Codependency Can Kill Us If We Don’t Learn to Place Our Basic Needs First

Yesterday, I was watching the 1989 film “Steel Magnolias.” In my 20+ years of recovery, I’ve always heard that codependency can kill you, like alcoholism, but I never really believed it until this scene above sank-in.

In this scene, we witness the graveside service for Shelby (Julia Roberts). Shelby had a severe form of diabetes that led to insulin shock. Yet, Shelby never learned to focus first on taking care of herself. Instead, she spends her young life taking care of everyone else’s needs and feelings. Everyone else comes first.

This is dramatically shown in a scene where Shelby is about to leave work and take a Halloween costume home to her toddler. She has a slight spell and knows her insulin level is too high. She knows all she needs to do is drink some orange juice and her insulin level will return to normal, but she doesn’t do it. She thinks it’s more important to get the costume home to Jack Jr. It’s imperative to make her toddler happy.

She returns home, dresses Jack Jr. in his costume and attempts to pick him up. In doing so, the stress on her body starts the process of insulin shock. Does she run to the fridge to drink some orange juice? No. Instead she’s more concerned with getting her toddler back inside the house.

In the next scene, Jack Sr. returns home to find his son crying and Shelby in a coma, clutching the telephone. As a result of Shelby placing her needs behind everyone else’s, she accidentally kills herself.

Believe it. If we don’t meet our basic needs first, we will either completely burn out, or we will accidentally kill ourselves, just like Shelby did.

The above scene reveals the fact that Shelby was feeling too responsible for everyone else, always placing her needs last, and paid for it with her premature death.