Dysfunctional give and take

I’ve recently been working with groups of women who are unable to stop ‘giving’ to others. But their behaviour is unhealthy because it’s ‘co-dependent’. Co-dependence sounds like something good, but it isn’t. It’s very different from ‘inter-dependence’, which is a characteristic exhibited by good leaders or emotionally mature people. Inter-dependence is a place beyond an ego or fear-driven need for independence, which is often mistakenly regarded as being the pinnacle of human development.

Co-dependence is not a ‘condition’ but a behavioural pattern that seeks to fulfill a desperate gap in one’s life. The label originally described the partner of an alcoholic or drug addict. Meaning that sometimes, partners unwittingly sustain or ‘support’ the habits of their counterparts just by always ‘being there’ for them and appearing to care for them. So each colludes with the other, for the fulfilment of their particular dysfunctional script.

Co-dependence usually surfaces in people from dysfunctional families. Where it was never safe to express the emotion one felt. Because it might have triggered a negative or violent reaction in someone else. Or the emotion was so intense we were afraid that if we began to express it, we’d also be unable to control it. It was usually coupled with not getting sufficient or indeed any love or support from the significant so-called care-givers in our early life. We quickly learned that if we did things for them or other people, we somehow ‘bought’ attention and maybe even some appreciation. The terrible sadness though, is that this unconscious pattern is then superimposed on many of our subsequent relationships and interactions as the ‘blueprint’ for the way the world works. Which of course, it doesn’t. But it’s the way our particular sad, distorted world works - driven by our quest to be loved.

Some common characteristics of the co-dependent person are:

1) They are unable to say ‘no’ and will almost always put the needs of others before their own.

2) They will usually appear to be very ‘giving’ people. Of themselves and their energies.

3) They attract an abnormal number of ‘needy’ people around them.

4) If you ask them why they help ‘everybody’, they’ll usually give you a neat, packaged, religiously based answer, which will be difficult to argue against rationally.

5) If you ask them to describe how they would know if someone loved them just for themselves, and not for what they could do for that person’s career, social or financial standing, they can’t answer the question because they’ve usually never experienced such love.

6) If you ask them what emotional (not sexual) intimacy would feel like, they don’t know.

7) They often feel intense emotion, but are unable to clearly define quite what that emotion is. For example: Is it fear, anger, resentment, or self-pity? They feel safer leaving out the detail of emotions because they’ve been programmed into experiencing identifiable emotion as ‘unsafe.’

8) They often have few if any, real friends. Most of the people around them are parasites, leeches and ‘takers’.

9) Their relationship difficulties, both personal and career, exhibit a repeated, predictable and consistent pattern of failure - usually ending in disillusionment and sadness, that once again they’ve been cheated of ‘love’.

10) They may be sexually promiscuous, because their desperate need for intimacy can appear to be satisfied for a time by sexual activity.

11) They will often claim to be happy ‘being on their own’.

12) They may appear to be ‘super-copers’ and give the impression of being incredibly ‘together’. Quite often their real confidence or status is the exact opposite of what they project. This is called ‘paradoxical co-dependence’. Because their projection and thus the perception of them by others belies the reality.

13) They are often found serving in the health or ‘caring’ professions and institutions or with charitable bodies. They’ll be more than adequately represented among psychologists or counsellors. Religious organizations will also have their quota.

Equally dysfunctional, but at the exact opposite end of the continuum, are the ‘takers’. They can spot a ‘giver’ at a thousand metres. These two types often land up in relationships, the one giving and the other taking - with each hoping to receive love through their negatively collusive but unconscious behaviour. It’s destined to end only in resentment, unhappiness and depression.

The healing lies in recognizing the driving need behind the behavior. Starting with a reasonably insignificant or dispensable relationship, one needs to realize that this behaviour will remain unrewarded, and cut loose. When you break the pattern once and the sky doesn’t fall on your head, it’s a whole lot easier to do it again, and again. Until you’re finally liberated.

Towards ‘curing’ co-dependency

You may recall that co-dependency is the ‘dis-ease’ of being unable to stop helping others or giving of yourself. Not unhealthy on its own, but when driven by a hope or desire for a ‘return’ in terms of love, it isn’t good.

I always class myself as a ‘partially healed’ co-dependent and perfectionist. Like alcoholics, I think we’re at risk of ‘back-sliding’ as fundamentalist Christians might say. So you need to revisit your temptation every now and again to make sure you’re still intellectually in charge of the impulse. Actions need to be sifted through your ‘Why am I doing this?’ filter.

Here are some practical remedial approaches I’ve used:

1) Choose a relationship in which you’ve consistently given with no return. Then, consciously - that’s the key - cut back on what you’re doing for the person. Stop always ‘being there' for them or making yourself available to meet their demands. Toss away the ‘unstoppable-giver’ sign on your forehead.

2) Build a little time delay into your responses. Instead of an automatic ‘yes’ popping out of your mouth when you’re asked for help, be quite comfortable with saying, “Let me think about that and I’ll get back to you.” Then, take a careful look at the motive underpinning what you do. Are you hoping to ‘please’ this person - yet again? Are you hoping to earn respect, admiration, gratitude or even love through doing what you’re doing? If so, rather don’t do it! If you choose to do it, without expectation of any return, that’s fine. When you’ve had enough of the person and their incessant demands and you find the moment, say something like, “I’ve given your request some thought and I’m afraid I can’t accommodate it at present.” You aren’t obliged to give some long justifying excuse. You’re a free agent and you can say “no” - albeit diplomatically.

You’re going to feel awful. Because you’ve submitted to this same ‘can’t say no’ impulse so many times, you’ll experience withdrawal symptoms. Respond like this several times to the same ‘unstoppable-taker’ person and they’ll invariably withdraw from you and find some other sucker to fulfill their excessive and unreasonable expectations and demands.

Realise that people who engage with you only because of what you do, or can do for them, are not decent people. They’re exploiters. But you’ve allowed and accepted that behaviour from them. Raise a yellow card. If they don’t get the message, raise a red card and send them off your playing field!

3) Look carefully at your sense of self-worth. Somewhere along the line it’s been dented or damaged and you’re hoping that the ‘repair’ will come through unremitting giving of yourself to others. It won’t.

4) Know that even if you’re ill tempered, unhelpful or whatever on a particular day, it doesn’t make you a bad, unworthy or inferior person.

If you have cellulite on your bum, a beer boep, a pock-marked skin or a big nose – you’re simply a pretty regular person. The reassurance is that most people will look ordinary when they’re old anyhow. As the saying goes, ‘You’re born with the face God gave you, and by forty, you have the face you deserve!’ What’s inside of you and most dominant in your thinking pattern will etch itself on your features. Looking at people’s faces is like reading maps of their emotions. So while you may not be physically beautiful to look at, your face can be the mirror of the real beauty - what’s inside of you - your considerate thinking, your compassion, your supportiveness. Some of that compassion and supportiveness needs to be self-directed.

5) Let go of guilt. It’s one of the most powerful manipulation forces in co-dependency. Stop allowing your life to be driven by the whims of others. Make your own choices and be comfortable with them. To heck with what others may start to think. You won’t produce a tidal wave of change overnight anyhow. You’re going to pick on your biggest ‘gotta help so and so’ vulnerabilities and let them go. In little doses. You’ll have to keep reminding yourself how mentally healthy this is.

6) Keep repeating the mantra, ‘My self-worth does not depend on what others take from me.’ That’s different from what you genuinely and intelligently ‘give’ to others. When you let go of the leeches, ticks and other bloodsuckers, you’ll find time in your life to forge deeper, meaningful, sustainable, non-transaction-driven relationships. You will have given up on emotional ‘shop-keeping’ and co-dependency.