20 Signs of CoDependency and Tips to Address Them 

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I grew up with a depressed alcoholic mother and an older sister who emotionally abused me. My Daddy was loving but, was caught up with my mom and sister and older alcoholic brother all the time. I was always trying to make everyone happy. In my first marriage I realized I was co dependent and married to a sociopath. It has been a constant struggle to not fall back into it. I was a psych RN for 25 years or I would probably never have learned. I read co dependent no more in 1991 and it changed my life.

I love how in depth this is and realizing I think I may be codependent in my relationships I'm freaking out because I'm scared that I'm never going to be able to fix myself. I'm fearful that I won't be able to learn how to change so my life can get better. I wish they taught this type of stuff in school like they do math. 😔 In life we learn so much stuff that seems to be irrelevant but stuff like this that seems more important we have to dig for.

Everyone who's reading this, I pray that whatever is hurting or whatever you are constantly stressing about gets better. May the dark thoughts, the overthinking, the doubt exit your mind right now. May replace confusion. May peace and calmness fill your life ❤❤

I’m so happy that our understanding of psychology is where it’s at… everyone who studied this stuff and helped ppl throughout all these years. Amazing and I’m so grateful. This entire video is spot on for me.

Recovering co-dependent here. I have always given sooooo much that I finally tapped out and moved away from everything and everyone I know so I could start over and find out who I am. I really struggle with boundaries of altruism vs self, ie: we are brought up believing that to give to others is Holy vs doing things for my self and being viewed as selfish. I don't know where that line is yet 🤷‍♀️

Excellent, top notch work. Please don't stop coming up with these videos!

This was so educational!!! I am 60 years old and barely realizing where my codependency came from. It finally makes sense to me. You have described me perfectly. I am going to do the work to change this behavior. It feels uncomfortable but I have to take the first step or I will never change. Thanks a million!!!!

Hi, my name is Laine. I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for having these amazing classes on RU-vid. I listen to them & save them to share with others. Your classes have changed my life . Especially in the area of childhood trauma, 0:09 codependency & abandonment issues. Thank you so very much 🙏🏽👍🏽

Couldn't help but laugh at all this - SO many freaking terms and diagnoses to coin who I am after childhood neglect and cptsd. I guess i'm adding this term to my list!!! This is SO ME. My reactions to anything that disrupts my sense of safety- even the most minor risk and inconvenience I am OVER THE TOP with my reaction! Anything where I feel confined, limited, disrupted, unsafe, I go into a complete state of PARANOIA. Like when a lease is ending my heart races in fear- fear the leasing office will not let me continue my lease (for no logical reason). Sometimes i'll be abrasive to test how stable my bearings are- almost like risking the foundation confirms how likely the barriers are to collapse. Being abrasive and unlikable also keeps me safe from users. Im SICKKK! Whats mind boggling is I am also a avoidant attachment personality- so i'll be disassociated and detached and feel nothing for much of anything or anyone yet i'm jittery anxious and codependent and extreme in misc situations. This can't be my life!!!

Ross Rosenberg (author of Human magnet syndrome) says that CoDependency does not exist - instead it is lack of self love. He says that behaviour or care, fawning, empathizing that follow codependency trait - is not pathology at all. That all these behaviours actually work in healthy relationship - whereas if we attract toxic people - these urges become pathology. Our need to explain that is part of abuse, where we are conditioned to be perfect and that we must always have solution in order not to cause pain or temper tantrum in other people. That it is somehow our responsibility how other people feel. In healthy relationship other people would not exploit us or our learned behaviour. They would not parasite over our need to work anything up and solve things beyond our control. If we had self love, self acceptance, all these unhealthy learned behaviour would vanish off. Trauma prevents us from self love and self validation. I would focus on self acceptance rather than picking up on our traits that appear to be codependent. These are safety mechanisms. If we are able to love ourselves, we will reject toxic people and toxic habits - and safety mechanisms will fall off naturally - since there will be no triggers, no danger, no flashbacks and picking up on trauma wound. If we decide to go into civil war with our bad habits - we will develop toxic shame, already present inside us due to abuse and toxic people whom we attracted in our lives until now. As long as we have toxic shame, and as long as we have no self love inside us - nothing will work to heal bad habits and without self love we will never be able to learn healthy defense strategies. Great masters in trauma work such as Peter Levine and Gabor Mate are keep talking that addictions we have - such as codependent behaviour - will not be able to heal if we choose to hate parts of ourselves. IF we do not understand that we are not bad, evil people - we will not be able to understand that there is nothing to fix inside us. If we believe that we must comply to some standards of superiority, being without mistakes - this will make us believe that we are wrong by default. This message that we are not bad person is very hard to understand for targets of trauma, mobbing, bullying and abuse - since the abuse itself is successful attack on our core, self worth. This way, meddling with our mistakes only add up to toxic shame. When we develop self acceptance - we will be able to "fix" anything that is wrong with us - like inability to say No. We will be able to leave things unresolves - without need to fix someone's comment and allegations. This ability to leave things unresolved is huge recovery tip. With instruction (very often present in CBT, self help books and mentors) we believe that we must solve and resolve life - and this belief that we must improve keeps us hooked in codependency and self hate. With abuse we try to fix others and external events and situations - we were conditioned to perform magical acts and to be superhuman in order to be validated, not ignored and accepted. I would focus on our ability to leave things unresolved and see if it helps in calming anxiety and hypervigilance issues. What will happen - toxic people around us will go beserk when we leave arguments, situations, events, things unresolved - and this will be litmus test how to detect covert narcissists in our lives. With self hate we try to get closure - since we have self hate inside, we do not have self worth from which we would otherwise draw light, love, confidence and happiness. Instead, the abuse and toxic shame is driving us to seek approval from others to feel nice, kind, happy and accepted from external resources.

Most important video for poeple suffering from codependency issues. Thanks.

This video is very informative and helpful. In my case, it illustrates how far I’ve come in the past 30-some years in my quest to NOT be codependent. It also reminds me I’m proud of my progress

I feel that this is for me completely !!!😭I allowed many people to take advantage of me because of that tendency to please and do all that I thought I needed to keep others from leaving me!! 💔🖤😭😢I had a very critical and demanding parent while the other left when I was 8. Now I’m a woman, happily married but trying to help others I wrecked havoc my finances and then friends or relatives left anyways!

I can't finish this video now, it is too on point even though nothing is new. But I wanted to say thank you for the video.

When you grow up in extrem Christian surroundings and familiy, where they tell you to be a sacrificing being and to be specially a martyr mother (plus duffering other childhood problems and difficult household), it gets incredible difficult to break out codependency and also be a normal Jesus follower. Because not only do you have to correct all this bad things that happend to you but also find a new realtionship to Jesus and GOD and build up a healthy beliefsystem.

Absolutely stellar; as always 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻😊⭐️

Thanks for the information. I like the way you explain Codependency, clear and easy to understand

I have found the absolute best content on the internet. Thank you Doc Snipes.

What a brilliant video. Thank you! What a long, strange trip it's been... (so far) 👍

Wow this is my mother to a tee (including the chaotic, anger filled childhood). And I see some of these traits in me as I try to deal with her, control her reactions, etc. This was very helpful!

Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge 😊

Thank you for your thoroughness.

Wow. Thank you so much. Love and gratitude from Egypt

Good video thanks for putting this out

I feel so hopeless. I don’t think that I ever be able to have a healthy relationship, I don’t even have idea how that looks or how I’m supposed to act if not in the same controlling way. I panic every time that I think I have to let go…

Brilliant video !!! Thank you kindly Doctor Snipes !

Very nice and lucid talk

Powerful and very impactful

Thank you for a great work. This video is awesome, the explanation is perfect. A lot of stuff to think about in more proactive ways

thank you.. ❤️

That's just perfect!

I feel this deeply. It's me.. I will heal this definitely, challenge accepted!

Thank you❤❤❤

I often make my boundaries into walls...

This was a very helpful video. I am working on these issues and I swear this type of information keeps popping up just when I need it most. Thank you for sharing this, it really does help people!

I don't think you need to have been in a terrible childhood situation to have developed this problem. I think my mother and grandmother developed a sense that no one was there for them, and being conditionally loveable, just by being in a big family, or being in an orphanage. My mum loves me but doesn't express it as much as I'd like. And she's a teacher, so I have that story of feeling like a kid who is in trouble. And I always felt that if I was in trouble or naughty or made a mistake then I was unlovable. So being loved, and even loving myself, became conditional on me always being successful, positive and achieving and doing the right thing.

Boy do I need help.

I have been following along with some of your videos for a while now. Thank you for your work! With this video in particular what were the tips to address these symptoms? I feel like I missed it or it wen over my head.

Ooooooof. 😓 Thank you for your work. 🙏

Just came to terms that this is me. My childhood was very chaotic and now I am a mother and I feel like I’m drowning right now.

Hi Dr. Isn’t it very similar to borderline personality disorder?

10:34 people pleasing, covert contract

I have such low self worth, that as she was describing to me exactly how guilty and ashamed I feel for the things that have gone on in my life I'm thinking "yeah, but it's actually my fault." Jesus Christ, I need therapy.

This sounds very similar to BPD/EUPD @Doc Snipes how do you differentiate between the two? I have BPD but this sounds like my symptoms

This is so interesting. I remember attenpting codependency as a child. Thinking ok, my mum lashes out and hits me so bad and it makes me feel unsafe and miserable. Let me be extra good, be the perfect child and all this will stop. It never worked, her emotions and instability were guiding her not my behaviour, that's when I decided it wasn't efficient and the only way for me to feel safe was numb out stay away as much as possible and probably developped there and then an avoidant attachment style. I can't relate wirh anything on the list except the last one. I yearn for love but at the first sign of anger from a partner I see flashbacks of abuse and feel the urge to check out. Need to work on that big time. It sure is not healthy, my partner is entitled to express anger, in healthy proportion ofc but it seems that since I repress mine, considering it such a bad out of control trait, I don't really allow for a partner to display any themselves either, and even when I do, I look down on it, that's not fair and irrealistic. Thank you very much for the video, so insightful.

My fear of rejection is so strong it ain't funny!!

They hurt other people that aren’t their love focus. I have a sister like this.Very hurtful, manipulative.

Can a person be co-dependant because of past traumas and experiences without the current partner being a dysfunctional person and the co-dependant just act that way out of patterns of the past?

I'm a conclusion jumper too...

A lot of times I don't feel comfortable iny own skin..

it is like you know my Childhood yes there was violence i grew with supper violent parents who also had addiction and i was parentifyed child i want to heal and find psychologist

i can relate some of the signs but not all of them

Ive suffered having a relationship with my sister,because shes in a co dependent relationship,all things we used to do ,she now does with her partner, but wont do anything with me ,otherwise he gets upset 😢this has gone on for 4 years ,i feel shes loosing herself ,everytime ive breached this,she blows up in my face,telling me im poking my nose in her bussiness,i just wanted a relatiinship with my sister ,im at the point of just giving up on her ,as ive made friends of my own now

I'm assuming it means I'm codependent if I'm more confused on what to work on and not sure if I do these things after watching this video 😭

My anger gets quite intense at times ..

Is this different from bad?

I engage in a lot of black and white thinking...

I need help to get out of this I don't even know who I am

It seems like you are combining codependency and enabler. Are they the same? What happens when a codependent gets together with a narcissistic partner? I can see that coming from an abusive/neglectful home, I am absolutely codependent. My husband is a narcissist. We’ve been together for over 30 years. It felt wrong for so long but I didn’t know what was wrong. I realize we are both such a mess, we can’t stay together.

I'm so hard on myself it ain't funny!!

How can i get therapy this is me all the way

4:26

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