Transcription
Welcome to my latest YouTube video or podcast. I'm Ross Rosenberg. Today we're going to talk about the nine habits of codependent people. What are the habits of someone who is codependent or someone who's self-love deficient, who is suffering from self-love deficit disorder? I am completely anticipating that if you're codependent or you're an SLD, you're going to recognize a lot of what I'm talking about in this video. It's going to hit you deeply. Maybe it might cause excitement and hope or it might cause a little bit of dread and anxiety. But whichever it is, it's going to be good for you. So, hang in there and let's learn this stuff.
One of the [snorts] things that makes me different from most other people writing about codependency or for that matter narcissistic abuse, that differentiates me from most psychotherapists, most coaches on YouTube, blogs, podcasts, is I propose that the only solution, the only way to stop this multi-generational problem, is to know yourself and understand that SLDD, self-love deficit disorder, is a problem that can only go away if we fix, solve, or heal the part of it that's within us. It doesn't mean it's our fault. It doesn't mean that any of the abuse, neglect, or abandonment that we've experienced we deserve. All it means is if you're going to understand what codependency or self-love deficit disorder is, you have to understand what is your role? How do you play in this partnership, this dance? Because knowledge is power. The more you can spot what has happened to you, even if it's not your fault, but still has become you, the more you can isolate and eventually solve, fix, or cure.
So, today we're talking about the habits of codependent people. Please don't mistake this by thinking we're talking about what is wrong with codependents and why they deserve what they get. No, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. It's time to understand the full story, to untie the knot, unravel the ropes that keep you prisoner in your own life, to understand how this all began in your childhood, and of course that wasn't your fault. It was stored in your brain in this place that keeps it unconscious and makes it happen reflexively without you even knowing as an adult. So, these habits that you have that we're going to talk about, they are solvable. But, I'm going to point out what they are and help you see them in your own life and put you on a path to recovery, to heal the part of yourselves that are responsible for keeping yourself there, and to defend yourself against the abuse that is perpetrated against you. And let me just remind you one more time, these are not personality flaws. They are not impossible to solve problems in your life. It will require someone with my background, someone who understands trauma, understands self-love deficit disorder, understands narcissistic abuse, and the insanity of the human magnet syndrome, which is the name of my book and explains why narcissists and codependents always come together. You're going to learn about what you became because of what happened to you and what you perpetuate because you're an adult and we have to take responsibility because we can't fix something if we're just the victim all the time. And again, I will repeat this as many times as I have to, there is no reason, there is no excuse to be abused. It doesn't matter how much we're responsible for our SLDD. There's no excuse for it.
So, in this video, I'm going to walk you through the 10 habits of codependent or self-love deficient people. Not all SLDs or codependents are the same and I write about this in my book. I believe that in my Codependency Revolution book, I have a whole chapter that talks about codependency personality types. And what I establish is codependency is a specific disorder where you give all the love, respect, care, trust, and protection away with hopes that it's reciprocated. And it's not because the human magnet syndrome says you're probably with a pathological narcissist. And you stay in a relationship. So, that's codependency. And then there are all the different personality types. So, whatever is your personality type that represents your codependency, this will help you. And of course, if you want to know more about personality types, get my book. Get get the Codependency Revolution. And remember, knowledge is power. Insight is going to be the rope you're throwing yourself to pull yourself out of the hole that you have dug for yourself that originally was dug for you to fall into. Knowledge is power.
So, let me say what I always do in a video just in case you're new and you haven't heard about me. I'm Ross Rosenberg. I'm a psychotherapist and I've been practicing psychotherapy for 38 years. I have a lot experience in the fields of mental health, social services, psychology, healing, trauma. I used to own a psychotherapy practice. I used to train professionals and therapists. And I've written four books and I am passionate about self-love recovery, recovering from this horrible pernicious disorder called self-love deficit disorder, codependency, which we're going to talk about today.
So, to begin with, the first three habits have to do with how you abandon yourself. As much as codependents were once children who had a narcissistic parent who they would be ignored by, hurt by, abused, abandoned if they didn't figure a way to be invisible, smaller, moldable. Every codependent, every SLD can be traced back to this childhood condition of figuring out a way to be the good one in their family so the narcissist would either love them of course conditionally or hurt them less. That is why it's so hard to solve because it's buried deep in our repressed disassociated selves in the back of our mind.
The first habit is saying yes when everything inside of you screams no is lacking what I call when I quote this the no muscle. It is a habit that is so deeply ingrained that codependents or SLDs have no idea. I can go almost anywhere and accurately diagnose a codependent. They almost always say sorry when they didn't do anything wrong. They become extremely apologetic and almost emotional if they made a mistake and they'll do about anything to make a person happy thinking they did something bad when in fact they didn't. This yes reflex reminds me of a meme that I made a long time ago. Codependents mistake breadcrumbs for a piece of bread and think about that. They're not used to getting love, respect, caring, fairness, support. And when they they get just a tiny bit they're happy. They feel satiated when it's only crumbs and crumbs are never enough. So if they subsist on breadcrumbs and if someone wants them to do something that's not good for them they don't want those breadcrumbs to be taken away from them. They believe that's their meal and they will say yes to things that make no sense. They will agree to do things that most people would never dream of because they need something and they are starved from everything. This yes reflex is not only a horrible habit it is exploited by the narcissist or the narcissists that are in your life. Not only do they need for you to agree, comply, and not resist taking care of them despite the fact that they don't give a damn about you and I have no ambition to make you feel loved, respected, cared for. As long as you believe their needs are more important than yours, you're going to say yes for things that you should say no. Or at least maybe and think about it. So, this is not tied just to what happened to you as a child. It's tied to so many areas of mental health and and psychological functioning. It's tied to our emotions, our thought patterns, our childhood trauma. It's tied to gaslighting and narcissistic abuse. But if you learn these habits and you know they exist in you, I believe with someone's help you can break them.
Habit number two is making yourself smaller than you really are. It's becoming this miniature version of yourself, one that doesn't take up a lot of space, that doesn't have a lot of needs, that is so easily able to put themselves on the sidelines when everyone else is getting taken care of. One that actually believes asking for something is way too big, too much, and selfish. And by the way, that's gaslighting. If you have this habit and you make yourself smaller than you need to be, you deserve to be, then you probably believe that other people's needs are more important than yours. You believe in the lie that when you ask for something and a narcissist doesn't want to give it to you, you believe in this this almost reflexive lie that you're wrong, you're mistaken, you're selfish, you're rude. It's as if you have absorbed all the lies a narcissist have told you that justify why you continue to think that you're small, invisible, and not deserving. And sadly, as this codependent, you're going to shrink and become smaller, and eventually you're going to be invisible. You won't even be able to see yourself. It's heartbreaking, but all the time in that tiny speck of space you take up in in a relationship, the narcissist needs everything else. You're not small. You're not invisible. And yes, if you should change, it's going to upset the narcissist, which is why you need to be in treatment, such as my self-love recovery treatment, because when you change and make the system where the relationship that you are used to, the narcissist is going to fight back and push you back and want you to stop trying to get healthy.
Habit number three is what I call the codependency delusion. Let's first talk about what is a delusion. A delusion is a belief that is not supported by reality. It is not only a belief that's not supported by reality, it's perpetuating that belief, justifying that belief, and making excuses for that belief. Perhaps the most common codependency delusional belief is that if you just give enough, if you're just patient enough, your narcissist lover, your narcissist partner, is going to be nice to you, just like they were when you first met them. And they might even, according to this delusional thinking, apologize and take responsibility and show some empathy. Well, that's a delusion. You know as well as I know that your pathological narcissist, or pathological narcissists in general, they have a personality disorder. And that personality disorder keeps them knowing when they're wrong. They feel justified ignoring problems. They feel justified in blaming other people. This codependent delusion is kind of like this ignorance is bliss thought. Some people think that if you just don't know enough and you just don't want to think deeply enough and you just want to ignore things, everything gets better. Ignorance is bliss is a delusion and it only gets worse over time because it requires more and more ignorance piled over what you already don't know or made you believe that you don't know.
Hint number four is waiting for someone to finally know what you want and need, to see your pain, to rescue you from your sadness, your loneliness, your shame. Believing that there is some Prince Charming or Princess Charming or someone that is going to find a way to throw you a rope and rescue you. Like a codependent delusion, it's a belief that is not supported in reality and it's like being addicted to This might sound funny or I might be insulting people. I apologize apologize ahead of time. It's like being addicted to Hallmark romance movies. It always comes out with the person getting who they love and that's not life. I mean it's it will make someone happy, but it's a fantasy. You're not going to get someone in your life inside these relationships to know what you need because the person who is taking most from you has a vested interest in in pushing that down, suffocating that part of you so that they can get everything. The narcissist can get all of the riches, all of the resources, get the attention. We call this entitlement and grandiosity. Entitlement is believing you deserve something that you really don't. Entitlement is believing that there's something so good about you that justifies why you need it, why you should be given it. Think about it. If you're in a relationship and you're gaslit and you're isolated, whether it's through the narcissist actions or your unfortunate self-abandoning, self-defeating actions, this idea that someone's going to rescue you is not going to happen cuz no one's going to see it. They're not going to know you. I know this. I have experience. I suffered alone. I always was afraid to tell the truth and the person I lied to the most was me. And let me talk more about this. I don't like to talk too much about my background, but it's no coincidence that I figured this stuff out. It's not because one day I decided I was going to write a book and these ideas came to me. No, they were my life and no one had an explanation for it. As my therapist once said, the same woman but a different face. Why after one terrible relationship with a narcissist, I would promise it would never happen again and before I knew it, the next relationship I was escaping my loneliness in with another narcissist. I've experienced everything that I'm talking to you about. I understand the loneliness, the sadness, the pain, the numbness and paradoxically I actually understand the dissociation, which is kind of hard to explain. So I understand how I lied to myself so well that I didn't know what was so bad and how much I was suffering. So I come here with personal experience both as a sufferer of codependency and someone who is recovering and who has found a cure with the help of therapist and my undying and unwavering dedication to what is good for me. I was able to turn my self-love deficit disorder into self-love abundance, which is what I do in my self-love recovery treatment program.
Habit five is being afraid, being terrified of escaping a relationship for fear of pathological loneliness. Pathological loneliness is the withdrawal symptom that codependents or SLDs feel when they escape the relationship with the narcissist and are not in a relationship. SLDD addiction or codependency addiction is this need to be in a relationship to take care of the loneliness and the core shame. So this habit is mistaking this pathological loneliness as being so severe that it justifies why you're staying in a relationship.
Habit six is believing and identifying in your core shame. So core shame, if you guys look at my SLDD pyramid, it explains exactly what SLDD or or codependency is. At the bottom is attachment trauma, which creates core shame, this fundamental belief that you're not lovable, you're not worth fighting for, that no one could ever love you because there's something wrong with you. From core shame is this existential disease I call pathological loneliness, this bone-aching pain of feeling nowhere and empty if you're not in a relationship. The next stage is the codependency or SLDD addiction that makes that pain go away. And then at the very top of the pyramid is all the traits that make you codependent, which we are talking about today. Every SLD has core shame. It is explained by their childhood. It happened at the very beginning of their life when they should have been nurtured, when they should have had a secure attachment, but instead, as I talked about earlier, they sacrificed themselves, they became smaller, they molded themselves, they became what the narcissist needed. So, they never learned that they are lovable just because who they are. They learned that there's something wrong with them. And often, if you're in a relationship with a pathological narcissist, they will tell you that. They will remind you about why you are not lovable, why you don't deserve what you want. And this very, very dangerous habit of identifying with your core shame is the bane of most SLDs existence. You are not the belief that something is wrong with you. You never were.
Let me take a break just for a second and remind you that despite these habits that are very common with codependents or SLDs, they are not a death sentence. They are not a prison sentence. It does not mean you have to be like that. It doesn't mean you can't escape. Everything in your world, your dysfunctional world, tells you you cannot, especially the narcissist. The worst person, believe it or not, is you. Once you believe that to be true, then you have no hope. Now, I'm not saying you're the worst person compared to a narcissist. I'm saying when it comes to believing in your shame, being afraid of being lonely, being small, all the things we talked about so far, those beliefs that justify these, they keep you trapped. And I'm here today to try to convince you to think and believe differently so that you can reach out for help.
The next habit that is very common with codependents is giving and giving and giving to prove your worth. That you are always trying to prove to people, especially your narcissist, that you are worth their love. You are worth the breadcrumbs they give you. It's as if you believe that if you don't give enough, if you don't find a way to make the narcissist happy, to sacrifice what is yours, the world will fall apart and you will have chaos. It's a terrible, terrible thought problem. It's either a problem that started when you were a child and you learned it, or the narcissist you're with gaslit you and indoctrinated you to think that way. You don't have to give in order to receive. Do you hear me? You don't have to give in order to receive. All you have to do is be your self-love abundant self. And someone will recognize that. And just because they love you and they recognize and want to share with your self-love, they give of themselves just as if you will. Don't believe in the punishment. It's really the solution is to give to yourself more than others is the way out. The narcissist is not going to let you know that.
And the next habit is overgiving, is overextending, overpromising to make yourself worthy and make someone believe that you are needed. Codependents or SLDs who do this are always volunteering for everything. They believe that if they just give and give and give, people are going to recognize their value and finally tell them they're lovable. But what they don't realize is that in a real world, a lot of times when you give and give and give, and it has nothing to do with narcissists, people don't always recognize it. They should, but people are busy and they're doing their own things. And when you give, if you're filled with self-love, you do it because it feels right and it makes you happy. And it's the cherry on the Sunday is when it's recognized, but not when you're a codependent. That giving is never and never comes with fulfillment. It never comes with that cherry. It comes with more loneliness. You get tired, you get exhausted, and you just want to pull your hair out because there's only so much you can do in any day, and you are doing everything for everyone.
The next habit is probably the most heartbreaking one. It's what I call the sorry reflex. It's not too far away from the yes reflex. But the people who say they're sorry all the time, more often than not, they didn't do anything. It's very disturbing for me to be in a room with someone who didn't do anything wrong and is apologizing for something. Say they interrupted me, and I can talk. Oh, you bet I can talk. And I also come from a family that if you don't interrupt, no one talks. If you can relate, you know what that's like. And if they interrupt me, they will then apologize and act as if they were rude, when in reality, they were just standing up for themselves. The sorry reflex makes them feel guilt and shame for just being healthy and either getting what they need, getting what they deserve, or setting up a boundary, letting someone know they don't like it. If you find yourself apologizing when there is no mistake that you really did, pay attention to that because you are taking responsibility for mistakes and problems that never were yours.
So, let me conclude. We talked about a bunch of habits that identify a codependent. These habits are very common with codependent people or people who have self-love deficit disorder. There are so many more habits, but what I tried to do was come up with the most common, the most obvious, and the ones that my YouTube viewers or podcast listeners can identify with. And I am sure you understand and you can relate with it all because you are self-love deficient or codependent and you have fallen in the trap. You have become this codependent person, but you never deserved to be him or her. You shouldn't be him or her. That's another person's life that you were pushed into or you were sentenced to a crime you never committed. You're never going to feel good about yourself by something you do for someone else or something you don't do for someone else. You can't fill yourself up from the outside in. It's got to come from the inside out. You have to find a way to love and nurture yourself because you, me, and the world of SLDs and codependents, our childhood was kind of crappy. We didn't learn how to love ourselves and to seek self-love because we were ashamed and guilted and gaslit to believe that was wrong. This is your time. You can fill yourself up with love, respect, caring, trust, and protection. LRCTP. You hear me talk about that a lot, the constituent components of love. And if you do that, your life will change and some of these codependent habits are going to melt away. I promise. It works that way.
So, in closing, it's time to believe that you are worth the fight. You are worth the sacrifice. You are worth the fear that is going to envelop you when you start to practice self-love. You are worth the pain and even the suffering. There's no way out of codependency without pain or suffering. Our SLDD is designed to feed on itself and to keep you down in the dark in your cell in this prison. So, if you're going to stage a breakout and solve these codependent traits, you got to be ready for enough pain so that you can feel the beautiful, wonderful nectar of self-love. And to get there, find a therapist who gets this, who understands exactly what codependency is, what self-love deficit disorder is, understand the trauma, the shame, the loneliness, and addiction foundation. And if you can't, contact me. I'd love to help you. I'd love to involve you in my self-love recovery treatment program. The friend that you need most. Remember this. The friend you need most is the friend that you have to give yourself. He or she's there. You got to find him or her, and you got to take care of him or her. You can do this. I believe in you. If you'd like to know more information about me, please go to my Self-Love Recovery Institute, which is selfloverecovery.com, or email me at help@selfloverecovery. You take care and be well.