The Codependency Revolution With Ross Rosenberg

This week I sat down with Ross Rosenberg to discuss how traditional approaches to codependency, narcissism, and trauma often miss the mark and how understanding the root of these behaviors, usually childhood trauma, is crucial for breaking free from unhealthy relationship patterns.

Transcript

Hi,

I'm Michelle Chalfant,

Psychotherapist,

Holistic life coach,

And human,

Just like you,

Learning to navigate life's challenges.

With over 25 years experience,

I teach people how to get healthy using the adult chair model.

The adult chair model is where simple psychology meets grounded spirituality,

And it teaches us how to become healthy adults.

From anxiety and depression to codependency and relationship issues,

You can use the adult chair for just about anything.

Each week,

I share practical tips,

Tools,

And advice from myself and a wide range of experts on how to get unstuck,

How to live authentically,

And how to truly love yourself,

All while sitting in your adult chair.

Welcome to the adult chair podcast.

Hello,

Everybody,

And welcome to the adult chair podcast.

I am Michelle Chalfant.

Happy to be back with you this week,

Second week of July.

Today I have on the show for you,

Ross Rosenberg.

Ross and I had a great conversation around codependency.

He is,

To give you a background on Ross,

I think this is my third or fourth time with Ross on the show,

But he is a global thought leader and renowned expert in codependency,

Narcissism,

Narcissistic abuse,

And trauma treatment.

He is the owner of the Self Love Recovery Institute.

And today we talked about his latest book,

The Codependency Revolution,

Fixing What Was Always Broken.

You know that codependency is one of my favorite topics here,

So we got into it today.

And here we go with Ross Rosenberg.

So welcome to the adult chair podcast,

Ross Rosenberg.

So nice to be back.

And you,

You are my,

I've said this all the time,

But you are my favorite person to talk to.

Whether I'm asking you questions you're asking me,

It's like,

Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to my sister.

The sister has a psychology background.

I love it.

And we challenge each other.

I think too.

We're really good.

Yes.

I love it.

Is this your second or third time with me?

I should have looked.

It's third or fourth.

Third or fourth.

And I've been on your show a few times,

So it's so good to have you.

We're celebrating today,

The Codependency Revolution,

Your brand new book,

Very excited to get into this with you,

Fixing What Was Always Broken,

The Codependency Revolution.

So wow.

I love this book.

I think everyone needs to get out there and get this book because,

You know,

You and I were just chatting.

So you're changing.

Talk to us about what this book is about.

How is it different from,

I mean,

You said it took you four and a half years to write this book?

Yes.

So tell us how it's different from the last book.

I have two editions of The Human Magnets.

The first edition was like 160 pages.

It took 12 months to write.

And the second one,

Five years later,

Was about 230 pages,

Took 12 months to write.

And so six years later,

I wanted to write the third edition.

And my publisher says,

You know,

For new editions,

You need to at least change 20% of the content.

And I decided to rewrite everything because the more I further myself in my own codependency or what I call self-love recovery,

The more I figure things out,

The more things come together.

And it's kind of like a living,

Breathing field of study.

And as I was updating the book,

I realized I was beginning to see it as this whole picture,

Not just The Human Magnets and codependence and narcissists,

But the field of codependency.

And I decided that someone had to tell the world that it was wrong about codependency.

This idea,

This concept,

This treatment approach to codependency never was right.

And I wanted to write something comprehensive,

You know,

From the beginning to the end that put it all together so that people would understand that we are changing this because we have to.

People are not getting better.

They are following the advice of well-meaning people using ideas that are antiquated,

That come from the 70s that haven't been updated.

So that's where it expanded into my attempt to kind of set the record straight,

That it's now to look at it differently so that we can offer the world more hope.

So I want to jump right in.

How,

How is it different?

Well,

So what I did,

First of all,

The Human Magnet Syndrome ideas are different and those basically said in the very beginning,

A codependent is a person who,

And it defines simply the definition as someone who gives all the love,

The respect,

The care,

The trust and protection to another person,

Wants it to be mutual.

It's not,

And they stay in a relationship.

It created this simple definition and around it,

It explained the problem and its variations.

Codependency as we understand it is different depending on the book you read and the person you talk to.

You talk to some people,

It's a problem with being too giving another person too controlling.

It's an emotional problem,

It's a behavioral problem,

It's an addiction.

All of these books say something different about it and when they talk about it,

It's a very long explanation and it got off track and not only did it miss the core of the problem,

It accidentally made people more ashamed and give them less hope because if you don't know what a problem is and you mistakenly describe it as something else,

Then you can't solve it.

So codependency had to be just like any field of science or study had to be updated.

It had to be refitted with the current understanding.

And so I went through its beginnings to a thorough discussion of exactly what it is,

Which is a 300 page book and said,

You know,

This is a revolution.

So many people suffer from codependency.

So many people are lonely,

Are filled with shame who keep finding themselves in the same relationships over and over again.

And they don't know why these unconscious,

Powerful forces keep compelling them to fall in love with the same type of person,

A narcissist,

To stay in their relationship and to either be afraid to leave or to be manipulated or forced not to leave,

That people have no hope.

And so my goal with this book is to give people hope by explaining what the problem is and how to solve it.

Oh my gosh,

I love this.

You said,

I think you said the problem of codependency is getting worse over the years.

Why is that happening?

Why is that?

Because,

Okay,

So let's look at the history of codependency.

In the 1950s,

It's when the medical,

Actually in the 40s,

50s,

The medical model entered the drug,

The alcohol treatment field.

And they started to realize,

Well,

This is a problem with the brain,

It's an addiction,

And it's no longer just about personality.

This is a problem that resists the cure.

And then they started offering treatment programs,

They started,

AA came about around that time.

And somewhere in the 60s,

Early 70s,

They realized that you can't treat an alcoholic without treating the partner,

Because there's a system.

Let's say the alcoholic goes home after treatment,

And no one in the family,

The spouse or the partner received any treatment.

They go home in the same six family system,

And the probability is high relapse.

So they called the partner of the alcoholic,

The co-alcoholic,

And they involve that person in treatment.

And the understanding is,

They were controlling,

They sabotaged unknowingly the alcoholic,

They were like tied into the dysfunction.

And so it became common practice by this late 70s,

Early 80s to include the co-alcoholic into the treatment.

And the early 80s,

They shifted from alcohol treatment and drug treatment to chemical dependency,

Which is one umbrella.

So they changed from co-alcoholic to co-chemically dependent,

And that's just too much of a mouthful and became codependent.

And then five years later came the books by Malady Beattie and the like,

And explained codependency from this addiction model of the partner of someone who's nagging,

Who's controlling,

Who is trying to solve everyone's business.

And it actually ended up making codependency,

This problem that was treated as they were doing something to hurt people,

And they had to figure out a way not to,

To let go and stop controlling and let people be what they are.

They had no idea that codependency really was a disorder where you give up your power and you fall prey to the manipulative wiles of a pathological narcissist.

And one part,

One little by little,

They exploit your vulnerabilities and they take over and you lose yourself.

And you become so encumbered by shame and loneliness that you lose an opportunity to live a life in where you could ever have someone treat you with love,

Respect,

Care,

Trust and protection.

And if you go to like Codependency Anonymous,

They define codependency by the first step is controlling people.

So it's almost as if these old definitions of codependency make the codependent feel worse and make them feel responsible for a problem they are a victim.

So that is where I knew it had to change.

We had to explain it.

I started with the Human Magnet Syndrome and explained why people fall in love with others that hurt them.

Or in the second book,

It was the Codependent Narcissist Trap and explained that they are so often powerless victims who are exploited and who are subject to gaslighting and to manipulation and kind of reframed the whole thing so that therapists could start to understand that this problem is not that of the co-alcoholic or the co,

You know,

Chemically dependent.

So true.

Yeah,

I remember realizing in my early 20s,

Hearing that term codependency and I got Melody Beattie's book and I was like,

But I'm not married to an alcoholic.

In fact,

I'm not even married.

In fact,

I'm not dating anyone in the moment and the guy that I was dating was not an alcoholic.

So it didn't resonate with me.

And she's lovely.

I mean,

She was,

She's brilliant.

She started something out of nothing.

Oh my God.

Lovely.

Started something out of nothing.

Totally.

But yeah.

So it was confusing.

And I remember going to a codependency group and I,

And I didn't feel like I fit in there either.

So it didn't resonate with me.

So I'm glad that you're updating this because I do agree,

Everything in the world needs to be updated.

We're constantly evolving and growing.

So it sounds like this is what you've done,

Which is exciting about this book.

But can I say one thing?

Some people,

To show my point,

Some people call codependency co-dependence,

Co-dependence.

They're still somehow making this disorder about two people that are dependent on each other.

Well,

It's not true.

Codependents fall in love with narcissists and it's,

It's a very one way relationship.

They're still looking at this from just a person who is dependent or who is a partner who is equally problematic,

If not more.

And so just if you look at how some people use the word co-dependence or what I call in the book,

The dash,

You can see they're still thinking of it the wrong way.

So I wanted to seek their pardon.

You had another question.

No,

No.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

So then how would you define codependency today?

Let's update it right now.

I'm a licensed psychotherapist.

And if I diagnose someone,

We have the DSM,

We have a diagnosis and it concisely says the problem is this.

And to diagnose someone,

You have to have,

They have to fit with these symptoms and that's how medical doctors are.

So if you're like schizophrenia,

Bipolar,

Well,

I wanted codependency to be seen as it is this,

And they have to have these traits to fit.

So I created,

I expanded on my original definition and so I'm repeating it,

It is a person who in relationships gives all the love,

Respect,

Caring,

Trust,

And protection away with the hopes to reciprocate because of the human magnet center and their choice of a narcissist.

It never is reciprocated and they stay in a relationship.

So now we have a simple definition,

Giving all the LRCTP away,

Wanting it to be reciprocated.

It's not,

And they stay.

And then I explained that personality types are independent of codependency.

So you can be like this really active,

Manipulative,

Walking behind someone,

Trying to correct them codependent.

So that's,

There's a personality type that's active codependent.

You can be passive and be like,

You know,

Like Archie Bunker,

Edith Bunker,

Where you just hope everything goes away and you just say,

Why doesn't everyone just love each other?

And you play the martyr.

And so what I did was I,

In this new book,

I created a whole chapter on codependency personality types.

They are not codependent.

Codependency is giving all the LRCTP away,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

And when we understand that lying,

Drinking,

Sexual compulsion,

They all are independent of codependency,

Then we could understand the pure essence of codependency and not get lost in 15 versions of codependency and confuse everyone.

Because the active codependent falls in love with narcissists and never get what they want.

The passive codependent,

The anorexic codependent,

The oblivious codependent.

So I started to expand the idea that there are so many different types of codependency,

But they all suffer from the same problem of an attraction to a person who can never love,

Respect,

Care,

Trust,

And protect them like they do to them.

So where does it begin though?

Where is the,

I don't,

I don't personally,

I don't believe we're born as a codependent.

This is something that we learn that we're modeled in childhood.

We're going back again,

My opinion,

And I want to hear from you,

But zero to six,

Like that's where,

And just growing up in a household with all the things that were going on.

So tell me about what is your feeling or belief on that?

So I created,

When I changed the name to codependency to self love deficit disorder,

I created a simple diagram to explain what it is.

And it's a pyramid at the very base of the pyramid is attachment trauma that during your earliest years,

If you are raised by a narcissist parent,

Which means the other one's probably codependent where you are going to be traumatized by the treatment of that parent and the way that you adapted to that.

And from that attachment trauma,

Which is stored,

It's taken offline and stored unconsciously and part of your brain from the attachment problem is core shame.

This fundamental belief that you're not good enough,

No one will love you from the core shame is this deep bone aching feeling of pathological loneliness,

That only in a relationship will that pain go away.

And from that level,

Is this a compulsion,

This addiction to be in a relationship so you don't have the loneliness and that at the very top of the pyramid is everything we know about codependency are all the symptoms and the traits.

So by creating that theory,

That diagram,

It helped people understand that the problem of codependency is not what people are doing or not doing.

It's not that they're saying sorry all the time,

Or they're afraid to pick a restaurant,

Or they're always trying to take care of people.

It is unresolved trauma from their childhood.

And that is where by creating these explanations,

I can help therapists understand how to solve the problem and solve it by getting to the root of it,

The trauma,

The shame,

The loneliness,

The compulsion.

Because if you're just working on the top,

The person's not going to get better.

And that's why it's a revolution.

We cannot look at codependency as a constellation of personality failures,

Personality weaknesses,

Because you can't fix it.

And if you keep doing it,

It only makes the shame,

The loneliness worse,

And makes it more difficult to get to the problem.

Yeah,

I 100% align with you on that.

You know,

It's in our programming from a long,

Long,

Long,

Long,

Long time ago.

And again,

I agree when I hear someone say,

Well,

You know,

I was working with someone,

They told me I just have to be strong,

Or no,

No,

No,

No.

When I saw clients,

I would always work with shame.

And this was my own journey too,

With my own shame.

It was an identity crisis for me,

I didn't know who I was.

I was,

I knew who you were,

And you and this person over here,

And I knew what my mother needed and my father,

I knew what everyone needed,

I had no idea what I needed.

So it's learning who we are,

It's building up our internal needs,

It's rediscovering our identity and rebuilding,

Not not even rebuilding,

But building our identity.

Yeah,

Building.

And I'm glad you differentiated rebuilding and building.

And so what I did was I created this 10 stage treatment program.

But I also explained that the trauma cannot be accessed by talk therapy alone,

Which is why codependency,

People weren't getting better,

As the trauma like PTSD,

For example,

It is kind of moved into another part of the brain,

The limbic system,

Specifically the amygdala,

Because that's how the brain reacts to help us survive deeply traumatic events that we can't handle is to not remember them,

But they're still on the back of our mind,

Impacting us.

Well,

If we experienced terrible trauma as a child,

That the basis for learning to be codependent,

Being invisible,

Multiple someone else's trophy.

And the the origin of it,

You can't remember,

You then aren't going to get better in therapy.

And all of the attempts to get better are going to like,

Hit a wall.

And so if you know,

It comes from trauma,

If you know,

It built this foundation of shame,

You know,

It began in your childhood,

You get to that point.

And then we do exactly what you just said,

Everything sticks.

And that's,

That's the revolution.

That's the new way of looking at codependency.

And I believe there are going to be countless numbers of people that are going to read this and are going to finally say,

There's hope they now understand what it is and how we can resolve it.

So what are some things that people can do in order to help start to heal this then?

You can't solve a problem if you don't know what it is.

And I've been saying that for such a long time,

Because I created a treatment program and I could,

And I will give you,

I will answer your question in a second.

But so I could say,

Well,

You know,

We need to stop doing this and we need to do this and we need to do that.

But if you're trying to solve a problem that you don't understand,

You're not solving the problem.

You're,

You're actually doing something else and the problem doesn't go away.

And then it builds upon each other.

So the first,

The first thing,

Well,

In my 10 stage self-love recovery treatment program is understanding everything you can about codependency,

Pathological narcissism,

The addiction,

And then little by little healing the parts of yourself that keep playing the drama that you experienced as a child,

Because every codependent adult is trying to get love from a person who can never love them.

And it's like a template of what happened to them as children.

So is to love yourself and build self-love is to somehow find a way to neutralize your self-hate,

Your self-contempt,

The gaslighting that fortified it.

And so my first,

To answer your question,

The first order of business is to understand it,

Understand how deeply embedded it is and how it is and always has been this problem with self-love deficiency.

And then if you understand that,

Then a therapist is going to be able to help you and direct you on so many different ways to build self-love,

To build the foundation from which you will naturally know what to do.

You don't have to follow what your therapist says.

You'll want to protect it.

You'll want to take care of it.

Like someone should have taken care of you as a baby or a young child that they didn't.

You know,

I think about in my own marriage,

Like my husband is definitely not a narcissist,

But he's got a lot of codependency.

So it's not that I attracted a narcissist.

I attracted,

We are codependent together,

But he does his work.

Thank God.

I do my work.

And you know,

We're in such a different place than we were 20 some years ago.

So I want,

I want to just say that because I don't want people to think they only will marry a narcissist.

And I know a ton of people that will date or marry someone that is a narcissist if we're codependent,

But it might not look like that too.

Correct.

Okay.

So I created and I refined it in this new book.

It's called my relationship compatibility theory,

And it explains the unconscious forces that pull people together and create chemistry and that opposites opposite healthy attract each other opposite dysfunctional.

The codependent sacrificer and giver is always going to be attracted to the pathological narcissist taker and neater,

But there are healthier variations.

And so I only call the people at the very end of the continuum,

Codependent and narcissist.

And so this book,

This revolution is to change the term that you use that.

So you said my husband and I are codependent on each other.

You're actually using it according to the,

The,

The denotation of the word we're dependent on each other and we need each other.

And maybe,

And,

And so that actually is missed accidentally gives people the wrong idea of what codependency is.

So your husband and you have a balanced relationship of opposites and it works out,

But you love each other.

And that means you're always going to be dependent on each other.

You're always going to have some level of mutuality and reciprocity,

Even if one person gives a little bit more at one time and another person does another time,

That is ideal.

That is where I try to bring my clients to by resolving your self-love deficiency,

Their core shame,

They can learn to be in a relationship because a normal relationship is a relationship that has problems that people can solve.

The whole idea that normal relationship has no problems,

Only shames people because everyone has struggles and challenges.

So my guess is your husband and you are dependent on each other,

Maybe one person more than the other at times.

And that's a great thing.

Yes.

And I see the eyes.

Yes.

And we're so much healthier now than we've ever been.

But there was a time when we were not healthy and I definitely had shame,

The fear of loneliness.

I would,

When I was single many,

Many years ago,

I would date just,

And I know,

Knowing what I know now,

Like I'm obviously years later,

But,

You know,

There was that relationship addiction.

I always had to be with somebody.

I always wanted to have somebody.

I could not stand being alone.

And then I would stay with my husband.

Now I remember there was a time where it was not so great.

We threw the big D word around.

And I remember the feeling I had inside was terror.

And my thought,

And I did a lot of inner child work around this because my thought was,

I remember the thoughts,

Wait,

I can't be alone.

I don't want to be alone.

And it was that terror of being alone.

Right?

Existential void.

Yeah,

Exactly.

And that I remember when we were going through that years ago and I said,

Okay,

That's more of my work because I don't want to have to have to stay with somebody.

If it's not healthy.

And not that it wasn't healthy,

Like in an abusive way at all.

It was,

There's a,

We had a lot of other things going on,

But the codependency and he had the same feeling like as,

Cause we talk about it now,

He's like,

Oh yeah,

That I,

The idea of being alone,

You know?

So we were glued together because out of fear of being alone and the shame that was deep inside.

So that was a lot of the personal work that we both did.

So,

So,

So let me explain it according to my relation compatibility theory.

First of all,

Let me start by saying what you guys were not.

You were not the textbook codependent,

But you had issues that were moderate along those lines.

And your husband was,

Is,

Was not a pathological narcissist.

So both of you were on one side of the continuum.

As you got up,

One person cannot get healthier without the other person getting healthier.

It relationship is going to survive.

So if,

If you got healthier and your husband did not want to,

Or move in,

It would not have lasted.

You would have,

The D word would have been said in court.

And so my,

My guess is that your personal work,

Your inner child work,

Your whatever work that helped you become more self-loving and more fully actualized because your husband loved you.

He participated in that and you guys became healthier together.

He it's,

It's a,

You know,

There's a family systems theory without going that,

Going into that and in any detail,

It basically says for a relationship to feel balanced,

If relationships are not balanced and one person changes too much,

Another person doesn't,

Well,

That throws a relationship off balance.

And if so many,

Many of the people that come to treatment,

I give them what I call my surgeon general warning.

And I say,

If you really are what I call a codependent,

Someone with self-love deficit disorder,

That means your husband has a personality disorder and he's not going to get better because of the nature of the problem,

Because they don't think they have a problem.

And I say,

This could result in the end of your relationship.

And you have to think,

Really have to like consider that this,

You're going to go in a direction that you might not be able to stop.

And,

But if someone's not a codependent and they just are,

You know,

They have some of those problems with self-love and their partner doesn't have a personality disorder,

People grow together and they become healthier together.

And if not,

It just doesn't work.

So it sounds like you guys became more whole as whether you initiated it or he did it.

My guess is that it,

It created a deeper sense of love and a deeper sense of reciprocity.

Does that fit in your experience?

Yeah.

I mean,

I've always enjoyed doing my personal work,

But,

Um,

And I'd gotten to the point where I kept getting healthier and I said,

Listen,

You can do what you want to do,

But this is what,

You know,

I would prefer that we did this together.

And if you don't want to do it,

Then that's fine.

And he was like,

No,

No,

No,

No.

That's my point.

We'll do it together.

Okay.

He did not want to miss the train.

You're happy.

No.

He didn't want to miss that train.

That's for sure.

All of my clients that it's like in the first couple of months of,

Of this self-love recovery treatment program,

The,

The narcissist,

I'm not saying you're a codependent and your husband was a narcissist.

I see everything on a continuum.

Yeah.

Me too.

Me too.

I don't think it's that black and white.

No,

I don't.

I never,

I don't think so at all.

Unfortunately people misinterpret things,

But the people that see me,

It is black and white.

They are,

Have a serious problem.

And then their partner has a personality disorder,

Which prevents them from ever getting better.

And the partner gets scared.

As soon as the person goes into the treatment program to start to get help,

They start to think better.

I work really hard at that.

And it gets the partner nervous.

The problem is they have a personality disorder and they don't know what to do.

But if you don't have a personality disorder and you don't have like mental impairment,

If one person's getting better,

It naturally wants,

Um,

You makes the other person want to get better because they don't want to be alone.

They love that person and there's,

It's,

It pulls them together.

And that is,

That is a healthy relationship.

And that is what I try to get all of my clients to that point.

I don't promise them peace and nirvana and everlasting bliss.

I promise them to help them overcome the self-love deficiency for the first time experience self-love and understand that people in their life want to be a part of that.

That's beautiful.

You know,

I think about a lot of people that I've talked to over the years that have been afraid of,

Well,

Why isn't my person,

My partner,

They don't want to do their work and it bothers me.

And sometimes you're in a relationship and someone does,

The other person doesn't want to do their work or,

You know,

You get made fun of for doing your work.

And I,

And I think,

I don't know what,

I mean,

What do you say to that?

Well,

So what,

What I explain is it's a basic human magnet syndrome concept is if,

Um,

If you give all the love,

Respect,

Care,

Trust,

And protection away,

And the other person does not reciprocate,

No matter what you do,

That means,

Um,

There's a very high probability this person has narcissistic personality disorder,

Borderline personality disorder,

Antisocial personality disorder.

In other words,

They have a mental health disorder that by its very nature doesn't allow them to take responsibility of their problems.

They blame everyone else for the problems.

Um,

If they're held accountable,

They punish people.

So if you're a codependent,

As,

As I explained on my continuum,

That means your partner is not going to think they have a problem and they are going to do everything they can to break down your attempts to get better.

So,

And that's why I created my Surgery General Warning is to let them know that if you get better,

The risk is to lose between 50 to 85% of the people that you thought you loved or who you thought you loved.

There's no,

Can't avoid it because if,

If you are quite a human Magnuson or a codependent,

That means your life is saturated with people with personality disorders who aren't going to get better and who have a lot invested in keeping you the same way you want.

And that's why setting the boundaries and potentially terminating relationships,

That doesn't happen until the middle of the program.

The last thing I want is someone to like stand up for themselves and say,

You can't do that.

And then having that fail and then having to feel worse about themselves.

So yeah,

So it's a personality disorder that,

That,

Um,

That makes the relationship impossible.

I think that's,

What's so hard when we are living with codependency is knowing what's true.

What's real.

Wait,

Do they mean that if there's gaslighting involved,

It's so gosh,

I think of all the years when I saw clients,

They'd come in and say,

Well,

He said this to,

You know,

Doesn't that mean he loves me?

No,

It's manipulation.

But you and I have talked about this on other shows,

But I feel like too,

There's a spectrum of narcissism.

That term gets thrown around all the time lately over the last few years.

But I think it was you that talked about a spectrum because I believe there's a spectrum of it.

You know,

There's true narcissistic personality disorder that might be a level five,

Right?

Versus a zero.

And if you're,

If you're in a relationship with the number five,

Like all the way at the end,

There's no hope,

But I feel like you're down the spectrum a little bit towards a zero,

Like a two,

Maybe I have more hope for that person that says,

Okay,

I really do want to try,

Even though they have some narcissistic qualities or traits,

What's your feeling on that?

Okay.

Well,

First of all,

The word narcissism is a dangerous word because it's used incorrectly.

So I created this continuum at the very end of the continuum is pathological narcissism and codependency.

One side of the continuum is a person whose relationship orientation is giving more thought,

Respect,

Caring,

And taking,

Neither good or bad,

And the other side is taking more.

At the very end of the continuum are the pathology,

The pathological narcissism and codependent.

People who are more focused on needing and taking and requiring,

It's not narcissism.

It's maybe selfishness,

It's entitlement.

I don't want to use the word narcissism or anything other than the problem,

Because everyone's lumping it into one,

It's like with codependency,

Everyone is trying to lump a very complicated problem into one word.

So I suggest that people don't say,

Well,

He's a little bit narcissistic,

Because everyone's going to think the wrong thing.

He's a little bit selfish,

He's a little bit uncooperative,

He's a little bit needy,

She's a little bit insecure,

She's a little ambivalent.

Because if you start using these words,

You are simplifying things that hurt people more than help.

For example,

If your husband one day is just like in a mood where he just doesn't want to help the laundry,

I'm making this up,

And normally he helps on the weekend and just doesn't want to,

Well,

He's not being narcissistic.

Maybe at worst,

He's being lazy or selfish or uncooperative,

And so if you say,

Well,

My husband was narcissistic Saturday,

Well,

It's like,

Well,

First of all,

It's not true.

And so let's use words that mean something and save the big words for the actual problem.

And just as we tell our kids,

Use your words.

If I say to someone,

Quit being codependent,

Well,

That's going to shame them.

If I said,

You're always saying you're sorry,

And there's nothing to be sorry about.

Or you could pick a restaurant,

No one's going to be mad at you.

And well,

That changes everything unless I said,

Quit being codependent.

Or it's like,

Well,

You know,

That just makes it worse.

So with my continuum and my theories and my explanations,

I help people understand exactly what these real big problems are,

And how we can move towards the middle and just have problems and be happy with them and just keep getting better together.

Does it seem like the people that you've worked with over the years,

They may not even know what's going on,

Right?

They don't know what's going on in their relationship,

Or are people pretty aware,

Would you say?

Well,

The reason my book did so well from the very beginning was the reason that I had to figure it out.

No one could explain why I kept falling in love with narcissists,

And I just kept feeling worse and worse.

And so people with an explanation,

They get hope,

If they can understand who they are,

Then they can understand that it's,

You know,

What they can be and what they should be.

And there's so much hope for people who fit my definition of codependency,

This new definition,

The revolution's definition.

And so if you can't,

Or don't know how to receive,

Or love,

Respect,

Caring,

LRCTP in a relationship,

Then you got to find out what's stopping that.

And if you find out your partner has a personality disorder,

And cannot survive unless he takes it all,

Then you understand why you're trapped,

Why you're gaslit,

Why everything is set up for you to fail.

And you not only understand the limits of your partner,

You understand the limits of you and your problems,

Codependency.

And understand that to get better is to make the other one panic,

The other one do anything and everything to sabotage.

And once you know all this stuff,

You have a much better chance of actually overcoming it.

And people also love the idea that it's,

When I changed from codependency to self-love deficit disorder,

It gave it a name that helped them understand the problem that didn't stigmatize it.

So true.

I love that.

I love that.

So I love that you give people hope.

You have a whole recovery problem,

Problem,

Program.

I did.

It is a problem.

One day at a time,

One day at a time.

The first step is the most important step,

Which is really noticing.

So tell us what that first step is like,

Noticing that there's something going on here and we need to.

I used to like to create memes,

You know,

Off of my social media.

Self-love deficit disorder takes the shame out of the name,

Codependency no more or something like that.

I try to do these catchy things.

And the first step is to understand it's a really serious problem and the problem is deeper than you think.

And any attempts to get better is going to be fought and resisted by the people in your life.

And you need to find someone who understands it and could kind of like be,

Hold a light up to your path because the way out of it is hopeless to so many codependents.

They're beaten down,

They're gaslit,

They're scared.

And by the way,

It's not just what the narcissist does or did.

They were like that before because it comes from childhood.

They already are lonely and afraid even before they get into the relationship.

And if you leave the relationship that you're in,

Because it's unhealthy and you don't do your personal work,

You're going to go find someone that might look different,

Live in a different state,

Live in a different country,

But you're going to experience similar issues because we attract our partners based on our core beliefs about ourselves and others.

So we've got to do our personal,

The bottom line is we have to look at ourselves.

We have to look at our programs.

And I say this all the time,

There's no blame or shame or judgment around that.

Like this is just part of being human.

We got to look at our programs,

Like those beliefs in there.

That's what's getting us in these situations.

So to me,

When I was on my journey of recovering from this,

It was such a,

It was actually a really beautiful time.

I felt like it was act two of my life and I said,

Oh,

I get to build this brand new identity and not that it was so brand new,

But you know,

Like,

Who am I really?

And what do I like?

And all these things.

It's self love.

It's a shift of reality.

It's self love.

I thought,

Wow,

This is all new,

Feels so good.

And I'm not,

I don't even want to go in this direction,

But most codependents,

And I'm talking about you,

When they do that,

Everything outside of them resisted.

But the hardest part is everything inside,

The thoughts,

The beliefs are so negative and so fear-based and shame-based.

And so as my therapist said,

You know,

Ross,

Your problem is you fall in love with the same person,

But with a different face.

You have a broken picker.

And it's like we have this,

It's what is familiar is safe and that with a person with your background and your adult chair program,

Or someone like with my self-love recovery treatment program,

We get to the fundamentals that block people from understanding,

Believing self-love and being ready for the forces that want to keep them from it and to experiencing what they should have had if they didn't have this narcissistic codependent parent growing up.

How many,

Like when you look at our population,

Is it one in two people,

You know,

Are walking around with codependency or what is it,

50% of the world or where are we?

Well,

If it's 50% and my human Magnus syndrome is correct,

Which I believe it is,

The other 50% is as a personality disorder.

So if you accept my definition again,

Okay,

For example,

Like major depression,

That there's only one that there's no such thing of medium depression or low depression,

Generalized anxiety disorder,

Just one disorder.

So codependency is something serious and something that's not as bad.

I don't call codependency.

So I would estimate that 25%,

I would say about 20% of the world are codependent,

Which means the other 20% have a personality disorder.

And that's a lot of people,

A lot of people,

A lot of people.

And if you ever want to figure out if someone's codependent,

Keep it simple,

Ask them if they're not in denial or do that in their relationships,

Who gives all that love,

Respect,

Care,

Protection and trust away.

And the codependent will always say,

I do.

I do.

I do.

Pride.

We will say it with pride.

Some do.

Some will say with shame.

Some will say with humiliation.

Some people wear it as a badge.

Look at this.

Yeah,

Look at,

Look at all I can do.

And I'm exhausted,

But I'm going to keep going.

I can take care of everybody.

And they might think they're happy and it doesn't take a lot for me to peel back those layers and they get sad and they realize how lonely they are.

But there's hope.

There's good people like you,

Other good therapists,

Other mental health practitioners.

We can,

With a better understanding of codependency and to embrace this revolution of this is not the old school codependency that doesn't have a cure,

But this self-love deficit issue,

We can solve it and you can love yourself.

And that will attract the magnet.

Human magnetism works on healthy people also.

We can attract healthy people too.

Then it's all,

Then the difficulty and hardship of healing is all worth it.

I love it.

Thank you so much.

This was good.

Reviews

Phenonmenol, Michelle. Thank you.

I’m surprised that there isn’t more discussion of codependency and mild autism. In support groups for neurotypical/neurodivergent partners, it seems pretty clear that codependency in the neurotypical partner is very common. Aspberger syndrome (yes I know that is not used anymore) can often mimic narcissism albeit with key differences. The archetype of finding a partner that cannot reciprocate is absolutely exists in these situations. I’m curious if anyone is looking at this.

I have learned a lot from this talk. Thank you both for sharing your experience.
Namaste 🙏