Codependency: A Way We Unconsciously Do Life

Codependence can turn peacefully into interdependence when we stop playing the game of triangulation and perceive ourselves as powerful, capable and valuable.

Codependency is a game we play based on the unconscious belief ‘your problems are my problem’ and a goal we think we have to have: control over the powerless feeling of victimhood, ours or others.

We want control because the idea of losing power to someone else is unbearable.

Unfortunately, like two sides of the same coin if we want control, we end up being controlled.

In this hellish and cruel game we continuously switch places within the confines of a triangle, getting to play only one role of any possible available three at any given moment: ‘victim’, ‘rescuer’, or ‘persecutor’.

(Most of us like the ‘rescuer’ role the best because we feel strong, good and capable–charitable souls helping the weak; less guilty than the ‘persecutor’ and more powerful that the ‘victim’.)

In this way, we move around three positions in a triangle, seemingly locked in permanently.

Stopping would mean facing the unconscious horror within ourselves; an inevitable awareness: I don’t have a clue what I am doing or what to do, and this feels insane, and if I don’t know what to do with you, then I have no clue what to do about me.

The way out begins by accepting we are playing a no-win game, willingly go into the unconscious to see what’s hiding and face the fear of why we feel powerless in the midst of our experiences.

Most of us need help with this in one form or another-it’s hard to go it alone without some inner guidance at least. But once we truthfully see our inner motives we can stop this very mean and painful game, and regain access to abundant resources and capabilities without anyone having to make sacrifices or be one.

As Magui Block writes in her book ‘Healing the Family Systems’:

“If we tend to act as ‘rescuers’ or ‘persecutors’, every time we come across a victim, someone who needs help, we are going to feel ‘pulled’ or compelled to do something.

If we tend to act as ‘victims’ we feel the other person has more possibilities than us, as if (they have) what we need and, ..we do not really notice it, we ‘draw him/her toward us’ to help us.

This is the sign that makes us realize that we are in the victim-rescuer-persecutor triangle. …to be free from this triangle we must perceive both the other person and ourselves as empowered, responsible, and capable human beings with all the necessary resources to carry on.”