Many codependents are in abusive relationships with addicts or people with mental illness. Symptoms of codependency foster dysfunctional dynamics in these relationships, which in turn worsens symptoms of codependency. This makes sense when we consider the definition of codependency and that codependents have a “lost self” as their thinking and behavior revolve around another person.
Due to dysfunctional parenting, codependents have lost touch with their ability to respond to their internal cues. They have come to believe that they are inferior and that what they feel, think, need and / or want is not important. This is your hidden shame. As a result, they have the unconscious belief that they do not deserve to be loved simply for who they are, but that they have to earn love. This causes basic insecurity and fear of being abandoned.
Codependency originates in childhood, including core symptoms of shame (including low self-esteem, denial, dependency control, including caring, dysfunctional communication, and dysfunctional boundaries. How these traits set the stage for Painful relationships is explained in Conquering Shame and Codependency.
Role codependency in relationships
Because many codependents have withdrawn from their feelings, the drama of an intimate relationship with someone addicted or with a mental disorder can be energizing or familiar if their childhood was similar. Additionally, addicts and people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are often charismatic and romantic. They can be seductive and shower their codependent partner with compliments, promises and gestures of love. Codependents crave love and connection, and being desired makes them feel kind. But their dependency and low self-esteem make them susceptible to seduction and they mistake romance for real love.
Codependents deal with the fear of criticism, rejection, and abandonment by giving, understanding, pleasing, and helping. Your partner defines the relationship, and they agree to get along and keep it. They admire a narcissist’s boldness, conviction, and perceived strength (qualities that they themselves lack) and enjoy a supportive role and feeling cared for. With addicts and people with BPD, they often play the role of helpers and caregivers. For the codependent, feeling needy feels like love. It increases their self-esteem and assures them that they will never be abandoned. However, addicts and people with NPD and BPD feel deep shame and project their inner demons onto the very person who loves them and is trying to help them.
The reactive role of codependents amplifies their focus on their partner, while hiding who they are. They try more and more to control the uncontrollable, they sacrifice and try harder to please and be accepted. Although at first they were idealized, now they are devalued. A person with BPD vacillates between idealizing-loving behavior and devaluing-rejecting behavior. Instead of acting like someone with BPD, people with BPD act unnecessarily and can be remote and emotionally cold. Some may show sympathy towards their partner, while others are continually critical and dismissive. The more that love is withheld or contradicted, the more codependents try to conquer it, falling into the trap of surrendering their self-esteem and sense of well-being to their partner. They never feel good enough, reinforcing their hidden shame.
How Abusive Relationships Make Codependency Worse
This unspoken contract works for a time because codependents provide security and stability to an addict or emotional and insecure partner with BPD and provide warmth and connection that a partner with NPD is lacking. But due to their own insecurity and weak boundaries, codependents absorb the blame, blame, and shame of the abusers. They feel powerless to help and satisfy their partner, guilty of the “mistakes” of which they are accused and resentful that their efforts are unappreciated and fail. As the relationship deteriorates, so does the codependent’s sense of self.
All symptoms of codependency contribute to the dysfunctional relationship, which if left untreated, worsens over time. As codependents get further away from themselves and enter the later stages of their illness. The very traits that made the relationship work became its undoing.
The dynamics in abusive relationships increase the stress of codependents and increase their attempts to appease and help their partner. The reality of the addict or individual with personality disorder also begins to infect the self-concept and perceptions of reality of codependents. Their self-esteem is lowered and they become more anxious and exhausted as they try to ease a crisis, avoid abuse, and keep the relationship together.
By trying to adapt and control another person to make them feel better, codependents stray away from real solutions. They hold a mistaken belief that they are responsible for their partner’s feelings and needs, while ignoring theirs. Your behavior reinforces your partner’s false belief that you are to blame and responsible for your addiction and pain. The longer codependents do, the worse things get. Both deny their own pain and prevent their partner from taking responsibility for their behavior, needs, and feelings and from getting help. This is called “habilitation.” Denial of codependents blinds them to the fact that their beliefs and behavior contribute to their unhappiness and that they have options for change.
Changing the dynamics in abusive relationships
The answer is to do the opposite of what comes naturally to the codependent. I write from my personal and professional experience. It is difficult, really impossible, to change the dynamics in abusive relationships without outside support.
The first and most important thing is to see another vision of reality, because couples isolate themselves and become confused by the attacks, threats and the skewed reality of addicts or people with BPD or NPD. It is important to learn all you can about addiction and these disorders, as well as codependency. Change doesn’t really begin until partners focus on their own recovery, not on changing the other person, over whom they are essentially powerless. That doesn’t mean they don’t have power or options, but it’s about their own actions and lives.
Learning about addiction, BPD, and NPT and accepting these truths on a deep level allows them to detach and not react to what someone else decides to throw at them just because they feel uncomfortable in their own skin. They begin to realize that although their words may hurt, they are not true. Separation does not require leaving or staying on the sidelines. It is like having an invisible protective force field. Instead of reacting, they learn to honor what they need, feel, and want. They seek to satisfy those needs of safe and understanding people. As their self-esteem grows, they learn to be assertive. its
limits improve and ask for what they want and limit what they don’t want.
This is not easy, but its value increases in recovery. They may become strong enough to leave or insist that our partner receive treatment. Even if they don’t, they find that their lives are happier, because they have taken over their own self-esteem and sense of well-being.
Raising a child with BPD or NPD
Because codependents lack communication skills and limits, parents react to their troubled children in vain. Your son has been used to meeting demands and running the show, often without any responsibility. All children need limits with consistent consequences, especially those with NPD and BPD. Sometimes parents explode in frustration, making them feel guilty and embarrassing their children. To compensate, they could give in on a limit that makes things worse. Punishment and consequences should never be administered in anger, but rather in a practical tone, and ideally should relate to the offense; for example, “If you throw food away, you must clean it (or leave the table).”
Children need support and their feelings reflected, but not pleased. They especially need to be taught empathy and the impact of their behavior on others. It is important to model this and respect their feelings. Let them know that their actions affect other people in positive or counterproductive ways. For example: “How would you feel if your friend stole your toy? Would you feel hurt or angry? What happens when your friend shares a toy? When you take the toy from your friend, he will not want to play with you.” Children with BPD need to learn techniques to calm themselves and be guided to take gradual steps toward independence and self-reliance.
Parents underestimate the power and influence they have to insist that their children behave well, receive counseling, perform household chores, or seek employment. They are often afraid that their child with BPD will die or commit suicide. Their fears make them easier to manipulate. By not reacting, children will find that their manipulative tactics no longer work. However, it takes great courage for parents to stand their ground. It is not easy to remain calm and love a child who constantly disobeys, threatens, and says mean things. External support is essential. If it is an addiction, find a suitable meeting for the relatives of drug addicts.
© 2019 DarleneLancer
