I am very sick of the notion that codependents are empathetic people. Codependents are extremely narcissistic in terms of their goals and behaviors. (Narcissistic, not saying they all have NPD, though some of them certainly do.) You are not an “empath”. You are not even in touch with your own feelings, you are simply hyper-vigilant, and often times your fight, flight, freeze, and especially fawn responses, are extremely off-putting and uncomfortable to even a slightly more well-adjusted person. I believe codependents and even Cluster B’s are capable of (total, not impaired) empathy, but only after reversing toxic patterns of relationship behavior. This, however, is in no way their FAULT. I would not say that being codependent or someone with any Cluster B personality disorder (who all have narcissistic traits) is in any way that person’s FAULT. But it unfortunately is their responsibility now. I do not view this relational style (of codependency or narcissistic) as unfixable or irreversible. I would argue that every single person who is codependent or has a Cluster B PD one hundred percent has C-PTSD. (There are people with C-PTSD who have done more healing work and do not fall into these categories but that’s not who I’m talking about.) If you are codependent or are in Cluster B, you have sustained significant trauma, most likely from your parents, and you now have a warped idea of healthy and acceptable communication. You most likely have sustained a thousand little cuts from them while growing up. Being belittled, shamed, degraded, devalued, discarded, threatened, ignored, neglected, silenced, and deemed completely unworthy of genuine love. That is unacceptable and even unforgivable in some cases. I would never condone that. I wish you healing forever.
But this trauma has created a shame core at the center of your self concept, causing you to set off on a lifelong journey to try to feel good about yourself, rather than actually give or receive love. I am sorry that this is harsh and blunt, I mean it with all compassion and understanding. I have been codependent myself and have struggled to be direct with people in the past out of fear and I became an enabler of some really terrible behavior. I was terrible myself. I was (unintentionally) manipulative, as are all codependents. I was selfish when I should have been brave enough to tell those around me what my intuition was warning me of (that we were all falling down a bad path.) I do not like who I was. It was not my fault but it is my responsibility to continue the forever journey of gathering self-awareness and growing. I am not done and I hope I never tire of learning how to be better. I hope you can take something away from this. I’m sorry I’m all over the place, I have a lot of thoughts and I’m over seeing codependent and narcissistic behavior continuing to be the norm. This is not from a self-righteous place, I most definitely have work to do, truly for the rest of my life, I just wanted to speak about the patterns I have noticed since starting to dismantle my own trauma and toxic patterning. I wish you all well.
