever gives the needy person what they need.

A timeworn and extremely effective means of avoiding one’s own pain.

What codependency makes you into : an unhealed wound looking for someone to land on.

How you can tell you might be in a codependent relationship : You care more about somebody else’s well-being than they do, and/or you believe that you cannot function without them, and/or you believe that they cannot function without you.

The codependent’s motto : “You break it, we fix it!”

Who you can be in a codependent relationship with : A lover, a partner, a parent, a child, a sibling, a friend, a boss, an employee—anyone, anyone, absolutely anyone!

What codependency feels like at first : “You complete me!” or “I will be your hero!”

What codependency feels like later on : watching in horror as someone else’s life passes before your eyes; wondering in utter bewilderment where your own life went.

The final destination of codependency : rage, emptiness, loneliness, despair.

The anthem of the exhausted codependent : “After all I’ve done for you!”

How to kill a codependent : Lock them in a round, empty, windowless room and tell them there’s someone suffering in the corner who needs their help.

Watch them run themselves to death, trying to find the person who needs to be rescued.

Alternatively: Sit them in a chair in the center of a round, empty, windowless room and tell them to wait there until somebody comes to rescue them . Watch them wait there until they die.

What a codependent without recovery typically does after leaving a codependent relationship : goes out and finds another one.