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From Dr. Nicholas Jenner on his onlinetherapist.blog

“I am convinced that codependents come into adulthood seeking the basic connection with others that they failed to find with their parents.

In a process of compulsion repetition, they engage in relationships with people similar to their caregivers, trying to solve the original problem.

In the specific case of codependency, this means controlling the environment and the people in it to gain reassurance and emotional security, mirroring childhood.

As we know, this means sacrifice, martyrdom, victimhood and the main principles of the drama triangle, fixing, anger and self loathing.

Codependents feel they need to be in a relationship to feel secure and once they are, will do all they can to stay in it.

Our logical mind often tells us that we need to make changes in our lives.

This is often overwhelmed by the emotional part of our thinking that holds fear, shame and reminds us how difficult change might be.

This protective thinking is the main reason we become stuck when deciding what to do.

It protects us from our primary fears, not good enough, abandonment, fear of commitment, rejection.

The thinking we listen wants us to stay exactly where we are so we don’t face these fears.”

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My two cents: In early adulthood I was extremely vulnerable.

I stayed after a public betrayal by my first love, first girlfriend in college.

Staying was humiliating publicly and extremely damaging but I was paralyzed like this article says.

Sad, abused kids need to suffer more in adulthood without knowing why or how to fix it.

Oh yes. We have enormous rage and resentment for all abusers in our life.

We battle an invisible monster, a caregivers treachery, for life.

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