Healthy Habits: Codependent Discovery and Recovery

 Codependency is often misunderstood — and under addressed. Unhealthy, codependent habits are difficult to break, and can significantly impair our ability to live authentic lives. But with the right tools, freedom from codependency is within reach.  

In her new book, Codependent Discovery and Recovery 2.0: A Holistic Approach to Healing and Freeing Yourself, licensed therapist Mary Joye provides practical tools to help you get your life back. With meditations, affirmations, a quick-fix chapter and easy two-column Life Lists that offer opportunities for self-reflection, the book provides an invaluable self-help experience for readers.

What makes this book unique is that Joye explores not only the psychological roots of codependency, but also the neuroscience, spiritual and financial aspects. More importantly, she shows readers how to apply this knowledge to recover.

I had a chance to interview her to learn more.

Can you share a little bit about what codependency is and how people can tell if they are in a codependent relationship or situation? 

In brief, codependency is a loss of self while caring for others. I liken it to narcissism in reverse. Narcissists are hyper-focused on getting their needs met, while codependents are focused on the needs of others while neglecting their own. Codependents are subconsciously driven by a fear of abandonment and their feelings about themselves rely heavily on how they perceive others feel about them. Though not a formal disorder, over time the constant acquiescing to the needs of others can cause anxiety or depression.

 

Some of the symptoms are:

• People pleasing and approval seeking
• Being everyone’s go-to person
• Rescuing others and getting involved in the drama of others
• Love feeling a need to be needed
• Feeling selfish or guilty if they say no to someone’s request
• Covering up for others
• Perfectionism
• Giving unsolicited advice or getting angry if people don’t take advice
• Fear of being alone
• Feeling used or taken advantage of often but can’t seem to break the relationship cycle
• Believing the best in the worst of people 

These are but a few of a long list of symptoms in my book but relate to how a person may feel if he or she is in a codependent relationship. It may feel like love, but it could be trauma bond, which is a physiologic hook to someone.

 

A codependent can feel addicted to a person who is manipulative and uses intermittent reinforcement as a tool of control. This is what we hear in common terms as cycles of love bombing and discard. The codependent feels at peace when the manipulator is nice to them but feels extremely anxious and insecure when they are rejected. It is a flooding of feel-good chemicals such as dopamine and oxytocin in the love bombing phase and stress hormones of cortisol and adrenaline in the discard phase. It is an insidious and dangerous type of relationship to continue because of the psychological damage it can produce from the roller coaster of anxiety to peace and back to anxiety all controlled by the manipulator. The codependent allows this by doubting themselves and gives their power away without knowing why or how it has been done to them or what to do about it. This cycle needs to be broken systematically which is the same way it began.

 

How does a holistic approach differ from other approaches? 

There is far more to codependency than merely a psychological viewpoint. Treating the body, mind and spirit of a person simultaneously expedites healing. Understanding the neuroscience and how it drives codependency is crucial for recovery. We all have neuroplasticity which means you can retrain your brain. We get conditioned in our minds by repetition, and this is the same way to recondition your brain and life. The spiritual aspect, regardless of anyone’s belief, accesses some of the roots of codependent behavior, and helps in the meditation process through guided imagery techniques. Bullet point journaling of deductive reasoning assists the person to be introspective and make decisions based on self-compassion instead of only caring about what others want or need from them. The mind is very powerful through visualization to create new neural pathways that serve the person who is giving until they give out or suffer from burnout, which many codependents do.

 

Why is it important to understand the neuroscience behind codependency? 

You can think of the neuroscience of codependency like the hard drive of a computer that defaults to the programming it received when invented. Without understanding how a trauma bond works, how can you fix it? It is essential to recovery to know what is occurring in a codependent’s brain to change the default from codependent to independent thinking. The person who continually feels the need to be a fixer, rescuer, or giver can change. When they work on their parasympathetic nervous system’s vagus nerve reactivity connected to their fight/flight/frozen responses from their autonomic nervous system, the brain can rewire, and anxiety-driven behaviors are reduced or eradicated. When someone knows what is operating in the physical, it makes it much easier to apply mental techniques to correct the behaviors and become self-aware to self-care. This is the core of cognitive behavioral therapy. In practicing and changing codependent thinking a person will be better equipped to give in the future from a place of wellness and compassion instead of a fearful or guilt-driven compulsion.

Mary Joye, LMHC, is a licensed mental health counselor and regular contributor to DailyOM.com. She was interviewed in O, The Oprah Magazine in an article titled “The Greatest Love” about her prior codependency and rise from it. Formerly, she was a professional singer/songwriter in Nashville at Warner Brothers. She reinvented herself as a licensed mental health counselor at 45. As a writer and therapist, she helps people get in touch with their emotions.

Joye lives in Winter Haven, Florida. Visit her website at: winterhavencounseling.com.