Healthy Relationships After Trauma: Understanding Codependency

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When Caring Feels Heavy

In therapy, I meet many people—especially those in recovery—who fear repeating past relationship patterns. They say things like:

• “I don’t want to be codependent.”

• “I can’t go through this again—I’d rather do everything myself.”

• “When I love someone, I lose myself.”

These fears are understandable. When love has felt unpredictable or unsafe, even a healthy connection can feel risky. But here is the truth:

Needing people does not make you weak. 

Loving people does not make you broken. 

And protecting yourself does not make you cold.

How we show up in relationships is shaped by experience, attachment, trauma, and survival—not character flaws.

Although much of my work is with individuals recovering from Substance Use Disorder, codependency is not just a recovery term—it’s a part of the human experience.

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What Co-Dependence Actually Means

In everyday conversations, codependency is often used as a pop-psychology insult:

• “You’re too needy.”

• “You care too much.”

• “You should be more independent.”

• “That couple does everything together — they must be codependent.”

But none of those things actually define codependency.

Spending time together is not codependency. 

Loving your partner is not codependency. 

Needing connection is not codependency.

The real issue is when someone’s identity erodes inside a relationship—when boundaries disappear, needs are ignored, or self-worth depends on caretaking.

The word originally came from Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1950s. Family members who were trying to support a loved one with addiction were often overwhelmed, anxious, or hyper-focused on caretaking. Al-Anon was created to support them, helping people reconnect with their own needs and identities.

Later, clinician Pia Mellody expanded the understanding of codependency in her book Facing Codependence. She explained that codependent behavior is not a personality flaw—it’s a survival strategy. People often learn, very young, that:

• Love must be earned through caretaking

• Conflict is dangerous

• Their needs are “too much”

• Being useful keeps them safe

And you don’t need to be in recovery to recognize these patterns. I see them in:

• Adults who grew up parenting emotionally unstable caregivers

• Partners who feel responsible for everyone’s feelings

• High-achievers whose worth comes from “being needed”

• People who disappear inside relationships, trying to keep the peace

  
  

So while the word “codependency” came from the recovery world, the experience belongs to anyone who loves deeply and loses themselves along the way.

Therapy offers a structured, compassionate space to understand where these patterns came from—and how to change them. Together, we look at the environments that shaped your sense of safety, explore the beliefs you learned about love and responsibility, and identify the moments when caretaking becomes self-abandonment. Treatment planning in this work isn’t rigid or prescriptive; instead, it focuses on building awareness, strengthening boundaries, practicing emotional regulation, and reconnecting you with a sense of self that isn’t defined by others’ needs. Over time, therapy helps you develop relationships that feel steady, reciprocal, and rooted in mutual respect—where you can show up fully without losing yourself.

About the Author

DeAnn is a therapist (ACMHC) at Resolutions Counseling Center in Bountiful, Utah, and a graduate of the Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School of Addiction Studies. DeAnn uses trauma-informed care, EMDR, and narrative work to support individuals as they build a sustainable life in long-term recovery. She is also the Co-Founder of Show Up and Stay, a sober-positive workplace initiative, and host of the Recovery Discovery podcast.