Codependency

Picture these three scenarios:

1) You’re at home, and you hear a noise outside. When you investigate, you discover that your house has no front door, and your intrusive neighbor has just walked in and helped herself to something from your refrigerator.

2) Someone knocks at your front door. You look through the peephole, and you don’t recognize the man outside. Instead of going away, he knocks harder and then insists that you let him in. Even though you don’t want to do so, you find yourself unlocking the door and letting him in.

3) A friend of yours comes over to visit. When she knocks on the door, you try to open it, only to find that it is locked with a padlock to which you do not have the key.

These scenarios all sound ridiculous, don’t they? If you look at them literally, yes, they do. They make sense, though, if you look at them as analogies that describe problems with personal boundaries. These boundary problems are often called codependency.

Do you have problems with personal boundaries (in other words, are you codependent)? Take the quiz at the bottom of the page to find out if you may be codependent.

So what are boundaries, anyway? They are the dividing lines between you and other people. If you have no boundaries, you have no sense of yourself apart from other people, and you don’t know how to keep others out (scenario #1). Or you don’t know how to make sure your needs are met because you are putting everyone else’s needs and demands first, whether you want to or not (scenario #2). If you have rigid boundaries, you don’t (or can’t) let anyone in or let yourself out (scenario #3).

Many of us don’t do well at setting and maintaining boundaries. Take, for instance, the word “No.” How many of us can comfortably say “No” to requests from others? Not many! Whether intentionally or not, many of us were raised with the belief that we exist for others more than for ourselves.

Where do problems with boundaries come from? We learn (or fail to learn) about boundaries from our families. In a healthy family, each person has a right to some privacy and all of the members of the family respect each others’ needs. Parents are parents and kids are kids; parents don’t act like children, and children don’t have to act like parents.

All families, of course, fall short of this ideal at times, although some do better than others. Many of my clients grew up with alcoholic parents. In alcoholic families, the boundaries between family members are not well defined, and are not respected. There are very rigid boundaries between the family and the rest of the world, however; family members present a good face to the world and hide the secret of their family dysfunction. These things are also true of families in which emotional, physical, or sexual abuse occurs.

So, what does it look like if someone has good boundaries? If we continue with the house analogy from the beginning of the article, someone who has good boundaries has a front door which is generally kept locked, but which can be unlocked and opened for friends or other safe people. Healthy boundaries not only help us to say “no” to what we don’t want; they also help us to say “yes” to what we do want.

And how do you achieve this? Learn to listen to yourself. Ask yourself what you need or want and what feels right and safe to you. Then respect yourself enough to allow it. If you place a reasonable amount of value on yourself, you will make sure that your own needs are met but will also, when appropriate, help other people to meet their needs. You will learn to recognize and accept your own feelings and those of others so that you can let people get to know you
better if you choose to do so, but keep them out if you don’t.

Look at the people who are closest to you. Do they respect you and your needs? Do they feel safe to you? Do they make requests rather than demands, and are they willing to take “no” for an answer? If they are not willing or able to respect your boundaries, what are your options? Can you redefine or, if need be, end the relationship?

In the end, the only person who is responsible for maintaining your boundaries is you. What will you do to make the changes that you need to make?

If you would like to explore these issues further, please call me at 410-888-0590.