Co-dependency is:

A dysfunctional relationship with ourselves based upon an outer or external dependence, by giving power over our self-esteem to sources outside ourselves.

It is properly a dis-ease of lost self: If we are not validated and affirmed for who we are in childhood then we don’t believe we are worthy in our own right or loveable.

In co-dependent societies everyone has to have someone to look down on, in order to feel good about themselves, conversely, there is always someone we can compare ourselves to that can cause us to not feel good enough.

Co-dependency is about having a dysfunctional relationship with ourselves: our bodies, minds, emotions, spirit, with our gender and sexuality and being human.

Because we have dysfunctional relationships internally we have dysfunctional relationships externally. We try to fill the hole we feel inside of our selves with something or someone outside of us and this does not work.

A dysfunctional relationship is one that does not work to make us happy.

We were raised in shame-based societies that taught us that there is something wrong with being human.

The messages we got often included that there is something wrong: with making mistakes; with not being perfect; with being sexual; with being emotional; with being too fat or too thin or too tall or too short or too whatever.

As children we are taught to determine our worth in comparison with others. If we were smarter than, prettier than, better grades than, faster than, etc. – then we were validated and got the message that we had worth.

Co-dependency could:

We were taught to look outside of our selves to people, places, and things  to money, property and prestige, to determine if we have worth.

 We make money or achievement or popularity or material possessions or the “right” marriage the Higher Power that determines if we have worth.

We take our self-definition and self-worth from external manifestations of our own being so that looks or talent or Intelligence becomes the Higher Power that we look to in determining if we have worth.

All outside and external conditions are temporary and could change in a moment. If we make a temporary condition our Higher Power we are setting ourselves up to be a victim – and, in blind devotion to that Higher Power we are pursuing, we often victimise other people on our way to proving we have worth.

Co-dependency is

A dysfunctional emotional and behavioural defence system. When a society is emotionally dishonest, the people of that society are set up to be emotionally dysfunctional.

In this society being emotional is described as falling apart, losing it, going to pieces, coming unglued, etc.

(Other cultures may give more permission to be emotional but then the emotions are usually expressed in ways that are out of balance to the extreme of letting the emotions control.

The goal is balance between emotional and mental – between the intuitive and the rational.)

Traditionally in this society men have been taught that anger is the only acceptable emotion for a man to express, while women are taught that it is not acceptable for them to be angry.

If it is not ok to own all of our emotions then we cannot know who we are as emotional beings.

[Also traditionally, women are taught to be co-dependent – take their self-definition (including their names) and self-worth – from their relationships with men, while men are taught to be co-dependent on their work/career/ability to produce, and from their presumed superiority to women.]

Co-dependency is:

Often, we got validated and affirmed by one parent and put down by the other. When the parent who is “loving” does not protect us – or themselves – from the parent that is abusive, it is a betrayal that sets us up to have low self-esteem because the affirmation we received was invalidated right in our own homes.

And being affirmed for being who we are is very different than being affirmed for who our parents wanted us to be – if they could not see themselves clearly then they sure could not see us clearly. In order to survive, children adapt whatever behaviour will work best in helping them get their survival needs met.

We then grow up to be adults who don’t know ourselves and keep dancing the dance we learned as children.

Neil Benbow

©neilbenbow2026