Up until now I thought I dealt with my codependency issues. I researched, I journaled, I put into practice the helpful recommendations provided in books, online articles and Instagram memes. However after a careful analysis of my recent work-based behaviors, I realize I have not.
Last week, I was brought to this epiphany after exploring the very strained interactions I have had with my supervisor. Long story short, the place where I work is toxic. I am talking TOXIC with a capital T! There are so many unhealthy dynamics, I don’t know where to begin. I do not feel supported and often question the motives and intentions of my coworkers. From gossiping, to bullying to poor leadership, this place is a cauldron of dysfunction! My supervisor offers no real support just performative attempts at support that really do not address my needs or concerns. In the past, I have tried to have a conversation with her regarding my needs and professional goals, however I am often times gaslit and provided inaccurate information that only further reinforces my resolve not to talk with her at all.
In many ways I have shut down and instead opted to focus my energy on caring for my clients. However it has become increasingly difficult to do this as I work on a team. This means that we are subjected to the agony of team meetings where toxic dynamics are flung across the table at warped speeds. Trying to be healthy in an unhealthy environment is incredibly exhausting and often times has zapped my energy for other things. I leave these meetings feeling drained, misunderstood and angry. I have vocalized my concerns to the team and have offered a team wellness tool that would be helpful in managing team conflicts however this tool requires radical honesty and a willingness to explore ones own personal contribution to the dysfunction of the team and I am not sure this team is willing to go that deep.
Despite the knowledge that my team struggles with emotional depth, I continue to try and offer other suggestions and insights on ways to strengthen team cohesion and togetherness. The team has suggested using activities outside of work to build team cohesion and for a while we have all engaged well in these activities however I realize that these activities only mask the deep-seated issues that are present and do not really address the toxic dynamics that continue to undermine and threaten the collaborative spirit of the team.
I have made many efforts to try and counsel, support and “therapize” the team into cohesion as I reasoned that if I take care of the team, the team would in fact take care of me and provide the level of support that I need to function and do my job effectively. I thought that if I loved them enough, then they would love me back and stop being so damn toxic. This is when I realized I still struggle with codependency. I rely on their healing for my own professional growth. I make it my mission to try and encourage and counsel them inorder to ensure my own happiness at this agency. Apart of me feels like my professional survival hinges upon their approval, acceptance, validation and cooperation. This is when I realized I am codependent.
For a long time I avoided this label. I denied it. I refused to accept I had a problem with this particular affliction. To admit that I am a chronic people pleaser who struggles with codependency issues was hard for me. But this is the truth. It is my truth. Even now admitting this to myself makes me nauseous and makes me want to rip myself out of my body. It is a gross diagnosis to have but nothing changes if nothing is faced and denial only prolongs the heartache and postpones the healing. So here I am admitting that I struggle with people pleasing tendencies and codependency issues. How did I get here? How did I get to this place?
Growing up, I was raised by a single mother. My father left when I was three as he was a heroin addict who struggled with his own form of dependence. My mother struggled with raising my sister and me because she was not ready to be a parent. She was a sheltered child who grew into a curious young adult. She wasn’t ready to give up her twenties to be a full-time mom. She also struggled with alcohol dependence and for a time, cocaine dependence. Growing up was not easy as I often times had to mother my mother in order to be mothered meaning I would have to take care of her so she could take care of me. I often times would have to carry my mother home drunk from the bar, make sure she got home safe, put her in the bed and then tend to her hangovers in the morning. This routine usually involved me and my sister putting water by her bedside, a vomit bucket by her bed, hoping she would sleep it off and not be dead by morning. When her excessive vomiting confirmed signs of life, we would sit by her bedside and provide care and comfort. We would prepare her soup, crack open a tepid ginger ale and wait for her to regain the strength to parent again. The lesson I learned from this was: In order to be cared for and loved on, I first had to make sure other people were cared for and loved on first. My ability to receive the care, support and love I wanted hinged upon how well I could care, support and love another person. This dynamic not only played out in my relationship with my mother, but also with my relationships with friends, partners and coworkers.
Growing up, I would often times put my needs on the back burner. With friends, I would prioritize their crises while putting mines on the back burner. I remember this one time at my high school graduation, a former friend of mines did not get an art certification sticker on her diploma. I saw that this made her feel bad. In retrospect, this friend did not complete assignments on time (if at all), unduly challenged the teachers and rarely showed up to class. In hindsight she did not deserve an art certification sticker on her diploma. However I saw that she felt bad, and in an effort to show her how meaningless the sticker was to the grand scheme of life, I peeled the art certification off my diploma and gave it to her. In a way I was saying that her needs and feelings were more important than my achievements. I worked hard for that sticker. I completed all my assignments on time, I showed up to class regularly and utilized the teacher as a source of support and knowledge and yet there I was giving my hard work away in order to protect her feelings, make her feel ok when deep down inside I was not ok with this.
This is what chronic people pleasers with codependency issues do, they set themselves on fire to keep others warm. In the words of poet Morgan Parker, “other people’s comfort keeps me up at night”. This was clearly illustrated during my twenties where I continuously put other people’s needs and comfort ahead of my own. In my romantic relationships I would often attract narcissistic sociopaths who enjoyed the way I bled for them. My emotionally effusive nature was seen as fresh supply. They readily partook in the things that unconsciously were a product of my pain. Never once did they say “stop, let me love you back to life. Let me support your healing”. Instead they continued to capitalize and benefit from my profuse and often times misguided generosity. And I kept right on bleeding for my partners because this is what I thought love was, a continuous bleeding out even when it was hurting you. I thought this is what a good person does, burn themselves at the stake all in the name of love. I was so wrong. This was not what a good person does. This is what a person with chronic people pleasing tendencies mixed with codependency issues does. They tie themselves to lovers who act as anchors. Lovers who live to save themselves, using your drowned corpse to get them safely to shore. And thing is as a person with codependency issues, you romanticize the drowning, You think you are doing it all for love when really you are doing it because you are broken and think that this is how you get yourself whole when really this is how you break yourself even more.
I recently noticed that my codependency issues have begun to spill out at work. I do not assert my ideas but rather accept and even praise, cosign and validate the ideas of my coworkers. Thing is many times, their ideas are just postponed regurgitations of my own, ideas that I initially brought up, ideas that were shot down. Also I have noticed that when I do assert my ideas, I do not stand up against the push back that usually comes. I passively allow them to deconstruct my ideas and denounce my thinking hoping to keep the peace. I try to avoid conflict at all costs because somewhere I was taught that my survival hinged upon my coworkers liking me and us getting along.
I also have even taken it upon myself to carry the feelings of my coworkers, often times playing counselor to their inane issues. I sometimes have the inconsolable urge to tell my supervisor about herself in order to jumpstart her healing. I feel that maybe if I support her healing she will be much nicer to me and be open to incorporating my ideas into the structure of the agency. Such faulty thinking that once again relies on me overstanding her inorder to save my professional life. Truth be told, I over a lot of things. I over listen, over invest, over give, overshare, over attend and it is these overages that have often left me feeling depleted, angry, depressed and alone especially when I am not given the same level of support.
I do this for two reasons. 1. I feel I have to and 2. I feel alone. I feel I have to because if I don’t, who will? Much like in my childhood, I operated from the belief that if I don’t tend to the needs of the house, who will? My mother was sometimes too drunk to be present for me so if I don’t tend to the needs of my household, who will? Additionally at my job, I do not see myself represented within this agency meaning I am one of the very few black people at work. I often times feel painfully alone and in an effort to gain support, approval, acceptance, inclusion and validation, I put my needs, my thinking, my feelings on the back burner. I realize that this thinking is distorted, unhelpful and keeps me locked in vicious cycles of codependency. This is the thinking I am working to change because it is this thinking that is outdated and painfully limiting. Where once it kept me safe to think this way, thinking this way now as a full-fledged adult is psychically dangerous.
Fact is as much as I pride myself on being an independent thinker, truth is I am a codependent people pleaser. I am this way because of how I was raised. I never knew where others ended and I began. I lived to burn at the altar of other people’s desires as I believed this to be a noble gesture. But there is no nobility in self-denial. Putting my needs on the back burner is not an act of love but rather the opposite. It is an act of self-hate. How can I give love if my love is always on someone else’s plate? I have no love to offer if I keep giving the best of my love away. I am learning that true love requires you to fill your cup up FIRST and then you can offer the excess to another. I am no good to anyone half-alive. If I am to encourage wholeness then I must be what I gospelize. I now will make conscious efforts to realize when I am operating from this place. I will remind myself that I deserve to show up in rooms too. That my thinking and feelings matter and deserve to be included within the structure of wherever I am. I welcome the new self-fulfilled man that awaits me.
