Rethinking Codependency

You've probably heard the word 'codependency' somewhere by now. But if it's been applied to you or you've thought it about yourself, it might have produced an internal... icky feeling.

Codependency is a powerful term that has helped some people recognize that they needed to draw healthy boundaries and take responsibility for themselves, but equally, other people experience it like they're being blamed for loving people when those people make bad decisions. Not everyone experiences the word positively. If it doesn't feel right to you, keep reading!

A fawn - dependent on the watchful care and nurturing of its parent.

As it is usually defined, codependency looks like having a hard time voicing your needs, feeling responsible for other people's decisions, giving too much to other people, and having a hard time making boundaries. It is not an official mental health diagnosis, and it describes a set of behaviors rather than the underlying issue.

But what if there are multiple paths to that set of behaviors? What if it isn't just something you chose, but something that developed because you were disempowered to choose anything else? Usually these behaviors originate in difficult relational experiences where boundaries were invalidated, emotions weren't safe to have, and self-sacrifice and self-erasure were effective ways to keep the peace and stay safe. Did you catch that – to stay safe?

It would be one thing if you arrived at a boundary-less, voiceless, selfless state while in a situation of safety and empowerment – you should be able to simply change course and begin having boundaries, in that case. But in many cases it is arrived at from a lack of safety, lack of power, and lack of being cared for. If you're a helpless child in an unsafe home, your best chance to have your needs met is to tend and befriend the adults in charge, even if those adults sometimes also hurt you. This sets up patterns in the brain that then keep repeating across the lifespan: if I take care of you, maybe you will take care of me.

If you find yourself knowing that you should have healthier boundaries but experiencing anxiety when you think about voicing your needs, standing up for yourself, or saying no to people, let's put the term codependency to the side and talk about fawning for a minute.

A helpless fawn that relies on staying small and unseen, to survive.

Fawning is one of four widely-recognized trauma responses. Dr Ingrid Clayton says this in her book Fawning:

“If your nervous system was oriented to safety in a context of abuse and neglect, you likely felt like you couldn't survive unless you devoted significant emotional resources to appeasing your parents and other family/caregivers.”

One important thing to know about fawning is that it is largely involuntary: you didn't choose to do it, your nervous system selected it as the option most likely to meet your needs and save you from harm as a child, and then hardwired it in. You may have more options now than you did as a child, but those old neural networks can feel like there's no options – hence the anxiety when you think about saying no to someone.

Fawning can feel like you're struggling with basic tasks everyone else takes for granted and doing things that make no rational sense: being the first to apologize even if you weren't the primary offender in that scenario, taking back someone who treats you poorly, blinding yourself to red flags, allowing others' views to carry more weight than yours, befriending people who need rescuing, and forgetting who you are inside because you become similar to whoever you spend time with.

If that sounds familiar, maybe you learned the fawn trauma response as a child.

But even fawns hold the capacity to become strong, watchful and free adults

Treating fawning has a lot of overlap with treating codependency, which is part of why so many people have found help from codependency aids. But I prefer to distinguish the two, because talking about fawning as a trauma response reminds us to begin our work in your nervous system. The nervous system of someone with a fawning trauma response has to feel some level of safety before it can change its patterns, and it will best succeed by being supported through baby steps forward.

When fawning due to a trauma history is part of the equation, forward movement is not as simple as just being told: “Go have healthier patterns!” You need support for a new learning process. Your brain has to incorporate new experiences of safety while doing the opposite of what kept it safe in the past. Therapy can help with this.

If this resonates with you, reach out today to schedule a free consultation. Part of healing from fawning is having a support network that makes you feel safe, so I offer a free consultation as a vibe check! You deserve to feel confident that your therapist is the right fit for you.

Elizabeth Peters, LMSW is a licensed therapist seeing clients in person in Wichita and online across Kansas. She provides EMDR and somatic therapy for adults who are overwhelmed by anxiety, trauma, painful relationships or spiritual harm.