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We all like to be taken care of from time to time. But when this need becomes a compulsive, pervasive, and excessive craving and leads to clinging, stifling, and humiliating or submissive behavior, we have a pathology. Codependents, as they are sometimes known, are paralyzed by their anxiety of abandonment and fear of separation.
They are rendered so indecisive that they fail to make the simplest everyday decision without eliciting constant and repeated reassurances and advice from a myriad sources. It is as though the codependent seeks to transfer responsibility for his or her life to others, whether they have agreed to assume it or not. This is why codependents rarely initiate projects or do things on their own. Though they are often fired by repressed ambition, energy, and imagination - they are held back by their lack self-confidence. They don't trust their own abilities and judgment.
This reliance on crucial input from the outside results in self-negating behavior. The codependent never disagrees with meaningful others or criticizes them, lest s/he loses the support and emotional nurturance they do or could provide. The codependent molds himself/herself and bends over backward to cater to the needs of his nearest and dearest and satisfy their every whim, wish, expectation, and demand. Nothing is too unpleasant or unacceptable if it serves to secure the uninterrupted presence of the codependent's family and friends and the emotional sustenance s/he can extract (or extort) from them.
The codependent does not feel fully alive when alone. S/he feels helpless, threatened, ill-at-ease, and child-like. This acute discomfort drives the codependent to hop from one relationship to another. The sources of nurturance are interchangeable. To the codependent, being with someone, with anyone, no matter whom - is always preferable to being alone.
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