Realising your co-dependent and how to navigate this

Hey @Oshun ,

I lived a very co-dependant life in the past. So much so that I needed to be around the significant other ALL THE TIME. If I wasn't around them, I felt I couldn't cope. It was like an obsession. Every moment was thinking about the person and needing their approval or needing them to be next to me.

Looking back, I could be likened to a leech. I sucked the like out of them. It was absolutely unhealthy. It was my BPD co-dependency which made me feel like i needed to be cared for and looked after. If this person was around someone else, I'd get extremely jealous, upset and angry.

If they said they'd meet me somewhere and was 30 seconds late, I would fly off the handle because I'd think they'd forgotten about me.

Looking back, I feel it was because I didn't have my own identity. I struggled to know who I was.

However, with treatment for my BPD, I no longer have those issues. The significant person is now just a person. I don't love them, I don't hate them. They are just there. I don't have attachment issues and I'm so much more content in life. If anything, life has been the best for me these last few years.

But hell, it's been a lot of hard work.

But totally worth it.

Just know you are not alone in feeling this way. I don't think I got out of it until my mid-thirties.

@Oshun ,

How are you today?

Thankyou for your enlightening reply, I resonate with what your saying and your experience and it’s hard for me to know somethings not quite right within me, but then to also believe that they just arnt doing enough to show me they love me and support me…. Means I’m going in this back and forth in my mind, it’s true it’s just co-dependency I’m finding hard to see what I SHOULD be feeling like because my emotions just get the better of me.

im trying to stop doing subconscious things for his attention and I realise this is pretty much my whole identity… unconsciously mirroring him or moving in ways so he finds me attractive…. I think I don’t have my own identity either….

he’s very secure but not very emotional, so when I explain deep concepts for my thinking he really doesn’t get it and we end up even further from fixing it….. maybe my life has guided me to the relationship where I HAVE to learn to be alone ….. as I’ve always had boyfriends as being a kid was so emotionally wrecked for me only the love from a boy gave me anything so I’d do anything for it

what was the first step you took? And do you still have moments now?

I’m managing the insane ness it feels to try to not be codependent…. How are you?

The fact that you have the awareness of what you are doing is a great start @Oshun . For me, the person I was dependent in was also very stable and not emotional. I think that’s why it gave me stability, or so I thought. I think I live off their stability as I tried to find my own identity.

The first step for me was for once honestly reaching out for help with a commitment to get better. My life was at a point where I knew I’d be dead very soon the way I was going.

In the past, it was others who wanted me to get better. But after 15 years of struggling and fighting myself, I had to let go and surrender to say I needed help and was ready for it.

MBT treatment was extremely difficult. I saw others drop away and not continue. I was on the verge of giving up many times. But I’m glad I stuck to it. That’s why I’m here.

There is hope. Things will get better.

Also, I never had to fight not being co-dependent. It sort of fell away as I went through therapy. This was the same with self-harm. I didn’t have to actively try and stop. It just happened. @Oshun

But yes, I can relate to the insane-ness.