Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself

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Don’t get surprised if, from time to time, you lose the ground beneath your feet. It’s a symbolic expression that embodies our absolute necessity to vent anger and rage. They tend to victimize themselves as as they are believed to be an easy mark for any form of abuse.

Religion, God, and a higher power isn't for everyone. And when that is a reoccurring topic in a book meant to help someone struggling with codependency, mental illness, or just a rough chapter in their life, a person who is struggling with God, religion, or God as Him may have a hard time separating steps with their own emotional triggers or, simply, their beliefs. I felt I had a harder time stepping away from my own emotions to grasp the message. Ultimately, I wish this book was more Higher Power neutral that also aims to the agnostics, atheists, and religions who practices more with nature, the universe, or multiple gods. Codependent? Enmeshed? People-pleaser? The bottom-line is most people can probably benefit from this book, and you (thankfully) don't have to be an addict or the spouse of an addict to find meaning in it. Many of us believe we don't deserve to have and achieve our dreams, and that's sad. It's easy to keep the bar set low for ourselves in all parts of our life: work, relationships, money." Sometimes, when we take care of our beloved ones, we put our basic needs and interests aside. This behavior may create some destructive inner patterns and put the entire life on hold. It’s a path that nobody wants to take. I saw people who were hostile; they had felt so much hurt that hostility was their only defense against being crushed again.”We try to live happily---focusing heroically on what is good in our lives today, and feeling grateful for that. We learn the magical lesson that making the most of what we have turns it into more. Detachment involves "present moment living"--living in the here and now. We allow life to happen instead of forcing and trying to control it. we relinquish regrets over the past and fears about the future. We make the most of each day. ...

Suppose you’re not clear or familiar with something like codependency. How could you be aware of negative codependent behaviors and the commonly believed good intentions behind them that may negatively impact relationships? The most significant change in my life has been the loss of my son, Shane. As you may have heard or read, in February of 1991, three days after his twelfth birthday, my beloved Shane - so much a part of my life and work - was killed suddenly in a ski accident on the slopes at Afton Alps. I've seen wonderful things happen to people, as well as terrible tragedies. There are no guarantees, but chances are that at some point, life is going to hurt like hell. That person or thing you valued most may be what you're going to lose. You may have to live without the one thing you said you couldn't or wouldn't. The blessings are going to be better than you can imagine, but you may also go through pain that's so intense you think it couldn't get any worse." Another one of our shortcomings may be that we don't ask for the help we need because we don't want to burden anyone. We think we should be able to handle everything by ourselves, no matter how hard is it or how bad we feel. But if you need support or just an evening out with a friend, ask."We rescue people from their responsibilities. We take care of people’s responsibilities for them. Later we get mad at them for what we’ve done. Then we feel used and sorry for ourselves. That is the pattern, the triangle.” I knew this was a classic of the genre, but I found myself unimpressed by it. Maybe I came at it with the wrong expectations? I was thinking of "co-dependency" in a more generic sense — say, the way a married couple can be enmeshed and lose their boundaries with each other. Beattie's book instead seems dated to me, bound up as it is with the classic origins of the term "co-dependence" in the partners of alcoholics. Many of you have written to me, saying how much I've helped you. Well, you've helped and touched me, too. I want to thank each person who has the courage to push through and past the set of coping behaviors we’ve come to label as codependency—who learn what it means to take care of themselves. “Nobody taught me how to take care of myself,” a fifty-year-old woman told me recently. “I didn’t have enough money to go to therapy, but I had enough to buy a book.”