Shedding the Weight Of Codependency

Therapist: … sounds like you’re going through a break up

Me: well…yeah…I don’t know really…

Therapist: What makes your friendship so special?

Me: Our friendship is really genuine.  She’s one of the people who understood and validated me when I felt invisible…and now I just feel like things are different between us. I mean, I’ve lost friends but I don’t get why I’m sadly ruminating on the possibilities of our friendship ending.

Therapist: Don’t you think you were using her to validate you?

Me: I think so…

Therapist: …and now it feels like you’re losing a part of you because she’s no longer doing the things that you need her to do in order for you to feel validated.

Me: I didn’t see it in that way. Guess that explains the mixed feelings I’ve been experiencing regarding my friendship with her lately.

This is a conversation that transpired between my therapist and I a week ago. I was feeling saddened by the possibility of the end of a friendship based on the vibe I got from our texting days before. My therapist made me aware of the fact that the reason I was saddened by the thought of losing this particular friendship is the validation I had received from her all these years. I remembered how she saw my worth and value; how she made me feel accepted, how she listened when I shared my grievances.  I cherished our special moments going out to restaurants/malls, travelling together, going to conferences, and divine moments in joint prayer. Due to the distance and changes in the dynamics of our friendship; we’re not able to do all that we used to do. This I believe is what saddened me and made believe that our friendship was nearing its end.

Hebrews 12: 1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

1 Timothy 4:7 Train yourself to be Godly.

Those two verses were my theme as I entered into 2020. I would incorporate them as I meditated on my goal for this year: Let go off anything that entangles you and train yourself to be Godly. I thought it only meant taking a break from social media or letting go off someone who just brought lust and confusion into my life. Only to find out that there are other things I have to entangle myself from such as codependency. I came across this term back in 2016 but didn’t really grasp what it meant. And now after experiences of staying in relationships with men who mistreated me or taking the martyr role of a mother to my cousin’s child or giving out money to sustain friendships- I realized that I am codependent. Codependency teaches us to believe that unless we gain the approval of others, we are unworthy. So, in the past I was striving to gain the approval of my parents and when I discovered recently that I would never get their approval I stopped seeking it  all-together from everyone else. That was the beginning of weaning myself off codependency.

I mentioned a conversation I had with my therapist regarding the fear of losing my friendship because my friend validated me without fail. As a result, I clung to our friendship making sure that I’d do anything to sustain it. A slight of indifference or distance in communication would scratch my abandonment wound. As I sat with my therapist it dawned on me that perhaps my friend had filled some of the parental void I had experienced which really is not healthy on my side. Love should be the foundation of a friendship not validation seeking.  I have a colleague who also listens to, understands and validates me often.  That resulted once again in me overvaluing her opinions and depending on her to make decisions for my life and to validate me. One day I got into an altercation with another colleague in her presence. This colleague had always been abusive towards me- alternating hot and cold (Jekyll and Hyde) yet nice to other people and on that particular day it was no different. I was saying something holding an invigilation time table and this colleague grabbed it saying, “What is this person saying.” I felt tie-knots in my tummy by how he’d always managed to make me feel inferior or treat me with contempt in front of people yet showed respect to them. Angrily and with tears, I confronted him on that and left the room.

Later on my colleague told me she didn’t see anything wrong with what that guy did and felt like I had overreacted. The person who had always validated my perceptions and emotions was disagreeing with me in a situation that made me feel abused. I felt extremely disappointed because I expected her to validate me. I’m taking that weight off other people and learning to validate myself.  It’s not right for someone to speak to me in the third person the way this colleague did. It’s not right that he calls me ugly and old; telling me no one will ever want me. It's not right that he tries to isolate me and cause divisive tactics between my colleagues and I. It’s not right that he comes in the office one morning deciding not to speak to me but chooses to be nice to everyone else and only speaks to me when it suits him!  I have a right to be angry and confront such abusive behavior if needs be; and I’m never going to place that burden upon anyone else to tell me what to feel or to validate my perceptions. Thank God He bears our burdens. Psalm 68:19 says, "Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens."

Back in 2017 when I was seeing a toxic so-called pastor, I went to his church with him. When we got there; he told me that he usually sits in the front so I had to find where I’m going to sit. He walked fast ahead of me demonstrating that he didn’t want to sit with me. When I got home I told my mother about the incident and she went and told my father. My father said; “A seat is a seat. What is the big deal about a seat?” Although I was sad, what he said made me doubt my perceptions. Now that I don’t need his approval anymore I realize that’s just how misogynistic men treat women – after all that’s how he treats my mother! I am breaking that cycle of succumbing to generational abuse. I refuse to have my perceptions twisted by people who normalize abnormal behavior, who condition me to accept less and who silence me when I need to speak up! I am being freed from codependency.

Just yesterday I was speaking with this friend of mine on video chat; her other friend called her and she told me she had to hang up as her friend was calling. I said Okay. She called again and as we laughed and talked her friend called again; and yet again she told me to hang up so that she could answer her friend’s phone. Had I not had that discussion with my therapist I would’ve felt like a second class friend just the way my parents had always treated me as compared to my sister.  It’s not my friend’s weight to validate me; I’m learning to do that for myself. I’m not going to cling on to one particular friendship because friends play various roles in our lives. I'm going to follow Jesus and make Him my Best friend! She has a right to speak or not to speak to anyone she chooses to at any given moment- and I choose to love her not to seek validation from her.

 Let go off everything (people’s opinions, their treatment of you, fear of losing stuff/people, overthinking, envy, comparison, sin) and train yourself to be Godly.

Lisa Romano says, “Whenever we are dependent upon a relationship for a sense of self, we are in more trouble than we realize. When our state of being-ness relies on what people do, don’t do, say, don’t say, we are in essence, placing our mind power in the hands of something we cannot control. When our state of calm relies on whether or not someone feels the way we would like them to, or think, or does, or believes in the things we do, we shackle our spirit to the unconscious ego and throw our right to experience freedom away. When our sense of self depends on another flawed human being loving us, accepting us, and finding worth in us, we blind ourselves to the great source of all life that exists in our DNA. You are an extension of the magnificent source of all that is and as an adult; you no longer need to lay in wait of your right to experience happiness.  Let NO person hold you hostage. Let NO relationship shackle you to your ego. Let NO thing that happens outside of you prevent you from bonding with the power within! Depend on no one for your sense of self-worth. Depend on no one to make you feel enough. Depend on no one but yourself to make your dreams come true.”