Codependency Support Group
Codependency is defined as someone who exhibits too much, and often inappropriate, caring for another person's struggles. A codependent person may try to change, or feel shame about their most private thoughts and feelings if they conflict with the other person's struggles. If you are on a journey towards self-love, this support group is for you. Join us and find others...
I am codependent on a close friend. She's been trying to tell me for years that I'm invasive and all I do is to maintain a physical distance and ensure she has space and not probe in her matters. However, I didn't realise that emotional attachment had nothing to do with physical distance. Anyway, I was seeking friendship advice online when I came across the topic of codependency. After understanding enough information, I decided to seek therapy as I saw it a recurring problem in my past relationships.
A few friends whom I shared my situation with, advised me NOT to tell this friend of mine, that I'm receiving therapy. But I just have a habit of being dead honest with her and I felt she should know that I'm learning how to manage it better (we are experiencing tension in our friendship). To make matters worse, we are actually business partners.
After hearing about my therapy. She said she thinks the best way for me to recover is to avoid seeing her. She says she isn't pushing me away but she thinks that because she's my "target" now, it will be easy for me to go back to my "old ways". I wish she had told me we can go through this together but for now, space might be better so I have more room to deal with it.
I know every individual is different and I should not seek to gain validation or approval from anyone. I also know that recovery is for myself and not anyone else. But... She is a very important friend to me. She brought light to things I didn't know about myself. Base on experience, would your (enabled) friends leave you after they know you have an issue that is more serious than they thought? Is there also a possibility they will appreciate you better?
I feel she wouldn't dare to be close to me again and it just makes the feeling of rejection and abandonment worse.
A few friends whom I shared my situation with, advised me NOT to tell this friend of mine, that I'm receiving therapy. But I just have a habit of being dead honest with her and I felt she should know that I'm learning how to manage it better (we are experiencing tension in our friendship). To make matters worse, we are actually business partners.
After hearing about my therapy. She said she thinks the best way for me to recover is to avoid seeing her. She says she isn't pushing me away but she thinks that because she's my "target" now, it will be easy for me to go back to my "old ways". I wish she had told me we can go through this together but for now, space might be better so I have more room to deal with it.
I know every individual is different and I should not seek to gain validation or approval from anyone. I also know that recovery is for myself and not anyone else. But... She is a very important friend to me. She brought light to things I didn't know about myself. Base on experience, would your (enabled) friends leave you after they know you have an issue that is more serious than they thought? Is there also a possibility they will appreciate you better?
I feel she wouldn't dare to be close to me again and it just makes the feeling of rejection and abandonment worse.
I see you posted the same thing here in Codependency and in the Advice section and they both show up on the board, and so I am not giving advice now but just a comment.
It is a mistake to view it as being codependent to another person because that is not how it works.
The codependency is in our self and it affects the way we interact with other people but it is totally in our self.
One might say that they got the codependency from our parents or from an abuser and that can be true, but now it is in our self and we are not attached to the abuser or to anyone else.
You may be attached to your close friends in many ways and you probably do need healthy boundaries between you and the friend, but those attachments are not the codependency.
Link = http://psychcentral.com/lib/symptoms-of-codependency/00011992
Telling your friend that you were going to Therapy was not really an act of honesty as it was violating a boundary and meshing with your friend and that was a symptom of codependency.
Now she is backing off and pushing away and that is the sensible thing for her to do, because you are putting your own business onto her where it does not belong. Your Therapist will help you, but your friend is NOT there to help you in this.
Your friend truly did not reject you or abandon you as she is not to save you, and truly I say she did right as she seems to be a really cool friend to you because she had the wisdom to back off instead of trying to be a crutch to you.
From what you are saying about your friend - then I see her as great and you are blessed to have such a friend who plays her hand so well.
This is just my opinion based on my own perspective and my experience and I wish you well in this.
Seek help only from that Therapist and not from any friend or family as this is your own business alone.
Again - welcome here to this group.
In our job, I need to take care of her from time to time (as a work scope), and it creates a sense of worthiness in me. Now that we have issues (even before I told her), she stopped wanting me around this project we are on, and I feel I am not included in the experience. I feel unimportant, and that caused me a lot of anxiety and depression. I wake up each day thinking how to spend the day. I have days when I know the personal assistant is there that I have normal moods, then days she is left alone to deal with it, I feel really bad.
But you were right... Telling my friend I was going to therapy was a symptom of codependency. But what boundary am I violating? But yes I might be attempting to "control" the outcome of the relationship by telling her that, hoping she will hang on to it. You are right... However, I can't help but wish she would be more supportive as a friend.
But your comment is very heartening to hear that as a bystander, you don't think she has rejected or abandoned me. Yes, she's a friend indeed. The only person I can cry in-front of and admit to my weakness. So maybe her role is done and I need to rebuild the relationship with myself on my own from here on.
I'd suggest that she really doesn't have the right to back off from you, as you have to be involved in business matters.
I'd suggest only seeing her as a partner for now; the friendship can be on hold, but you have to consult with her on how you make the business run, since it's about money and your life.
You want her to be so involved with you that you can only cry in front of her and admit your weaknesses, but she is a business partner too.
Telling a friend that you are going to a Therapist is not violating a boundary, but the way that you say you did that is violating a boundary because you are saying that she is involved, as if she is included into your Therapy and into your codependency and you are expecting her involvement into your therapy.
She was correct to back off, and she must really be a super friend, but you are going to destroy the relationship unless back off and get your self straightened out.
And you are correct that it is far from being physical space as you need to detach emotionally and detach your self from the obsession over her.
Link http://independentfew.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/emotional-boundaries-the-kind-of-boundary-which-counts-the-most/
My guess is that since she will not go with you to the Therapy then you too will not go, because that was your reason to go.
I might be wrong and I do not mean any offense, as this is a discussion board and we all have to deal with our own issues.
I'm thinking it's best you see a lawyer, as I see her squeezing you out of your own business once things sour.
I sincerely appreciate everything you are saying and please continue to do so. I think you are spot on. Thanks for the link too, that's a good read.
I don't enjoy crying in front of her or anyone. It makes me very uncomfortable. But at least the only person I've done that was in front of her. Despite I have to say she's not the comforting kind of person, but rather a frank and direct, no bullshit person. We are on an important project now, and I would love to be part of the experience. But due my reactivity, she feels it is better I'm not there physically or I'll cause stress on everyone on the project. Although I totally get what she means, I'm upset about it. So apart from the "obsession" that I have which I'm aware now, it's also the denial of the experience that I feel stripped of.
Okay, but I guess I can't worry about what will happen to our friendship now unless I get myself resolved first.