Codependency and Toxic Relationships: A Complete Guide to Healing Emotional Manipulation, Lifelong Abuse, Low Self-Esteem, and Poor Boundaries to Feel Secure in Love

By Perla Phillips

Do you think that you must live a flawless life to be accepted? To avoid being alone, do you unjustifiably put up with criticism or other forms of emotional abuse?

 

Perhaps, if you don't get a swift reply to a text, email, or voicemail, you get anxious.

When you sense someone slipping away, do you become needy or clingy?

Do you leave before you can be abandoned? Do you use your intense fear of abandonment as an excuse to throw yourself into your job or numb yourself with food, shopping or drugs? Do the excused or unexplained absences of others make you anxious? Do you continue to be in toxic relationships because they are preferable to being alone? Or do you steer clear of relationships out of fear that you'll get dumped?

 

If some or all of these scenarios sound like your own relationship dynamics, this book is the answer to your all of your codependency woes. You've come to just the right place to start your healing journey and break free of toxic codependency once and for all.

 

Codependency is a draining experience. It deprives you of happiness, tranquility, and the capacity for long-lasting, devoted relationships. It interferes with your adaptability and the flow of relationships with others, including your capacity for giving and receiving love and support, as well as your capacity for communication, compromise, and problem-solving. It also has an impact on your connection with yourself.

As you read this book, consider if your relationships are nourishing or draining to you.

 

In this book, you will learn about:

• What is Codependency?
• Core Fears in Codependent Relationships
• Codependency and Addiction
• Signs of Codependency
• Role of Attachment Styles
• Effective Communication Tips
• Setting Healthy Boundaries
• Ending Codependent Relationships
• Overcoming Fear of Abandonment
• Dealing with Relapse

Heal from all your past relationship wounds, develop self-esteem and break free from depending on other people to feel good about your life. Take charge because this is your life, and you only got one!

 

So what are you waiting for? Buy this book NOW and start the journey of healing today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Perla Phillips
• Release date: Jan 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215183434

Book preview

Introduction

Codependency entails putting one’s needs on the back burner to satisfy the needs of other people. A codependent person places a strong emphasis on others. Other people, like spouses or family, dominate their ideas and behaviors. Codependency often manifests in unhealthy and destructive relationships. A codependent person often seeks to protect others from themselves. They could suffer pain while attempting to rescue an abusive or addictive partner. Codependency does not meet the criteria for a mental health diagnosis, primarily because the signs may be seen almost everywhere. Even so, it may still lead to very significant distress. It may be the case that a person suffering from codependency may have other mental health problems; in such cases, for example, it is common to suffer from anxiety.

Research on codependency dates back over fifty years. It developed from studies on alcoholism. People who were close to someone who was struggling with substance abuse were referred to as co-alcoholics. The self-actualization movement’s humanist psychotherapist Karen Horney (1950) did, however, outline the characteristics of codependents decades before. She said that bad parenting caused people to become estranged from their true selves. In the end, researchers found that co-alcoholics’ dysfunctional behaviors persisted even after the alcoholic had attained abstinence. Later, they discovered that adult offspring of depressive or mentally ill parents, as well as those who grew up in chaotic environments, were also susceptible to it. Codependency was more pervasive than anybody had previously thought in contemporary society. The organization Codependents Anonymous was started in 1986 by two therapists who had lived in violent homes as children.

Other dysfunctional behaviors, like people-pleasing, being indecisive, enabling or obsessing over, comforting, or controlling someone else, are produced when these fundamental symptoms intersect. Codependents tend to remain in violent or one-sided relationships out of fear of being left alone by themselves or abandoned. They often prioritize their relationships, as well as the wants and emotions of others, before their own. They give away their uniqueness and become reliant on someone else. Even when they are miserable, maintaining the happiness of the people around them helps ease their fear of being rejected and abandoned. Due to ongoing abuse or selflessness, people eventually lose confidence in themselves.

While some of these characteristics are common, others may become excessive or obsessive, and codependents often struggle throughout adulthood to achieve enjoyment that is unrelated to another individual (often in intimate relationships). Examples include people who never appear happy without a spouse or romantic relationship to please, those who feel they are the cause of the conflict in violent relationships, and parents who live through their children’s lives and only find happiness through them. If codependency is not addressed, it has been shown to worsen. Furthermore, it often results in extreme anxiety, sadness, or even thoughts of committing suicide with strong urges to act upon them. But, codependency is a disorder that can be treated, and going to 12-Step meetings and receiving individual counseling typically results in extremely high success rates.

Most codependents aren’t fully conscious of their problematic tendencies and poor self-esteem because of denial. Sometimes, it takes a third party to see these tendencies and provide solutions that can enhance communication with a partner, family members, friends, or colleagues. This justifies how crucial counseling is. Making the adjustments needed to rehabilitate also makes people more anxious. As a result, having a strong support system is essential for reinforcing the new habit. This assistance is offered via therapy and 12-Step programs.

This book is here to guide you through your recovery efforts from toxic codependency and heal your broken relationships. It’s time to empower yourself and truly love it. It’s time to break free of this bondage now!

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Chapter 1

Understanding Codependency

To discuss and research a disease, clinicians prefer terminology. It enables them to recognize symptoms, make use of tried-and-true remedies, and comprehend the cause of a problem. It aids in research as well. However, other individuals dislike labels because they minimize each person’s individuality and induce self-doubt. Particularly codependents already have negative self-images! They experience humiliation or inferiority. The advantage of a definition, on the other hand, is that it informs you where to turn for assistance and how to pursue therapy when you can define and identify an issue.

Your predicament has a name and hopefully a remedy. You may take responsibility for your issues after you have a diagnosis. Once you’ve been identified, you may identify others who have had similar experiences and can provide you with resources, tools, and support. You may go straight to the section that offers the solutions you need rather than searching the whole shop for items to purchase.

In this chapter, we’ll go over the topics of defining codependency along with its historical background and the addictive cycle it creates. Then, some major signs for detecting codependency will be discussed, along with some core fears. Lastly, the link between addiction and codependency will be covered.

1.1 What Is Codependency?

Codependency has been contested for decades, although mental health professionals can spot it when they encounter it. Relationships may turn into a minefield of annoyance and disappointment for some individuals. These relationships appear to linger in a state of misery rather than improving. Even though being in a relationship might be challenging, the alternative is worse. Relationship dependence exists under this tension of can’t live with and can’t live without. When a person depends too much on connections to get by in life, this is known as relational codependency.

An individual who is dependent on partnerships struggles to love or trust themselves at their core and relies on others to provide them affirmation and worth. Being with that someone becomes essential to one’s existence when they rely on another for identity, security and purpose in life. If you inquire as to why a person who is subjected to physical violence would continue in that relationship, relationship dependence is the response. If you ask someone why they would put up with being mentally or emotionally abused every day, relationship dependence emerges as the explanation. Relationship dependence is the explanation when people are questioned about why they consistently appear to go from one passionate relationship to another. Relationship dependence may lead to circumstances where the other individual becomes the dependent person’s only source of oxygen and means of life.

People who are reliant on relationships often keep putting up with the worst because they cannot imagine being alone. Dependent individuals may grow to detest and mistrust the other party in the partnership, but they do so more so toward themselves. It might be hard to understand there is a problem when you’ve spent your whole life in dependent relationships since everything looks normal. The connection might seem safer than the alternative, which is to remain alone and without the relationship, even though you are aware that something is wrong.

Any connection must begin with two individuals. However, it is you who must first overcome your dependent on the other person in the relationship. To build healthy relationships, it’s essential to become conscious of your attitudes, actions, and how you react to and respond to other people. Before building good and healthy connections with others, it is important to first understand yourself and your needs.

There is currently no agreed-upon definition of codependency. The American Psychiatric Association has not accepted it. Whether or not there is a clearly identified addict present, whether the individual lives alone or attempts to control someone else’s conduct, codependency often hurts relationships. Many people did not