In a series of episodes on emotional attachments, dependency and codependency, my friend Amina joins me to discuss the origins and characteristics of these themes as well as relevant and practical healing and recovery work.
In this episode, we talk about the origins of attachment styles in adulthood, the four styles of adult attachment, and we introduce the topic of codependency. Why am I anxious in my relationships with others? Why am I avoidant of commitment and intimacy? What is codependency and where does it come from? These and other questions are addressed in this episode.
References used and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives by Pia Mellody
- Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattle
- No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert Glover
- How To Do The Work by Dr. Nicole LePera
- Ross Rosenberg’s videos on codependency and self-love deficit disorder pyramids
- An explanation of Adult attachment styles
In a series of episodes on emotional attachments, dependency and codependency, my friend Amina joins me to discuss the origins and characteristics of these themes as well as relevant and practical healing and recovery work.
In this episode, we talk about the origins of attachment styles in adulthood, the four styles of adult attachment, and we introduce the topic of codependency. Why am I anxious in my relationships with others? Why am I avoidant of commitment and intimacy? What is codependency and where does it come from? These and other questions are addressed in this episode.
References used and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives by Pia Mellody
- Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattle
- No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert Glover
- How To Do The Work by Dr. Nicole LePera
- Ross Rosenberg’s videos on codependency and self-love deficit disorder pyramids
- An explanation of Adult attachment styles
Waheed 00:39
Assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta’ala wa barakatuh, and welcome to a brand new episode of “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, this podcast series dedicated to Muslims experiencing same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and Islam. I'm your host Waheed Jensen, and thank you guys for joining me in today's episode. And joining me today is Amina my dear friend, asalamu alaikom, Amina! How are you?
Amina 01:06
Wa alaikom assalam, I'm doing pretty good. Everything is going pretty well, Alhamdulilah.
Waheed 01:10
A lot of you might remember Amina from season two, the last episode of season two, episode 26, when she came on to the show, and she shared with us her story. I remember like your story resonated with so many people, men and women. And I know that you actually have your own fan base right now! Is that correct?
Amina 01:30
Yeah, I'm basically like Justin Bieber of Discord!
Waheed 01:37
Okay, aha, good to know! I know that you've been doing a lot of mentoring, subhan Allah, for a lot of people who have been dealing with same-sex attractions. So, kudos to you, I'm so proud of you, honestly. MashaAllah.
Amina 01:52
Yeah, I'm so thankful, so thankful for the community and the amount of people that reach out. And it's just incredible. And it's been amazing. It's been an amazing year, a year and a half, alhamdulillah.
Waheed 02:05
Alhamdulillah. May it be a wonderful life ahead, inshaAllah. As you guys know, in the last couple of episodes, we've been talking about complex trauma. So we talked about the origins and the characteristics of complex trauma and how to heal from that. And then, in the last episode, we dissected together the attachment patterns in childhood, and then we talked about inner child work and reparenting. Amina and I have been doing a lot of research during the past couple of months, and then we decided to just synthesize all of the material together and put together a series of episodes to talk about attachments, codependency, and emotional dependency, and setting boundaries, and we realize that all of these topics are very, very relevant to all of us on our healing and recovery journeys. We have used a lot of references. So, Amina basically dived into two books, the first one is Facing Codependence: What it is, Where it Comes From and How it Sabotages our Lives by Pia Mellody. And the second book is Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself by Melody Beattle. We also used No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert Glover and How to Do the Work by Dr. Nicola LePera. And then, finally, we also used Ross Rosenberg's videos on codependency. We will add all of these references in the episode description so you guys can check them out whenever you want. So, before we begin, we just like to start this episode with a quote by Ernest Hemingway who said, “The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much and forgetting that you are special too”.
Amina 03:53
So we'll get started with introducing attachments in adulthood. So our dependency on others to survive and thrive, it really doesn't end in childhood. As adults, we're gonna obviously continue to seek out these attachments, because we need them to survive, and we're gonna seek them out through friendships and romantic relationships. In the 1980s, Dr. Cindy Hazan and Dr. Philip Shaver, they actually applied this attachment theory to romantic partners. They used a study basically where they took a “love quiz” to assess how secure the participants' relationships were in adulthood compared to those that they had experienced in infancy. And the results aren't fixed. You know, it doesn't apply to everybody. But what they had found was that early infant and childhood attachments provide the basis for romantic relationships in adulthood. So basically, if you had affectionate supportive and loving bonds in infancy, you then were more likely to report having affectionate, supportive and loving bonds in adulthood. And then, on the other hand, if you had distant, erratic or abusive relationships in childhood, then there would be a good chance you'll seek out those same kinds of bonds in adulthood.
Waheed 05:17
Absolutely. And we actually talked about trauma bonds, if you guys remember, back in episode 45, those were developed by Dr. Patrick Carnes. And we spoke about, you know, the eight different ways that we bond to our trauma, and one of them is actually called trauma bonding, which describes the relationship between two people who have insecure attachment. And, if you guys remember, Dr. Carnes, he focused on the most extreme cases of traumatic bonding, which we see in like domestic violence, incest cases, childhood abuse, and even Stockholm Syndrome, where, you know, there are cases of kidnappings or cults and hostage situations. In his definition, we enter into a traumatic bond when we seek comfort from the source of our trauma, and in this case, you know, he was referring to the person who is either abusing or hurting us. And when the source of our trauma is the person that we are dependent on, particularly in our childhood, we learn how to cope, and in this case, like receive love by enmeshing ourselves in that bond. A trauma bond, generally, if you want to look at a more expanded definition, we can look at any relationship pattern that kind of keeps us stuck in dynamics that do not support the expression of our most genuine and authentic self, the fitrah that we've been talking about throughout the season. The traumatic bonds are often learned and conditioned in our childhood, and then we repeat them in our adult relationships. And by relationships here, we don't necessarily just mean romantic relationships, but also with our peer relations, our family, you know, parents, siblings, extended family, romantic partners, professional relationships, like if we have a boss or colleagues, etc. And so these relationship patterns are based on our earliest, often unmet needs. And almost all of us participate in trauma bonds, and it is highly likely that our very unique needs, be they physical, emotional, spiritual, and so on, were not always consistently met, right?
Amina 07:28
Definitely. And so then when these needs aren't consistently met, you enter into a trauma bond. And there are some common signs that you'll see when you're in a trauma bond, or you see in other people that are experiencing a trauma bond, and one is: You're gonna have this, it's almost like an obsessive or compulsive pull toward particular relationships, even though you know the relationship will likely have problematic long-term consequences, so that it might not necessarily be good for you, but you still feel this obsessive pull towards them. And this plays out in a kind of push-pull dynamic in which the emotions of fear and abandonment they appear to be this exciting chemistry. And when we exist in the state of fear of physical harm, or abandonment, or abuse of any kind, sexual abuse, emotional, our body is actually altered on molecular and a neurochemical and physiological levels. And then the feelings that we get when these stress hormones are released in our nervous system responses, they can become addicted to this condition. They're addicted to the release of those chemicals. And then we associate the release of those chemicals with love, right? And so, the flip side of this dynamic, it can result in boredom. So when there's, you know, a safe relationship, that there's not always this heightened state of emotions, the relationship kind of loses the thrill. And so the excitement is always just a powerful motivator that keeps many people coming back. And that's why it can feel very addicting to be in these types of relationships, and why there's an obsessive pull towards these relationships is because it's literally a response that your body is producing on so many different levels. And then this is why a lot of people, myself included, that we get addicted to the ups and downs of the roller coaster, the roller coaster relationships. When things feel like they're going good or everything seems perfect, the person will even normally do things to kind of stir things up, because it just feels too normal. And so they'll start fights just to try and get the roller coaster going again.
Waheed 09:53
Absolutely. Absolutely. And then another way that we might witness a trauma bond is when we find ourselves that our needs were rarely met in particular relationships that we were part of, or we may be unaware of what our needs are in any relationship really. If we trace it back to childhood, maybe our parental figures and caregivers may have been unable to meet our needs, because they were unable to meet their own needs to begin with. And so this would leave us similarly unable to meet our own needs when we are adults. And this might look like someone who is not able to say no, or to ask for things, because we are afraid or ashamed. And as a result of a lifetime of many unmet needs, we consistently feel resentful, unfulfilled, and needy, as a result.
Amina 10:48
Definitely. And then another sign of trauma bonding is, you basically continue to betray yourself in particular relationships to get your needs met. And you don't trust yourself, you don't trust yourself to know what your needs even are. And your worth, it becomes dependent on others and how they perceive you. So you're always making choices through someone else's perspective. And you're allowing other people to validate you or invalidate you. To validate your reality, what you think is actually real, you're letting other people determine that. And then this, obviously, becomes just a vicious cycle, it will constantly leave you to feel, you know, destabilized and disconnected from yourself, because you start questioning your own reality. And then you can become very fixated on the person that has hurt you. So not only are you pulled to these relationships from the very beginning, but even during the relationship, and then even after the relationship ends, you become very obsessed and still fixated on them. Even if they have hurt you very badly, even if it's physical, emotional, mental abuse, whatever it is, you still find yourself addicted to that person. And then you will continue to stay loyal to them. Sometimes you'll keep on sticking up for them, saying it's not very, you know, what they did wasn't bad, or you're constantly trying to defend them. Yeah, so I had realized this, you know, with many of my ex-partners, that I was constantly put in this position where I was defending them, to try and paint them in a better light. And it didn't matter how much they had hurt me, I always stuck up for them. And I tried to find the good in them, and then tell other people about how great they were. And a part of it is you want other people to view your partner as a good person, you know, it's kind of that “validating my reality” kind of thing.
Waheed 12:57
Absolutely.
Amina 12:59
Sometimes when you get to a point that you have left the person or you're thinking about leaving the person, or, like I said, this doesn’t have to do everything with just (romantic) relationships, but friendships as well. So to stop communicating with a friend, you start to realize that these are people that you actually don't even really like the characteristics about them in the first place. Like these are people that you typically wouldn't even be with or be friends with. But for some reason, you know, of the reasons that we've already spoken about, you were pulled to them from the beginning. And then you got stuck in this roller coaster type of friendship or relationship. But once you get out of it, you realize, “Oh, this isn't even a person I even like in general!”
Waheed 13:42
Right, yep. And so, basically, those are some of the examples, just common signs where we realize that we're in a trauma bond. And what we're trying to say is that these trauma bonds are the result of relationship dynamics that are rooted in a lot of the stories about ourselves, and these stories were created back when we were kids, and then they keep on manifesting even in our adult relationships. If you want to look at them, you can think of them as an extension of how we adapted or tried to cope in the absence of having our intrinsic needs met. We spoke about this in detail, as you guys remember, in the four-episode series on complex trauma, when we discussed all of this in detail. So, basically, we developed coping strategies as children that helped us survive a lot of the issues that we had with our parents or caregivers, whoever was taking care of us, you know, our primary attachment figures. And so we held on to these coping strategies so tightly as we entered into adulthood, and then we started facing all of these perceived “threats” in other bonds. As you remember, we talked about the survival brain, and so our brain becomes so hypervigilant to any sign of stress or threat. So, we start reading these into the relationships that we go into. So, we kind of use all of these signs or “threats” to maintain this shield or armor that we need to protect ourselves, so that, you know, our inner child wounds can never be opened again, because that's going to be very painful, and we try to protect ourselves from any signs of pain. And so, you know, the ultimate result is that there's this unconscious pull towards these patterns that is very strong, that we will do anything to actually preserve a relationship that is founded on a trauma bond. We often find ourselves engaging in acts of self-betrayal in order to receive love, because our brain interprets it as something that is necessary for survival - if that bond is severed, then it's as if I'm going to be ‘annihilated’. That's what my brain interprets it as, right? Because it's a reflection of my early attachment patterns in childhood, where I needed my parents or caregivers to survive. And so it's the same kind of betrayal that we have seen in childhood, when we were told that certain parts of us were “bad”, unworthy, or less than, and so on. And so we repressed or ignored these aspects of our true and authentic self that wanted to express itself. But, you know, in the back of our minds, the goal was always to receive love, because an act of bonding equals survival, and love, in other words, equals life, so we hang on to it, we clench onto that.
Amina 16:36
Yeah, definitely. And then for people who have experienced trauma in their life, and it doesn't have to be major trauma, it can be minor traumas as well, it's easy to confuse the feeling of the mental and physical activation of the stress responses, like we had talked about, the dopamine and adrenaline, we confuse those with authentic connection. And so, if we're used to the stress responses all the time due to the trauma, then we may start to confuse these signals of the threat and stress for sexual attraction and chemistry. So we can find ourselves, you know, starting to become sexually attracted to friends, or just people that we weren't attracted to before, because we're confusing the signals. And then eventually, because of the physical responses, we're developing that emotional addiction to this heightened state, and it keeps us stuck in those cycles. And we're going to keep on ending up in the same relationship dynamics, as always, with the same partners or different partners, similar friends or different friends, like I said, it doesn't have to be all (romantic) relationships. And then this traumatic bonding, it really is an addiction. And it's real, and it's consuming as any other addiction, like a drug addiction or alcohol addiction, it takes on that similar chemical rollercoaster. And many people just find themselves addicted to these emotions.
Waheed 18:07
Right, definitely, I think that this is a point that is worth mentioning, the idea that many people are addicted to these emotions without even realizing that. There is an addiction that we need to talk about, which is emotional addiction. And I've met so many people in my life who are so addicted to their emotions, because that high that they get from their stress response, that dopamine and adrenaline, as you said, it becomes very addictive, just like any other addiction. And so, they become addicted to these emotions, these emotional highs, that at any point in their life, that they're not having that high, and they're kind of like in a resting peaceful state, it makes them so agitated. And any thought of like doing meditation, mindfulness or being in a state of serenity, it just makes them so triggered, because they have been used to that, you know, adrenaline or dopamine high. If their relationships are going very well, or everything is just calm, they need to stir drama, because they're so addicted to their emotions, they can't really.. It's very triggering for them not to have drama in their lives. So, it's very important to actually realize that this is an actual addiction that needs help, because this is not going to work out eventually, you are going to crash if this is the case. So we need to talk about these things, because they're very important. And this is what we're basically talking about here, right?
Amina 19:35
Yeah, for sure. And I also have found, too, that with these types, the person also is not only addicted to the physical response of the roller coaster, but it's also, you know, sometimes they want to stir up drama just because they get in the state of “Oh, I'm so afraid that the other person will leave me or the friendship, because everything feels too normal”. Well, it's kind of part of the addiction as well, because you're so addicted, if things are going crazy, then everything's okay.
Waheed 20:14
Exactly.
Amina 20:18
And so it's really easy to blur these lines between the emotional connections and the sexual attractions. It's really like the dopamine and oxytocin releases for love. So you’re correlating actual love with sexual attraction, but really, they can be separated. Because these hormones can be triggered by other activities, it doesn't have to be even love or anything like that, these hormones can be released by other things. So if you start equating just this hormone release with sexual activities or emotional connection, you can kind of see where that would end. Because of the addictive nature of trauma bonds, when you break them, it literally feels like you're breaking any other addiction, you go through all the same similar withdrawals, you go through relapses. So, you know, the withdrawals can be the mental state, but also physical withdrawals, just like when you're trying to get off drugs or alcohol, you hear about people literally having fevers and sweats and vomiting, you can go through the same withdrawals when you're breaking a trauma bond. And then the mental and emotional withdrawals, you feel like everything is being taken from you, you don't even know who you are at that point. And you feel like, if you don't have that person, that you are nothing and that you will die. And so it's very similar. And then you start to become anxious, you know, about whether you made the right decision or not, which is, that's when you can go into “relapses”, right? So just like people go back to drugs or alcohol, you can go back to these friendships or relationships, because when you physically and mentally feel so bad, you want to feel good again. And if that person has brought you those good feelings, you're obviously going to want to go back to them, and you might go back to them.
Waheed 22:26
Right. Absolutely. Makes perfect sense. And so, going back to that idea of, you know, our childhoods, the cycles that we engage in with particular people, like closeness or rejection, all of that began early on, right? And so, a lot of us find themselves compelled to engage in adult relationships, whatever these relationships are, that actually mirror those conditioned cycles that we've been used to ever since we were little. We're trying on a subconscious level to relive our past, because, on some level, we are creatures of comfort. And so our brains like to predict the future, they seek the comfort zone. And even if the future itself is very painful and miserable, or even terrifying, you know, “At least I know it, I'm not going to go into some uncertain territory. It's much safer than the unknown.” So we end up repeating a lot of these old relationships, because they feel familiar to us. We are used to that on a visceral level. And if you guys remember, back in episode 43, the first episode on complex trauma, we actually talked about different parenting styles: We said there's the narcissistic parents, the authoritarian ones, the permissive ones, the bereaved, the addicted, depressed, workaholic parents, or family with a person who is dealing with a particular illness or special needs, parents who are very achievement- or perfection-focused, parents who may be sociopathic, or a reverse relationship where the child has to grow up beyond their years and actually become the parental figure, because the parent is very childlike or requiring a lot of help, or the well-meaning but emotionally neglected parents themselves who are not able to emotionally attune to their kids. And we have also other examples of parents who deny the reality of their kids or dismiss it altogether, children who feel that they're completely invisible to their parents (i.e. not seen, not heard). Parents who vicariously live through their children, try to mold them or shaped them, parents who lack any sense of boundaries, or they engage in enmeshment. Those who obsess about appearances and they maintain an image, and then parents who cannot regulate their emotions, and so on. We talked about all of these in detail. And so, what we would like to ask you is, keeping all of these general archetypes in mind, try to pay attention to how your body actually feels around different people in your life, different relationships, whether they are close friendships, romantic relationships, you know, colleagues, your boss, etc. And think of our relationships as a guidance system that kind of enables us to determine the state of our mental wellness, maybe like take it as an exercise to write down the names of some people that you have the closest relationships with. And maybe underneath those names write down how you feel most often when you interact with them. Do you actually feel relaxed, or do you feel anxious and tense? Do you feel free and safe, or do you feel threatened? And this will begin to give you an awareness of some of the relationship patterns that you have learned through your experiences in childhood. And it kind of puts everything in perspective somehow, right?
Amina 25:47
Yeah, what’s interesting about that is, when you do that exercise, you start to really see the patterns and how little you change throughout the years. And then you only really make a change when you recognize what is happening. And then you have to make this conscious decision to, you know, associate with different people, or get in relationships with different people. But it really doesn't happen until you notice that, “Oh, yes, there is a pattern to the friends that I hang out with, or the relationships that I get into!” And it really is, because when we're engaged in this trauma bonding, we're not reacting from our rational mind, we're being pulled in by these subconscious wounds of our past, and we're just living on autopilot. And it's everything that's familiar to us, that was familiar in our childhood, and it becomes familiar for our adulthood as well. And so then, as long as we continue to be unaware of what is happening with these conditioned patterns, even if you find, you know, the “perfect person” with zero red flags, who has all the characteristics you're looking for, who has the characteristics that are good in society's eyes, you will still feel as though this relationship is missing something essential, because you haven't worked through those attachment issues and the trauma of the past. And so there will still be no connection, because you're still trapped in this trauma bond state. I think that it's important to note that, you know, trauma bonds, they're not something to feel ashamed of at all, so many of us participate in them, and we're just completely unaware that it's even happening. And there's this cascade of physiological responses that are going through your body and working to keep you in that state. So they want to keep you in this trauma bond, so you're literally fighting against your own body, and you're fighting against your own mind. And that's not easy to do. And when people advise, you know, you always hear people say, “Oh, just leave!” or “You should know better!” I don't think that those comments are really helpful at all, because it's not that easy. Many studies have been conducted and anecdotal studies prove that it is not easy to just leave and get out of these abusive relationships or out of these trauma bonds. It really has to be unlearned, and it takes a lot of time
Waheed 28:24
Absolutely. it takes a lot of work and dedication. Absolutely. But it is doable, inshaAllah.
28:42
So now that we understood, you know, all of that, let's talk about some of the attachment styles that we have in adulthood. So, basically, psychologists have studied this in detail, and they came up with three main patterns. And those are the secure, the anxious, and the avoidant. And then they split the avoidant into two types, so in total, we have four. And we actually talked about these in childhood, if you guys remember, back in the previous episode, when we talked about the attachment styles in childhood, there were the four different patterns, and these still exist in adulthood. When we talk about the secure pattern, it comes from secure attachments in childhood, and the rest come from the insecure patterns. So, Amina, let's start with the first one.
Amina 29:28
Yeah, sure. So secure attachments, that's what we're striving for. This is like the “Captain America” of the attachment world. You're comfortable giving freedom to the other person, you're allowing the other person to be who they want to be. You're allowing the other person to come to you when something is wrong, and then you can go to them when something is wrong. It's very mutual. It's a lot of equality. It's honest and open, both partners are really thriving together at a healthy pace, and they stand together on stable and equal ground. So, security is not really perfection. But you know, obviously, they're going to experience problems and conflicts, but they have very high emotional intelligence, that they're able to communicate these problems effectively. And they solve them together, rather than, you know, just attacking, fighting, running away, shutting down, or putting up walls. The relationship or the friendship is highly resilient, and there's a lot of care for each other, and a lot of self-awareness, and then also awareness of the other (person). And they really trust each other that they have the fortitude to deal with the emotions that come with the connection, and they focus on the quality of the connection. They don't reenact their childhood traumas in these relationships, so they're not bringing all the baggage and all the childhood trauma into their current present relationship. And these two people that have a secure attachment to each other, they typically have higher self-esteem, and they feel secure with themselves. They don't need the other person to constantly validate them, and they don't need to validate the other person constantly. And so their self-worth is not defined by each other, or other people for that matter.
Waheed 31:36
Absolutely. So anyone hearing this, it sounds very utopian, because we actually strive to become that, and, you know, it takes work, but we can get to that point, inshaAllah. And here, we're not just talking about romantic relationships, but it can actually be like very strong friendships with other people and other kinds of bonding or attachments. So that's the first one, which is the secure kind.
The second kind is the anxious kind. A very typical example from pop culture is Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars. So people who have anxious attachments, what do they usually do? They romanticize love, and it becomes very easy to make a bond out of fantasy than to actually face reality. They're attracted to a partner that they can save, or someone who can save them, right? It's very common for those people to be demanding, obsessive, clingy, to overanalyze situations, catastrophize things, they might have mood swings, you know, they often mistake turbulent relationships for passion. They struggle with a lot of insecurities, a lot of issues when it comes to their own self-image and self-esteem. They struggle with establishing a strong sense of self, because they grew up, you know, as kids, when they had little or no healthy boundaries whatsoever, they didn't have enough guidance on how to nurture their own individual selves, and their interests and their own boundaries. And so what happens as a result, normally, they would start projecting on to their “object of affection”, you know, their friend, or their partner, or whoever else is with them, this ideal image that they want them to be, you know, an ideal person. Because they have a low self-image and a low self-esteem, it kind of blinds them to the flaws of the other person, they don't even see whatever red flags or issues there are with the other person, they're completely oblivious to that, they don't even want to see that. They fear the loss of that connection or that relationship. In the back of their minds: “If I lose that connection, it feels like dying!” because my brain is hanging on to that relationship as my survival, it's my lifeline. “You're my everything”, is a very common statement. And sometimes they use their pain of not being with their loved one to actually control that person that they're in a relationship with. They might make the other person fear their own suffering. And, sometimes, even though they realize that their relationship is actually failing, they won't call it off, they don't want to sever that relationship, because, again, their brain is interpreting that as literally dying. And so, sometimes, they might threaten to self-harm, even if it doesn't happen, because they want the other person to stay in with them. They become too clingy, because of their own abandonment issues. They drive people away, and by driving people away, they actually confirm their own suspicions and fear of abandonment, that “No one loves me. I'm not good enough, I'm not going to be lovable, I'm not worthy,” and so on.
Amina 34:45
Yeah, definitely. And in this anxious attachment, this is where you find the “rescuers” or the “savior” mentalities. The people that have to “rescue” other people. They need to be this person's sole caretaker, which really arises from low self-esteem, so you have these people that are kind of looking for almost to call people “projects”, right? The people that need help, so that this person can help the other person. And it's really this feeling of not (being) good enough. So when you feel not good enough, and you want to throw yourself out there as helping other people, it's so that you get that validation from society and from that person that you're doing something good. And you'll find these people, that they will kind of shower another person, a friend or a partner, with gifts, they'll just shower them with an obsessive amount of gifts. And it's because they want to be liked, and they want to feel needed and wanted. So they want this other person to like them, and so they're using this resource as a way to get that. But, as you can see, that really is just because they don't feel good enough, and they feel like they need to do all these things to get another person to like them.
Waheed 36:14
Honestly, like doing this research on attachments, codependency and emotional dependency, like for me, honestly, it was a slap in the face. But it's like a wakeup call. It was painful but necessary, because honestly, like I identified with that... For me, it was very eye-opening, because I could see myself as a codependent, and I did not really know what that meant. Like I knew briefly what codependency was, but actually doing all of this research just opened my eyes to realize that “Oh my God, I'm codependent!” And I really need to do the work to actually recover and heal from all of these issues that I have, because that is not a healthy way to cope and engage in relationships, you know?
Amina 36:57
Yesss, Queen! I feel the exact same way as I was doing this research about codependency, and I'd actually been introduced to codependency a long time ago, maybe like 15 years ago, through some friends. It was actually kind of amazing. My friends were going to this 12-step program called Codependents Anonymous (CODA), and this was literally maybe 15, 16, 17 years ago. So it's an idea that's been around for a long time. It's just the research on it is just continuous. And I think, back then, the research was really just starting, and then now it's gotten bigger and bigger.
Waheed 37:40
Absolutely. This “rescuer” or “savior” mentality that you were talking about, I definitely identify with that. And this is something that I'm actually working on right now.
Amina 37:47
Yeah, for me, it's the same. I definitely find myself, and my whole entire family falls into this “rescuer” mentality where we're always trying to take care of other people and then we neglect our own needs and wants, and how that really just tears relationships apart.
Waheed 38:03
Absolutely. 100%. So far, we've talked about the secure and the anxious types. And so the third type is the dismissive-avoidant. So we said there are two types of avoidant, one of them is dismissive. So the dismissive-avoidant type - a typical example, for those of you who are Marvel fans, is Tony Stark, the Iron Man. He's a typical dismissive-avoidant type. They're emotionally distant in relationships, they come across as self-sufficient, independent, and they avoid true intimacy. So they pull themselves away from being vulnerable with another person, like a very close friend, or a partner, spouse, etc. because they don't want to appear as weak, right? And if the other person threatens to leave them or to sever that relationship, they start facing that abandonment problem they have. So they shut down, they shut their emotions down, they pretend they don't care, but they actually do. They made an illusion of their independence. We all need connection in order to survive, right? It's hardwired in us. And, as a result, those people have very few connections with other people, right?
Amina 39:17
Yeah, definitely. These are the types that really push people away by being really defensive. And they can even display characteristics that are not inherent to their nature, but these characteristics will be very negative. And it's a subconscious way of trying to push people away. But deep down, they really do want the other person's friendship or to be in a relationship with this other person.
So then lastly, the last attachment is fearful-avoidant, and this is like Will from “Good Will Hunting”. And this is really a delicate mixture. They're fearful of being too close or too distant from their partner or their friend, it can be really unpredictable. They're overwhelmed by their own emotions. This is a very emotional attachment. So when people get too close to them, the person will retaliate and hurt the other. They have a high fear of being abandoned. And they struggle with having their partner becoming too reliant on them. So it's lots of conflicts with wanting intimacy but struggling with it. There's so many highs and lows in this relationship. This is really the emotional roller coaster, they'll cling to their partners when they fear abandonment, and then they can end up in many abusive relationships. It's very similar to the dismissive-avoidant attachment style, where they have few relationships, and they're just unpredictable. And this is the type that is most likely to engage in self-sabotage.
Waheed 40:58
Absolutely.
Amina 40:59
Yeah, I pretty much think I relate to all of these attachment styles except for secure.
Waheed 41:10
Yup, they hit home, definitely, 100%. So, in general, like when we look at the avoidant type, whether it's dismissive- or fearful-avoidant, in general, they avoid true intimate connection. They might be good at the beginning of the relationship, you know, when things are exciting, and we're getting to know each other, and yada yada, but then they start to back off when there's long-term commitment, and they disappear. And another way of disappearing is using humor or laughter or joking a lot in order to avoid becoming too emotional; as we recall, we've talked about this before, it's like a false mask that we put on, because we are trying to hide our true emotions. So we hide behind laughter, sarcasm and smiles because we fear intimacy. We use sarcasm, jokes, laughter, making other people laugh - we use that armor when others want to deeply connect with us, or we shame others by using sarcasm against them to try to avoid actual emotions. So that's just another example of the “avoidant” false mask.
Amina 42:28
Okay, so now that we talked about the attachment styles, let's move right on into codependency. And so codependency is a pattern of behaviors and relationships, which really means to move towards other people to gain their approval to overcome one's basic insecurities. So others' approval of you becomes more important than your own self-respect and your own sense of self-worth. So people with codependency, they'll give just an obscene amount of love and care and respect for others, more than you yourself would expect and more than others would expect of you. And they're ignoring what they should actually be giving themselves, and they then give that to others. So this really goes back to our childhood conditioning and early childhood experiences, trauma bonding we have with our caregivers in our family. And when you become someone with codependency, it's really a way just to cope with those situations, as a child when you didn't feel safe, or you didn't feel it was acceptable to just be who you were. So this is like complex trauma: it wasn't safe, and you had to please others, and you derived your self-worth from that. And in the complex trauma episodes, Waheed had talked about abandonment issues, neglect, different modes of parenting, and the effects on self-identity, shame and the different characteristics. So we talked about the different survival mechanisms we developed as kids that became coping strategies that we still use as adults. And codependency really arises from households that are abusive, or ones that can be considered as less than nurturing. So because sometimes we think about abuse, as it has to be physical abuse, like slapping kids around and beating them, which obviously counts as abuse, but it can be other things as well. So just anything that's less than nurturing. So an example could be that when parents don't teach their small children how to problem solve, and they expect the children to do it on their own, instead of helping them along, and these children might not have the intellect yet to do that. And then on the other end of the spectrum, less-than-nurturing parents can become too overprotective and don't give their children punishment for their actions, or they do all of the problem-solving for them, they don't trust their children enough to have the intellect to problem solve. And then some parents will almost become too friendly with their children, this can be kind of less-than-nurturing as well, where they almost view their children as their best friends. So they're constantly telling them all of their problems, and they're relying on them for emotional support. So they're relying on their children for emotional support, when it really should be the other way around. And it puts a lot of pressure on the children. Speaking about punishments, so, sometimes, you know, a parent will punish a child, or they will punish a child, and they'll realize that they were actually in the wrong, but they won't apologize to the child, they won't say, “Oh, I'm sorry that I punished you, actually, you were right and I was wrong.” So that can be less-than-nurturing. And then, sometimes, parents will just completely invalidate children's thoughts, they just regard them as immature. So all of these situations, and there's obviously many more that would make a household less-than-nurturing or abusive.
And so we tried to cope with these types of households, with these less-than-nurturing households, and this emotional and physical distress of being abandoned, whether physically, emotionally, in any type of way, we try to prevent these similar events from happening again, and we try to hide that internalized, toxic shame, that those feelings of being unworthy, or feeling of being unlovable, and that being who you are is considered “dangerous” or “bad”. So, we try to hide that from ourselves and from others. And these are just early messages that we've received from childhood that it just wasn't safe and it wasn't acceptable or desirable for you to be who you were. And so you're always trying to be good, right? You're trying to be perfect, trying to be what others want you to be. These are just many of the things that a little boy or girl could be experiencing and then bringing that into adulthood, this childhood abandonment experiences and the internalization of the toxic shame. So, that's why now as adults, or even kind of when you become a teenager, all the way through, you start to focus on things about yourself that you can change, like physical appearance, or your talent, how well you do in school or as an adult, something that you can do so that you get valued by others, so you get that validation from others. And this can even be also like the type of spouse you choose, or the type of job you get, it can be something that's not even just external, anything that you can receive validation from others about. So if your spouse has a really good job, or even your kids’ successes become your success, however, other people can measure your success, based on what you do or others do. So your entire identity and your self-worth becomes tied to your physical appearance, your physical appearance or your talents or your kids’ talents, your spouse's talents, your job, your spouse's job, and we use that to convince ourselves that we're valuable, because of somebody else's validation. So, codependents, I mean, can really have low self-esteem obviously, because they're basing their self-worth on what everybody else thinks about them. And the issue with this type of self-esteem is because it's really not self-esteem, I would call it like an “other-esteem”. It's completely based off of what somebody else thinks. And because it's what somebody else thinks, obviously that becomes very subjective, and that can change from person to person, you know, my mom is going to think something about my job, whereas my friend can think something completely different about my job. My mom might think it is bad, but my friend might think it's amazing. And so then if I'm basing my entire self-worth and self-esteem off of what these two different people are saying, just about one thing about my life, then obviously you can see where that can become problematic.
Yeah I see this a lot, just in my friends and then myself, everybody. Everybody kind of comes from these… Well, at least, I come from a family where your job really matters and what school you went to really matters. It was actually this constant joke in my family that “You can be whatever you want to be as long as it’s a doctor, engineer, or lawyer.”
Waheed 50:22
Right! Exactly. Absolutely. 100%. And there's a very nice quote by Graham White, who said, “Codependency is using a relationship to fill a bottomless void, due to not feeling whole and loved as an individual. It's not the need to be loved that's the issue, it's the inability to love oneself that causes the dysfunction.” And I find that a very, very beautiful quote that kind of summarizes the whole issue of codependency. According to psychotherapist, author, and codependency expert Ross Rosenberg, the term codependency is misused and misunderstood. It's representative of an older time, it's overgeneralized, stigmatizing and shaming, it kind of implies weakness and neediness and clinginess, and so instead he coined the term “Self-Love Deficit Disorder” or SLDD, which is not stigmatizing or shaming, but rather kind of reconceptualizes the whole issue of codependency as a symptom of attachment, trauma, core shame, and pathological loneliness. And so, he came up with what he calls the “Self-Love Deficit Pyramid”, which if you can think of a pyramid, it's made of five levels, like from the base all the way to the apex, there are five levels. If you look at the base level, he says that the core of codependency/SLDD would be attachment trauma. For someone to grow up with SLDD, he argues that one of the parents is probably a narcissist, or has narcissistic qualities, the other might actually be codependent, in which case there is what he calls the “Human Magnet Syndrome”, that codependents and narcissists are always going to attract each other. So probably, you know, one of them is codependent, and the other is a narcissist. That might not always be the case, but there's a high chance that that would be the case. But anyway, regardless, the base of SLDD is actually attachment trauma, the core of that, and we talked about attachment trauma back in the series of complex trauma, there is a dysfunction in properly attaching to the parents, the child is not made to feel safe and accepted as he or she is, the love that is given to that child is conditional and judgmental, right? To properly attach to the parental figure means that “I am loved for who I am”. A lot of us were not given that kind of love or that peace and comfort. So we felt unsafe. And so this attachment trauma is actually unconscious, it is repressed in our memory, and this is the foundation of SLDD as he argues. As we've spoken about in the complex trauma episodes, we said that the actual experience of the event, or the trauma itself, that has been going on for a long time, is more important than what actually happens. Our perception is more important than the actual event, because that's how our brain internalizes that, how our brain perceives it dictates reality. And the trauma becomes encoded in our limbic system, and as you guys remember, that is part of the survival brain, the fight-flight-freeze response where we store our trauma memories. And it becomes very painful to recall these memories, and it becomes relegated to our subconscious, where we express things at a subconscious level, at a reflexive level, without even realizing things. So that is the base level, or that attachment trauma.
Now, on top of the attachment trauma, the second level in the pyramid is the core shame. And it is semi-conscious, not completely unconscious like attachment trauma. It's semi-conscious, because we realize that we have shame once we understand what shame is, which is “I'm not good enough”, we feel bad about who we are as people, worthless, unlovable… And so this SLDD or codependency is perpetuated and reinforced by the core shame, because we feel defective and fundamentally damaged. And part of the narrative becomes, “I am only good when I am selfless, when I am serving other people.” And, again, we become a “human doing” than rather than a “human being”, right? We've talked about this before. And there's a kind of a symbiotic relationship between shame and codependency/SLDD, because they feed off of each other. If we do not really solve the shame issue, recovery from codependency/SLDD becomes almost impossible. But we need to realize that shame is not the core problem, rather, it is the foundation of that pyramid, which is the attachment trauma - the main trauma has to be solved for us to recover from the codependency. So, the core shame is actually the second layer, which is, “I am only lovable when I am doing something for other people, or when I am even invisible”, right? Because that's part of our narrative, a distorted definition of ourselves. That is the core shame.
Now, the third layer on top of the core shame would be what Rosenberg refers to as “pathological loneliness”, which is this existential feeling of being lonely that can only be “medicated” when we are in a relationship with someone else. There's a high chance, as he argues, that a person who has SLDD/codependency is going to end up in a relationship with someone who has narcissistic tendencies, and again, he refers to that as a “Human Magnet Syndrome”, they're like magnets that attract each other. And, you know, attachment trauma is unconscious, core shame is semi-conscious, because we realize we have it at some level, but then pathological loneliness is completely conscious, because we actually realize that we have that sense of loneliness, and we need to “medicate” that. And basically, when I think about it, “I am feeling pain when I am alone”, there is this painful feeling of worthlessness and unlovability that is just too painful, too unbearable.
Now, how do I medicate that, that is the fourth layer, what he calls “SLDD addiction”, where we alleviate that loneliness by the attraction to a “narcissist” or someone who has a narcissistic tendency, or the compulsion to stay with those people or with other people, because we can't bear to be alone, or “I need to serve other people in order to derive my sense of worthiness.” So being alone or not doing that is going to make me, you know, triggered or anxious. And then, as a result of all of these layers, the top of the pyramid is there, which is SLDD or codependency, i.e. “Self-Love Deficit Disorder”. The selfless compulsive, caretaker person who habitually attempts to control others into loving them.
57:25
And with this, we have come to the end of today's episode. So far, we have introduced the topics of attachments, codependency and emotional dependency, and in the next episode, Amina and I are going to dissect the characteristics of codependency and emotional dependency, inshaAllah. We look forward to talking to you very soon. Until then, stay safe and healthy. This has been Amina and Waheed Jensen in “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, assalamu alaikom warahmatullahi ta’ala wa barakatuh.