Can a codependent person be selfish?
August 1, 2022 2:20 AM Subscribe
Someone I don't know very well mentioned recently that I may be codependent. When I read descriptions of codependence like this I relate to many of the characteristics. But I also feel like other accounts of codependence I see involve the person being very self-sacrificing and self-effacing, whereas I'm pretty selfish and can sometimes be shockingly oblivious to people's feelings despite being obsessed with them. I would like to hear about your experiences with feeling selfish in the context of understanding codependency.
My father was an alcoholic. My parents divorced when I was a young boy, my mom took me and moved from our home country to the US (I would spend summers back home). After a few years my mom entered a relationship with a bitter, angry, emotionally abusive man who hated me for being an obstacle to his ability to control her; they ultimately divorced when I was 16. The environment in the home made me retreat into a private world and constantly moving meant I was unable to form strong friendships. I was often pathologized and told I was "seeking attention" when all I wanted was to be left alone. When the pressure got too high I would act out (ironically, acting out often felt like the only way I could get my mother to take an interest in my emotional life, although she did so in a problem-solving way that made me feel worse). I am in my thirties now and still feel like I have a lot of scars from my childhood that haven't healed; I resisted therapy for a long time because my exposure to it as a child was as my mother's attempt to solve my emotional problems in lieu of empathizing with me. I've been in therapy for a couple of years and only in the last few months have I started to let go of a lifelong idea that my mother is a saint, and recognize that in fact in certain ways she was complicit in the abuse while being abused herself. Actually I'm only now starting to think of myself as having trauma. In the past I always dismissed that idea by thinking "well, I have a privileged life now and I haven't been raped or been through a war or anything."
I think I am codependent as a result of this upbringing but for me it seems to manifest differently from most people. I have always felt inferior to my mother, like she was very good at being self-sacrificing and doing things for people, whereas I feel intensely guilty that I'm not good at it. When I read one of those askmes about somebody who has a friend who calls them constantly to complain about their life, I feel a weird sense of jealousy--that this person has succeeded in getting someone else to be dependent on them whereas nobody seems to trust me enough to do that. In many cases it feels like I want that trust from friends or romantic partners but when the chips are down I end up withdrawing rather than actually following through on taking care of them.
This is in part because I have this weird internal hierarchy of "low value" and "high value" "targets" (I wrote this question). I have a generalized obsession with being judged or evaluated negatively by others, but for certain people it becomes especially acute. For instance, when I am romantically invested in someone I am obsessed with what they think about me and terrified of abandonment or rejection to the point of being unable to sleep or think of anything else, but when I feel that they reciprocate they often shift in my mind to being a "low value" target and I find myself disengaging from them. I also make this internal distinction in friendships and my ideal of friendship, as I've started to realize, is this codependent thing where I am obsessing with needing them to need me--but again, only if they're a "high value" target. I feel this makes me a selfish person and every time this happens I experience an intense sense of guilt. It's like I'm codependent but only the bad parts (being controlling, anxious etc) and not the good parts.
I'm sorry for the length here. I am in therapy as I mentioned and am seeking out codependence support groups, but reading AskMe questions and responses that document people's own experiences with things like this has been incredibly helpful for making me feel like it's okay to accept that I have a problem and need help and that I'm not just broken. So my question is, if you have struggled with similar issues, do you also feel selfish? How have you dealt with this in your own life?
My father was an alcoholic. My parents divorced when I was a young boy, my mom took me and moved from our home country to the US (I would spend summers back home). After a few years my mom entered a relationship with a bitter, angry, emotionally abusive man who hated me for being an obstacle to his ability to control her; they ultimately divorced when I was 16. The environment in the home made me retreat into a private world and constantly moving meant I was unable to form strong friendships. I was often pathologized and told I was "seeking attention" when all I wanted was to be left alone. When the pressure got too high I would act out (ironically, acting out often felt like the only way I could get my mother to take an interest in my emotional life, although she did so in a problem-solving way that made me feel worse). I am in my thirties now and still feel like I have a lot of scars from my childhood that haven't healed; I resisted therapy for a long time because my exposure to it as a child was as my mother's attempt to solve my emotional problems in lieu of empathizing with me. I've been in therapy for a couple of years and only in the last few months have I started to let go of a lifelong idea that my mother is a saint, and recognize that in fact in certain ways she was complicit in the abuse while being abused herself. Actually I'm only now starting to think of myself as having trauma. In the past I always dismissed that idea by thinking "well, I have a privileged life now and I haven't been raped or been through a war or anything."
I think I am codependent as a result of this upbringing but for me it seems to manifest differently from most people. I have always felt inferior to my mother, like she was very good at being self-sacrificing and doing things for people, whereas I feel intensely guilty that I'm not good at it. When I read one of those askmes about somebody who has a friend who calls them constantly to complain about their life, I feel a weird sense of jealousy--that this person has succeeded in getting someone else to be dependent on them whereas nobody seems to trust me enough to do that. In many cases it feels like I want that trust from friends or romantic partners but when the chips are down I end up withdrawing rather than actually following through on taking care of them.
This is in part because I have this weird internal hierarchy of "low value" and "high value" "targets" (I wrote this question). I have a generalized obsession with being judged or evaluated negatively by others, but for certain people it becomes especially acute. For instance, when I am romantically invested in someone I am obsessed with what they think about me and terrified of abandonment or rejection to the point of being unable to sleep or think of anything else, but when I feel that they reciprocate they often shift in my mind to being a "low value" target and I find myself disengaging from them. I also make this internal distinction in friendships and my ideal of friendship, as I've started to realize, is this codependent thing where I am obsessing with needing them to need me--but again, only if they're a "high value" target. I feel this makes me a selfish person and every time this happens I experience an intense sense of guilt. It's like I'm codependent but only the bad parts (being controlling, anxious etc) and not the good parts.
I'm sorry for the length here. I am in therapy as I mentioned and am seeking out codependence support groups, but reading AskMe questions and responses that document people's own experiences with things like this has been incredibly helpful for making me feel like it's okay to accept that I have a problem and need help and that I'm not just broken. So my question is, if you have struggled with similar issues, do you also feel selfish? How have you dealt with this in your own life?
Yes. “Selfish” is a pretty judgement-laden term, so I’d rather avoid it. But yes.
Let’s imagine, for example, a codependent person (A) seeks to meet the needs of person B, whether or not person B wants this. Person A becomes the expert in what person B needs. Person A believed she knows best. Person A eventually resents Person B for having these needs or for what Person A perceives as a lack of reciprocation or appreciation for her (often unrequested) assistance. Person A displays controlling traits, because she “knows best” and she grumbles about Person B, making things more unpleasant. Person A has martyred herself and is upset about it.
This all happened because Person A, functioning with crappy skills or at least crappy information, did this. And now she’s upset. And no one recognizes all her work. Because no one asked for all her work.
Person A did this because of unmet needs of her own. It was never about Person B. But Person A blames Person B for putting her through it. For expecting it. It was always about Person A and her needs (influenced by her childhood or other factors). So she’s created a situation that perversely meets her needs and she thinks she’s entitled to complain about a lack of appreciation/reciprocation.
posted by OrangeVelour at 5:15 AM on August 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Let’s imagine, for example, a codependent person (A) seeks to meet the needs of person B, whether or not person B wants this. Person A becomes the expert in what person B needs. Person A believed she knows best. Person A eventually resents Person B for having these needs or for what Person A perceives as a lack of reciprocation or appreciation for her (often unrequested) assistance. Person A displays controlling traits, because she “knows best” and she grumbles about Person B, making things more unpleasant. Person A has martyred herself and is upset about it.
This all happened because Person A, functioning with crappy skills or at least crappy information, did this. And now she’s upset. And no one recognizes all her work. Because no one asked for all her work.
Person A did this because of unmet needs of her own. It was never about Person B. But Person A blames Person B for putting her through it. For expecting it. It was always about Person A and her needs (influenced by her childhood or other factors). So she’s created a situation that perversely meets her needs and she thinks she’s entitled to complain about a lack of appreciation/reciprocation.
posted by OrangeVelour at 5:15 AM on August 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
This is not intended as even an armchair diagnosis, for the reasons mentioned, but the pattern you describe (intense fear of abandonment combined with intermittently idealizing and devaluing people based on their behavior towards you) matches the one often experienced by people with borderline personality disorder. Again, my point is not that this label applies to you, but that this is a common enough pattern of thought and behavior that it is a component of a recognized condition. By the same token it may be clarifying to read about BPD "splitting" (akin to your high value/low value categorization).
posted by babelfish at 7:08 AM on August 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by babelfish at 7:08 AM on August 1, 2022 [3 favorites]
Your behaviors are fairly common for children of alcoholics. The habits you learned were entirely normal responses to an abnormal upbringing. I cannot diagnose you with any personality disorder and I think any diagnosis suggested by strangers on the internet, including me, should be taken with a big grain of salt. But with that said, your experiences sound a lot like mine.
I had a similar situation growing up, and I relate to a lot of what you are saying. I am very avoidant of people and relationships with people. This is an instinctive response to how I was raised. When I feel I am at risk of getting too close, too intimate, too unguarded with another person, my body and mind shut me down and I become cold and aloof without even meaning to. This is to keep me safe, because in the environment I grew up in there was no shelter from the big, rampaging, terrifying emotions of people who were much larger, smarter, older, and stronger than me, people I had to depend on for my survival. The rules changed every day; the same innocent thing I did one day, the one that got me chuckles and affection, would be greeted with simmering anger the next day. I learned that my emotions were inseparable from my family's emotions, and theirs were inseparable from mine. (This is called toxic, codependent enmeshment.) My emotions were not acknowledged or mirrored consistently, which meant I did not develop a sense of self that was independent from other people's reactions to me. I felt that I had no protected interior life, no solid bedrock of selfhood, so I learned to turn everything off, turn into a little stone in the hopes of being ignored. Shutting myself down and closing off from people is how I survived my childhood, because there were no boundaries and no escape. I would be used first as an outlet for my parents' anger when their anger overwhelmed them, then used again like a teddy bear when their emotional neediness overwhelmed them.
Now, a secondary effect of this was that I had to constantly monitor what other people thought of me and how they felt. So despite my avoidant habits, I still care intensely about what other people think of me... but when I am in a codependent frame of mind, my caring about them is not really about them, it's about me. This is also for my survival. In order to survive, I need to get people to like me and approve of me, but I also need them to stay away from me at all costs. In other words, I need everyone to like me but no one to love me. So when I am codependent, I do not care about another person for that person's sake; I care about that person for my sake.
"What's the bare minimum I have to do to get you to like me, approve of me, and then leave me alone?" My whole life, every interaction with other people, was built around that question because of the environment I grew up in. When I am in a codependent frame of mind, I treat people around me as problems to be solved and obstacle courses to be navigated so I can get them to validate me and then leave me alone, because I imagine that being alone is the only thing that is completely safe. (It's not.) To use your example: if someone called me to vent about their problems, I would be so scared that I would instinctively shut down and become nearly unresponsive. My sister did this not too long ago, a very unusual move for her, and I felt something very close to panic. I felt (1) anxiety that I had to Say The Right Words while also being as noncommittal as possible, and (2) anger and resistance over all the times my parents had violated my emotional boundaries and used me like a tool to soothe their own emotions.
Since I was used like a tool to solve and soothe my parents' emotional problems, since my interior life was ignored except as it came to bear on their emotional lives and their sense of security, then it is not surprising that I also have an uncanny ability to ignore other peoples' emotional lives except as it comes to bear on my sense of selfhood and security. This is not a judgment on me, it's just the habits I learned.
Codependency can manifest as emotional enmeshment, which sounds like your mother's MO, or it can manifest as emotionally avoidant behavior, which sounds more like your MO. But you can absolutely swing back and forth between those states, because they are two sides of the same coin.
Remember: your habits are normal responses to an abnormal upbringing. Keep going to therapy. Try asking them about children of alcoholic families. It can get better, but it will probably get better slowly.
posted by cubeb at 7:45 AM on August 1, 2022 [16 favorites]
I had a similar situation growing up, and I relate to a lot of what you are saying. I am very avoidant of people and relationships with people. This is an instinctive response to how I was raised. When I feel I am at risk of getting too close, too intimate, too unguarded with another person, my body and mind shut me down and I become cold and aloof without even meaning to. This is to keep me safe, because in the environment I grew up in there was no shelter from the big, rampaging, terrifying emotions of people who were much larger, smarter, older, and stronger than me, people I had to depend on for my survival. The rules changed every day; the same innocent thing I did one day, the one that got me chuckles and affection, would be greeted with simmering anger the next day. I learned that my emotions were inseparable from my family's emotions, and theirs were inseparable from mine. (This is called toxic, codependent enmeshment.) My emotions were not acknowledged or mirrored consistently, which meant I did not develop a sense of self that was independent from other people's reactions to me. I felt that I had no protected interior life, no solid bedrock of selfhood, so I learned to turn everything off, turn into a little stone in the hopes of being ignored. Shutting myself down and closing off from people is how I survived my childhood, because there were no boundaries and no escape. I would be used first as an outlet for my parents' anger when their anger overwhelmed them, then used again like a teddy bear when their emotional neediness overwhelmed them.
Now, a secondary effect of this was that I had to constantly monitor what other people thought of me and how they felt. So despite my avoidant habits, I still care intensely about what other people think of me... but when I am in a codependent frame of mind, my caring about them is not really about them, it's about me. This is also for my survival. In order to survive, I need to get people to like me and approve of me, but I also need them to stay away from me at all costs. In other words, I need everyone to like me but no one to love me. So when I am codependent, I do not care about another person for that person's sake; I care about that person for my sake.
"What's the bare minimum I have to do to get you to like me, approve of me, and then leave me alone?" My whole life, every interaction with other people, was built around that question because of the environment I grew up in. When I am in a codependent frame of mind, I treat people around me as problems to be solved and obstacle courses to be navigated so I can get them to validate me and then leave me alone, because I imagine that being alone is the only thing that is completely safe. (It's not.) To use your example: if someone called me to vent about their problems, I would be so scared that I would instinctively shut down and become nearly unresponsive. My sister did this not too long ago, a very unusual move for her, and I felt something very close to panic. I felt (1) anxiety that I had to Say The Right Words while also being as noncommittal as possible, and (2) anger and resistance over all the times my parents had violated my emotional boundaries and used me like a tool to soothe their own emotions.
Since I was used like a tool to solve and soothe my parents' emotional problems, since my interior life was ignored except as it came to bear on their emotional lives and their sense of security, then it is not surprising that I also have an uncanny ability to ignore other peoples' emotional lives except as it comes to bear on my sense of selfhood and security. This is not a judgment on me, it's just the habits I learned.
Codependency can manifest as emotional enmeshment, which sounds like your mother's MO, or it can manifest as emotionally avoidant behavior, which sounds more like your MO. But you can absolutely swing back and forth between those states, because they are two sides of the same coin.
Remember: your habits are normal responses to an abnormal upbringing. Keep going to therapy. Try asking them about children of alcoholic families. It can get better, but it will probably get better slowly.
posted by cubeb at 7:45 AM on August 1, 2022 [16 favorites]
I think Codependence is a misnomer in that it suggests a bidirectional exchange. A codependent person can operate in a unidirectional way in order to gain compliance or gratitude from a person. For example it can include taking on a savior role for selfish reasons, such as being able to control the outcome on your terms, or to try to force someone to be grateful to you in order to ensure their future compliance or affection.
posted by jello at 9:23 AM on August 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by jello at 9:23 AM on August 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Lots of good responses here, but OrangeVelour's really hits home to me as a person who is codependent. The need to be wanted, needed, loved, appreciated is so strong for me that I will completely railroad another person in the name of "helping" them.
A good example: A few years ago, I was going on a trip with a few friends, one of whom was heavily pregnant at the time. It was a very hot summer and I found out a few days before we were supposed to leave that the place we had booked to stay (which was in my name and reserved by me) did not have air conditioning. Instead of asking any of my friends if they wanted to try to find an alternative, I went ahead and canceled the Airbnb, which resulted in the loss of part of our deposit, and booked us a hotel instead.
This might have been the right move, but obviously I went about it completely the wrong way without asking or even telling any of my friends before I proceeded with it. I just wanted to be in control, appreciated, told that I did the right thing. Two of my friends handled it fine, but my pregnant friend was absolutely livid as we she was struggling with money and now had lost part of her deposit, and I had used the justification of her being pregnant with our other friends as to why I had canceled. It was the biggest fight that my friend and I ever had.
This particular incident absolutely helped me understand my codependency in a new way because when my frien and I started arguing about it, one of the things that she said to me was "You just always have to be in charge and make decisions for everyone else." The funny thing is that as soon as I she said that I could understand why she felt that way, but it absolutely isn't true! As a codependent person I so desperately want someone else to take the pressure off of me and not be in charge. So it helped me see that disconnect between how other people perceive my behavior and what I actually feel. It taught be to be much more mindful of when I try to take control and why. Am I doing it because I genuinely want to help? Or am I doing it because of all of those old wounds that are telling me that if I don't jump in and take charge, there's no telling what might happen and I could end up being hurt or disappointed.
posted by anotheraccount at 11:34 AM on August 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
A good example: A few years ago, I was going on a trip with a few friends, one of whom was heavily pregnant at the time. It was a very hot summer and I found out a few days before we were supposed to leave that the place we had booked to stay (which was in my name and reserved by me) did not have air conditioning. Instead of asking any of my friends if they wanted to try to find an alternative, I went ahead and canceled the Airbnb, which resulted in the loss of part of our deposit, and booked us a hotel instead.
This might have been the right move, but obviously I went about it completely the wrong way without asking or even telling any of my friends before I proceeded with it. I just wanted to be in control, appreciated, told that I did the right thing. Two of my friends handled it fine, but my pregnant friend was absolutely livid as we she was struggling with money and now had lost part of her deposit, and I had used the justification of her being pregnant with our other friends as to why I had canceled. It was the biggest fight that my friend and I ever had.
This particular incident absolutely helped me understand my codependency in a new way because when my frien and I started arguing about it, one of the things that she said to me was "You just always have to be in charge and make decisions for everyone else." The funny thing is that as soon as I she said that I could understand why she felt that way, but it absolutely isn't true! As a codependent person I so desperately want someone else to take the pressure off of me and not be in charge. So it helped me see that disconnect between how other people perceive my behavior and what I actually feel. It taught be to be much more mindful of when I try to take control and why. Am I doing it because I genuinely want to help? Or am I doing it because of all of those old wounds that are telling me that if I don't jump in and take charge, there's no telling what might happen and I could end up being hurt or disappointed.
posted by anotheraccount at 11:34 AM on August 1, 2022 [4 favorites]
It might be helpful for you to look into avoidant and anxious-avoidant attachment styles too. They have some overlap with signs of codependence, and your idea of “high value” = hard to get and “low value” = people who actually pay attention to you especially stood out to me because this can be a common pattern in avoidant and anxious-avoidant attachment. It’s a way of proving your worth to yourself. I think it’s pretty common to feel selfish in the scenario you’ve described because you were made to feel that having any feelings at all was a burden on other people. That’s not healthy for anyone, especially a child. I hope you are able to continue on your healing journey. I’m still learning to feel my feelings.
posted by notheotherone at 8:22 PM on August 1, 2022
posted by notheotherone at 8:22 PM on August 1, 2022
"Obsession" over "high-value" people is idealization. It's not uncommon for certain people to idealize others, especially if their self-esteem is suffering or if they feel a lack of belonging. Try to notice when you're idealizing others and wanting them to want you. I've suffered from this too and it's a messed-up way of trying to determine worth -- if the cool people like me, I must be cool too. I think if you've been in the habit of idealizing others since childhood, this is a facet of your personality that has formed because somewhere in early childhood you got the message (real or imagined) that you weren't on the same level as other people, you didn't belong in quite the same way as others, and therefore it's in your nature to idealize certain people and dismiss others.
Codependence is a term that is not necessarily "clinical" or accepted in the realms of professional mental health. I have done a lot of researching and reading on it -- if you call Melodie Beattie and Darlence Lancer research -- and the whole idea is that codependence is about control and low self-esteem. You can't feel good unless the other is doing what you want. I can see how you may label yourself as codependent because your mood, worth, or happiness, is dependent on if high-value people accept you.
The work is accepting yourself and realizing that you already belong. When you practice seeing people as they are, and treating yourself and others as worthy, you might have better luck in relationships. Right now you're seeking out people to validate your worth and belonging. If you no longer like the person who likes you this sounds like run-of-the mill poor self-esteem and behavioral mechanisms that you've had for a long time.
I would move forward without blame -- don't spend a lot of time blaming your parents or yourself. Dwelling on blame or trauma will suck a lot of good years from your life. We're all trying to be okay in the world and what happened, happened. I'm not saying childhood wounds and traumas did not affect you. I'm saying it's better to move forward. Try not to label people and instead see them as the complex humans that they are. Approach relationships without an agenda. Instead of thinking of what they can give you, what can you give? How are you showing up? How are you enjoying being with others? Can you be in the moment, or are you seeking something for your ego? Notice when you're seeking or trying to gain something.
posted by loveandhappiness at 8:34 AM on August 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
Codependence is a term that is not necessarily "clinical" or accepted in the realms of professional mental health. I have done a lot of researching and reading on it -- if you call Melodie Beattie and Darlence Lancer research -- and the whole idea is that codependence is about control and low self-esteem. You can't feel good unless the other is doing what you want. I can see how you may label yourself as codependent because your mood, worth, or happiness, is dependent on if high-value people accept you.
The work is accepting yourself and realizing that you already belong. When you practice seeing people as they are, and treating yourself and others as worthy, you might have better luck in relationships. Right now you're seeking out people to validate your worth and belonging. If you no longer like the person who likes you this sounds like run-of-the mill poor self-esteem and behavioral mechanisms that you've had for a long time.
I would move forward without blame -- don't spend a lot of time blaming your parents or yourself. Dwelling on blame or trauma will suck a lot of good years from your life. We're all trying to be okay in the world and what happened, happened. I'm not saying childhood wounds and traumas did not affect you. I'm saying it's better to move forward. Try not to label people and instead see them as the complex humans that they are. Approach relationships without an agenda. Instead of thinking of what they can give you, what can you give? How are you showing up? How are you enjoying being with others? Can you be in the moment, or are you seeking something for your ego? Notice when you're seeking or trying to gain something.
posted by loveandhappiness at 8:34 AM on August 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
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Second, as you have started to notice, perhaps the world was not black and white, and your mom may have been a saint in some aspects, yet complicit in both her abuse and yours in other aspects. You may want to discuss with your therapist two possibilities, which may lead to other aspects of your past you may wish to explore. a) narcissism, and b) empathy (or lack thereof)
Why narcissism? I was reviewing a book about narcissism between mothers and daughters, and some of that seems to echo your relationship with your mother, about a detached mother who only shows interest when you are acting out (crying for attention), and only to manage you. In a certain aspect, you are suffering from trust issues, social anxiety, and relationship issues, which are also symptoms of narcissistic abuse.
As for empathy or lack thereof, your description of how your mother would try to "solve" your problem instead of merely commiserate with you is sometimes a stereotype of "men vs women" differences... Men tend to want to solve problems, while women tend to want to cry or rant about problems. As I said, stereotype, but the idea is some people tend to jump to "solving", while others react by "empathizing". Seems your mother is for the former instead of the latter. This may cause long term problems, as emotions are suppressed instead of properly... dealt with / processed.
posted by kschang at 5:08 AM on August 1, 2022