The Codependent Crazies

Even after some lengthy recovery, we can still come down with a bad case of the Codependent Crazies. We meet someone new and an emotional fever comes over us. We kick into automatic pilot and we immediately start building dreams of a life together in our heads. We find ourselves thinking about this person all of the time. We have the compulsive desire to speak with them everyday. If they don’t pick up the phone and call us, we call them.

Before we know it, we’re seeing this person almost daily. We’re positive we’ve found our Indiana Jones. Yahoo! We’re finally being rescued from ourselves! By now, everything we have learned in recovery has gone out the window of our mind. We worship this person. We can’t breathe without them. We jump into high gear emotionally and spill all over the person as we jump over the many necessary steps to normal courtship. We want the ultimate in intimacy and we want it now. We’ve roped our doggie and by God we’re ready to have him/her fill up our every inch or ounce of lonely emptiness.

And—worst yet-- we’ll do anything to keep tight possession of our conquest. After all, we know what fear of abandonment is all about-- it’s a companion fever to the Codependent Crazies and the two fevers often run parallel with each other when we are spinning totally out of control.

When the fear of abandonment fever kicks in we often find ourselves running on super people-pleaser mode. We agree to everything our Indiana Jones wants. We want what he wants. We like what she likes. We buy him/her gifts. We accept being dumped on, having engagements broken and being treated like we don’t count at times. Sometimes the abandonment fever gets so high that we start prying into his/her life by overstepping significant boundaries. We may start rifling through his mail, ease-dropping on her conversations or even snoop through his desk drawers for evidence that they are indeed cheating on us. After all, in the back of our heads, we’ve known from the start that this was never really going to work out for us.

I could go on, but anyone reading this probably knows the end of the story. So here’s what’s really important to grasp hold on: The Codependent Crazies don’t simply go away because we’re in recovery. We might be attending CODA or Al-Anon or ACOA meetings daily, but that doesn’t make us immune to the fever. If we meet someone who awakens deep feelings within us, we need to be aware of what’s happening and we need to question what our sudden interest in this person is really all about. Are we speaking a non-verbal addictive language of “rescue me and I’ll rescue you” with this person? If we are, we need to back off.

Even if the person we’re interested in seems healthy, are we aware of proper boundaries? Are our emotions running havoc all over us? Are we making compulsive decisions? Are we wanting a lifetime of intimacy in the first few weeks of knowing this person? If we have the need to see or talk to him/her everyday, it’s a serious red flag that we are suffering from Codependent Crazies. If we want too much intimacy too soon, it’s an additional red flag. If we are constantly preoccupied with thoughts of this person, or if we’re making changes in ourselves to please them, then we need to see our CODA doctor—our sponsor. We need to get a dose of reality, loosen the fever’s grip and return slowly to sanity.

We need to remember that no one can be our Indiana Jones, except God. We have to fill up our inner-emptiness with self-love and self-care. The more we feel good about ourselves, the less we’ll feel the compulsion to have someone rescue us—and the more we will enable our souls to shine!