In recovery from narcissistic abuse or any other kind of toxic relationship, many of you listening have come to the conclusion that you are codependent. But sometimes it can be difficult to understand exactly what it means to be codependent.
Although codependency isn’t a personality disorder, it dances very well with personality disorders and so most aware codependents are also aware of what personality disorders are and how they are affected by them.
Ironically we as codependents often spend a lot more time studying and understanding personality disorders like Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, than we do our own disorder of Codependency.
There are some hard truths we need to look at and understand in order to truly heal and I want to talk about some of these hard truths today.
First of all, the term Codependency emerged out of the addiction recovery movement. It evolved from the term co-alcoholic, which was the person who was with the alcoholic, the wife, the husband or the family member. But it continued to evolve to cover all addictions and then it settled into its own as a separate, unique addictive disorder with its own recovery program right along side Alcoholics anonymous, Drug Addicts Annonymous, Sex and Love addicts Annonymous and so on.
The recovery group for Codependents anonymous is CODA and like Alcoholism and Drug Addiction, in the disease model of recovery, Codependency is looked upon as a disease.
In the recovery movement, the disease suggests there is no cure, only recovery. This means once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. Most alcoholics can never drink again without relapsing back into their disease. Many people believe the same is true for codependents. Once a codependent, always a codependent, but we can “get sober,” so to speak and learn how to have healthier relationships. Still the danger of relapse is always there.
We need to stop trying to get love from people who don’t have the emotional capacity to give it. We have to stop putting ourselves in harms way. We need to leave our toxic relationships where we are being abused, neglected, demeaned, devalued, betrayed, and cheated on, so that we can create a healing environment for ourselves and the abandoned, neglected, child within.
We need to face our own addictions to toxic partners and find comfort and safety in relationships where our basic needs for love, kindness, acceptance and respect are met. This doesn’t happen overnight. It is a journey!
This is the journey that is the only path really worth taking. It is our recovery! It is the only way we will ever truly find health and happiness. As long as we stay in our addiction, going back to the same toxic partner or finding new toxic partners, we will never heal and always be in deep pain.
If you want to get out of pain and find your way back to yourself; to health and healing you need to be willing to take the leap and get into recovery.
Take the path back to SELF! You will be glad you did.
