Transcript
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Welcome back to the women's mental health podcast.
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I'm randy.
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I'm And I'm Jess.
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And we are two licensed psychotherapists, and this is a safe space where we talk about mental health, well being, and strategies for coping with life's challenges.
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And how all of this is normal, and you are not alone.
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Today we're diving into a topic that many of us have encountered in our relationships.
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Codependency.
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We're going to break down what being codependent is and how to create and have healthy boundaries to not be in this type of relationship.
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Find us and more resources on womensmentalhealthpodcast.
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com Have you ever had these thoughts?
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What exactly is being codependent?
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How can I tell if I am codependent?
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What causes codependency?
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Can you be codependent and still be part of a platonic relationship?
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Can you be codependent on a friend how does being codependent affect mental health?
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Is codependency the same as caring too much?
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Can men also be codependent?
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How do I start to heal from being codependent?
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Can a codependent relationship become healthy?
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And where can I find support about codependency?
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So let's start by defining what exactly is codependency.
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It is part of the relational dynamic where one person excessively, not just relies, but excessively relies on another for emotional validation or self worth or even I guess who they are, their identity.
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Yeah, in a codependent relationship, one person often becomes the caretaker or the enabler while the other person's needs and emotions dominate the relationship.
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And this type of imbalance can lead to unhealthy patterns in your relationship, and oftentimes where one person is sacrificing their own needs and well being to support the other.
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the other person.
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Mm
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hmm.
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So it's at a fault to them.
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And if you guys want to talk about enabling, listen to our last podcast that we did about helping versus enabling, because that is a really good thing.
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Most of us think we're helping and really we are enabling.
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So it's important to note too that codependency often stems from emotional emeshment.
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So that is a hard word where most people don't understand what that is.
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So enmeshment is where boundaries between individuals, they're blurred one person may feel responsible for the, another person's emotions or actions or vice versa.
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An example of enmeshment would be your husband, I don't know, drives home drunk and you blame yourself.
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You're so codependent that you think that's your fault because you should have gone and driven him home.
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Is
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that a good example?
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Yeah.
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Or maybe you're like a mom who's really close to your son and you're like picking out his dates on Tinder.
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Something that's maybe Just like over the line of a healthy like type of relationship.
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Yes, that's what enmeshment is.
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When you guys are, you can't tell whose feelings are whose and they're just so stuck together.
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And so it's also called codependence because both people in the relationship are dependent on these dynamics.
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So one person depends on being needed and the other depends on being taken care of it.
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There's an expectation there
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So how does really being codependent affect us as women and affect our mental health?
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And I think it leads to that those of us who are Who were raised in this type of environment to often we repeat the patterns.
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Oh, yes, totally where you know You are self sacrificing and caregiving is heavily emphasized It can become very ingrained and being codependent and for me, too This was true because my mom was chronically ill so and I'm an old older daughter So I have all the care giving, if you go on tick tock and you see all the Are you an older daughter?
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Like we're not okay kind of thing.
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You have learned to be like a sacrifice for everybody and put your needs last.
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And but this can lead to chronic stress, anxiety, depression, and As women, it's hard enough to meet our own needs while constantly trying to prioritize the emotional well being of others, or our kids, or our friends, or our spouse, or our partner.
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And this is why, over time, relationships like this that are codependent can really erode at your self esteem and your self worth and who you are.
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And then it makes it really hard to maintain.
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Those types of healthy boundaries.
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You need to have a good, healthy relationship.
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And yes.
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And those are boundaries with your spouse, boundaries with your children, your neighbors, your friends, your boss.
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Whatever it is, whatever it is that you need.
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Most of the time when you're codependent, you don't even know what you need anymore because.
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You have no self identity.
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Exactly.
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Oh, well, if they're happy, I'm happy.
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If this person's happy, I'm happy.
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And you're like, no, no, no, no, no.
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Where is your happiness?
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Well, I want to make sure they're happy first.
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I just had a thought, too.
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I think that codependency, too, can be interlinked with trauma, like a trauma response.
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Because if we don't have to think of what we've gone through, what we've gone through.
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or what we need to process.
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We're ignoring it and we're focusing everything on this other person.
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So it can be like a two way street with codependency.
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Like you might not want to look inward, so you're looking outwards and you're supporting that person through their codependent habits in a way to, for avoidance.
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Exactly.
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Well, that's why you find a lot of children of alcoholics are codependent.
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And then they end up taking care of or marrying an alcoholic because they know how to do it and they don't put their needs It's the pattern.
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And so we repeat these patterns because we haven't learned boundaries or we haven't learned how to take care of ourselves.
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Because when you have a child of an alcoholic, we're talking the angry alcoholics or we got to be careful because dad eggshells.
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Yes it's all of that that just gets repeated Over and over and most times their self esteem or self worth is so low That their needs aren't important because they don't even know what those are right and they'll accept anything like scraps
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Are better than nothing they feel like
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well that made me sad scraps so The other thing this also leads to though, Randy, is resentment and just emotional exhaustion.
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It's a heavy weight to carry.
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Yeah, and you're like resenting yourself and resenting the person that you're codependent with.
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It happens both ways.
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This dynamic is super draining, and it can leave us as women feeling trapped, isolated, or guilty for wanting space or independence.
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And who should feel guilty for wanting to explore things like that?
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In themselves or things that they enjoy or things they want to do.
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That's not normal.
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And this makes women lose sight of who they are outside of a relationship or who they are outside of motherhood or who they are outside of their job.
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You can be codependent on your work or your co there's.
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All sorts of different dynamics and this can lead to an identity crisis.
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I think it's why a lot of us as women have midlife crises or I see a lot of divorce or separations, like when you hit like 35 because you're like all of a sudden Shit, who am I?
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Exactly.
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You said work, what I thought was interesting is that yeah, you can be codependent on work because that's where you might get your validation.
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Yeah.
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If I do well, I get a feeling worthiness.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I get a raise or they tell me how amazing I am.
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And so there is some codependency on that.
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Speaking of midlife crisis, this is a side thing.
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I was looking at some of the the e new ecar, they have out Uhhuh and I was trying to convince my spouse to let's go buy one of the new Mustang ones.
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Mm-Hmm.
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And he was like.
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Great, so I can drive around your midlife crisis?
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Yes! I was like, yes! That was about
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time.
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It should be like reverse.
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Yeah, I was like, no, no, it's my midlife crisis.
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So that's a sidetrack there.
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I don't want to normalize necessarily codependency, but I want people to understand what it is.
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Maybe
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normalize the ability to understand it and to recognize it.
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Yeah, because we want to support healthy relationships, but how do we tell when it's at play?
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Well, the first step when trying to recognize when codependency is happening is look to see if you find yourself putting someone else's needs above your own, or you're feeling anxious or guilty or like you're walking on eggshells when you do try to set boundaries or try to do something for yourself.
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if you start noticing those patterns, then it's good.
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It's time to take a step back and assess what is happening in your relationship and the dynamic.
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And by assessing, I really want you guys to look at what is going on and what are you getting out of it?
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Because the relationships you go into when you're 20 and 30, sometimes, we do so much growth as women in our 30s and 40s, and by 50, you just don't give a shit.
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And it's amazing.
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We end up changing and growing and who we are.
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And so sometimes those don't fit our needs anymore.
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We have to look at, what is going on and what are we getting out of this?
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So really it's about when it comes down to it, like we've always said, boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, creating healthy boundaries.
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And you can do that as you grow and change.
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That is normal.
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If you are in a healthy relationship, your partner should be okay with you asserting different boundaries or choices or ideals in your life.
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And you should be able to have a healthy conversation about that.
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And when you are in a co dependent relationship, it's hard to say no, and it's hard to prioritize yourself.
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So you need to learn with instilling boundaries.
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How to say no and how to prioritize your self care and how to do it without guilt and that it's okay To meet your own needs to find your own interests and to have a space for yourself That's just for you and that's actually essential to maintaining your overall mental health Yeah,
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and the goal is not to shame you or to shame your spouse your partner your children Sometimes we repeat these relationships as being codependent.
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And then as we learn, that's how we start making the changes.
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Another key to overcoming Codependency or being in a codependent relationship is really developing emotional independence that's a hard one, is to be emotionally independent.
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And we're not doing it as a trauma response.
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This isn't like emotionally independent trauma response, I don't need anybody.
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But not
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hyper independent.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, just emotionally independent.
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What does that mean?
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That means learning to soothe yourself when you're feeling anxious, which most people don't know how to do.
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Validate.
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It's very hard.
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Yes.
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To
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self
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soothe.
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And learning how to validate your own emotions and recognizing that it's not your responsibility to manage other people's feelings.
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Okay.
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Can we say that one more time?
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Hell yeah.
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It is not your responsibility to manage other people's feelings.
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also, I want to put in too, is that You don't need to go, okay, what are they feeling?
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That's how I'm going to feel.
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That's part of managing.
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I know some people are like, well, I don't feel good if the, if he's upset and the house is upset, nah, live your life and his feelings are his feelings or her feelings are her feelings.
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You don't have to take on that or hold that.
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You don't have to
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carry that.
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You don't have to let it weigh you down.
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Like you need to let that other person be an adult.
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You need to let them.
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I think I just sent you a thing about.
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A trend on TikTok right now, not my mother or something like that.
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And it's about how women have taken on these roles of mothering like their partner and these younger women are like, that's so cringe.
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That's gross.
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But like in our generation, that's what we were taught.
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Like you just do it all.
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And like we talked about in kin keeping you just take on all the roles and you do all the things and then you're fucking burnt out.
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Well, I love the part where she goes,
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He wants to know if his black shorts are clean.
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How the fuck should I know?
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Yeah.
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Why did you wash them?
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Yeah.
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I don't know.
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Did you watch them?
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Where'd you put them?
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Honestly, if I move something, I can tell you where it is, but I'm not responsible for your clean clothes.
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And it's in that, that you need to set boundaries like this and that I'm not.
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I'm gonna do these things.
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I am not your maid.
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I am not your chauffeur.
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I am not your Google calendar.
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You are a person who is sentiment and has ideas and can create them and think on your own, too.
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I don't need to think for myself and you.
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That's too much.
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And if you're uncomfortable saying all of what Randy just said, you can just say, I have no idea.
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Yeah.
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And go back to whatever you're doing.
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Because you don't have to go look for his black shorts because he doesn't know if they're clean or not.
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I just was laughing at that one.
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And another thing, too, is to normalize asking for help.
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It's okay to ask for help.
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This was really hard for me to learn.
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I
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know.
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Right when you did that, I crossed my legs and my arms.
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I was like, nope.
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I can do it myself.
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Yeah.
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Jess and I are both hyper independent.
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And.
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And that's not always a good thing.
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No, it's not.
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And because you can push people away with that, being hyper independent, because then people think you don't need them.
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And so then they just don't offer their help if you deny it all the time.
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And so sometimes you can put a block in your relationship when you do that.
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So you don't need to feel like you need to be the one to fight it.
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Fix everything or take care of everyone.
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You don't have to do it all.
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You need to be able to lean on your friends, on your partner, on your family, on a therapist, on whatever Google forum it is to gain a sense of balance and a healthier way to relate to what you're going through.
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I was laughing last week let's see, I changed out a toilet, the next day I had to fix a sink because, now listen to me say I had, I had to fix a sink because it was leaking, and then the next day my freaking battery in my car died, which it was totally my fault, and I learned how to change a battery, and I was like, you know what, I officially don't need anybody anymore.
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No.
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I don't know why anybody is even in this house, I can do everything myself, but here's the That's a normal
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ADHD rage
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response.
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It totally is, but here's the thing.
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Apparently, so I changed it, everything worked, the next day I go to get in my car and my new battery is dead.
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I had one delivered because I was like, I don't want to deal with any of that stuff.
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So I delivered it, put it in, the next day it was dead.
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And my husband was like, he had asked me the day before, he goes did you leave anything on?
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No.
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And he just was like, okay.
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Totally left the backlight of my car on.
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And so he jumps my car.
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He helps me because I'm like, at this point, I'm so frustrated to just take you didn't ask for help,
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but you're like, Okay, well, I guess I'm gonna get it now.
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Well, and I'm like, I don't
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know how your electric car thing goes.
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So you do it.
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And so we got my car jumped.
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We're going down to the dealership because something catastrophic must be wrong.
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And then I noticed as he's following me because he was being helpful because he said, Well, your car dies, I you'll have no hazard lights.
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So let me just follow you.
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Okay.
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Okay, cool, fine, whatever.
