Breaking the Cycle of Trauma Expressing as Codependence
Here's the life that's waiting for you.
There comes a time of the journey of healing and doing your inner work when the cost of the behaviors associated with codependent survival strategies becomes too great to bear.
For most of my life, I had no clue what codependency was or that I was participating in deeply codependent behaviors.
When a health coaching client brought up this topic in 2011, I read about codependency and thought, “- Phew, I’m glad I don’t have this issue.” And didn’t think anything of it until about 2020.
Co-dependency is a learned behavior that can be passed down from one generation to another. It is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also known as “relationship addiction” because people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive.
Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly intimate with the reality and ramifications of having developed a codependent personality. And frankly, it sucks balls.
A Few Ways Codependence Showed Up in My Life
Having the need to be liked at ALL costs.
Feeling so out of control, I needed to control other people by modifying my behavior to please them.
Hyperawareness of all my actions and how they might be perceived by or impact others.
Fearing rejection.
Fearing conflict.
Living with constant anxiety.
Making excuses for other people’s poor behaviors.
Fixating on mistakes and feeling obliterated by making them.
Having poor boundaries and a hard time saying no.
Intimacy issues with my husband.
Enabling people with narcissistic-leaning survival strategies.
Dissociating from myself.
Unraveling the Mystery of My Chronic Fatigue
For years, I struggled with fatigue and could not figure out why. I went to various doctors, healers, and alternative health practitioners for help. The bottom line was that nothing was wrong with me besides minor adrenal issues. I worked with an Ayurvedic MD and got some relief. But the fatigue persisted, coming and going, being most prominently expressed around the arrival of my period.
After exhausting all the medical reasons for my deep tiredness, the kind of fatigue you feel in the bones of your soul, new realizations about who I was in relationship with other humans began to demand my attention.
Breaking the Cycle of Trauma Expressing as Codependence
As I worked with myself, my healer friends, and my amazing therapist on these issues, I began to see that much of my fatigue stemmed from living out of integrity and alignment with my own wants, needs, and desires. I was oriented in the world with other people’s needs at the center of my decision-making process and choices.
Realizing that the foundation of many of my primary relationships was rotten was terrifying and utterly painful. Still, it hardly measured up to the pain of renegotiating my relationships through boundary setting. Or the deep grief that welled up in my body once I realized what my life had actually been like, what I had been forced to endure, and what I had missed out on. Processing the reality that I’ve been codependent my entire life is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. (And I’ve been through some shit!) At times the pain has been so severe that it’s made me want not to exist.
I’m still in this process, but I’ve come a long way from where I started. I feel in my heart that this is a time when we codependent people have the opportunity to take a stand and make a difference for ourselves, our loved ones, and the world by breaking this cycle of traumatization.
My Real Contribution to the World Isn’t My Career
I used to think I would heal enough to be mostly done, and my real life would start. I don’t believe that anymore. Now, I am surrendered to the reality that the real work I am contributing to humanity isn’t my work in Alignment Marketing. My real life’s work is becoming the woman that I AM - who I have the possibility of experiencing fully.
I know, cliché.
But, when do we stop to take in the magnitude of one human becoming re-sensitized to the absolute beauty of nature, the splendor of belonging to oneself, and the ability to trust in Life - no matter what life brings our way?
Coupled with the maturity, experience, capacity, and tools to walk through the world with reverence, presence, strength, courage, and an unshakable knowing that Love has got us all, and will never let us go.
To walk with a heart-knowing that you are right, good, true, worthy, beautiful, and belong to the Divine, yourself, others, and nature, is the opposite of living inside the prison of codependency. And it is that path I am walking now.
Final Thoughts
As I look around at what feels like an increasingly dysfunctional world, I can’t help but think that the narcissist/codependent coping pattern is one of the most influential dynamics contributing to our shared struggles.
That’s why I share my life here, hoping it will inspire others to do this worthy yet hard work and lessen the struggle of even one other human. But primarily, I do it for my inner little girl who deserves to be heard and seen and to know she deserves better.
We got this together.
Much love,
Karna 💜
This is so brave and inspiring. I especially love this:
“As I look around at what feels like an increasingly dysfunctional world, I can’t help but think that the narcissist/codependent coping pattern is one of the most influential dynamics contributing to our shared struggles.”
Narcissism and codependency are embedded in the socio-economic systems we find ourselves in. The ability to name it, claim our sovereignty (while acknowledging our privilege), and create new healthier boundaries, are vital steps to remaking the world.
We can bravely speak our truths to the powers that would extract from us—just as humans all over the world need to stand up to exploitive relationships, jobs, and governments. This is nothing less than the linch pin of man’s inhumanity to man. Your brave, clear, inspiring writing brings me home and makes me know a real revolution is possible. And it begins in each and everyone of our hearts. ♥️
Whew! What a doozy. Co-dependency, relationship addiction, the empth/narcissist dance, and having to grock that we’re living all this. It’s honestly brutal to face these dynamics and untangle ourselves. I first read Melody Beattie’s work on co-depency at age 16. That means I’ve been working on healing these patterns in myself for THIRTY YEARS! You know what makes all the difference in the world for me? Connecting with others on this path. Thank you for sharing your story, doing the hard work to feel, heal, and grow; and for sharing your journey with the rest of us. You ARE making things easier for others by doing this heavy lifting. Love you. Love that you are claiming your life and doing YOU! 😘