How Do I Know If I’m Acting Codependent?
Four questions to see if you’re doing it… again.
We all know what codependence is, right? …that is until you’re staring at your phone freaking out and not knowing whether to reply or what to say, and then you go “am I being codependent?” That doesn’t really help either… now you’re more confused than when you started. Have no fear, I’ll give you four short questions to measure if you’re acting out codependent behaviors, where you’re out of center, and by how much.
Personally, I knew that I was codependent long before I knew how to stop. I knew that far too often I over-cared for my partner’s needs and walked on eggshells, not asking for what my bone and soul cried out for. I choked myself into the straightjacket of wanting to be a “chill girlfriend.” I thought I needed to hack off a part of myself that was inconvenient for my partner. If only I could perform a self-administered psychic liposuction then everything would be fine. “Just be more chill,” I demanded of myself. “Stop being so damn needy. No one is attracted to that.”
If you recognize yourself in these behaviors, you may fall more on the anxious side of the “attachment trauma” scale. (No need to know what that fancy term means just yet, there will be further reading at the end about the new science of attachment and how our earliest childhood experiences shape our…
