Love People for Who They Are
“You love people for what you want them to be, not for what they are.” Ted Bessell, That Girl Codependents certainly do love people for who they (the codependent) wants them to be, not for who they actually are. I know before recovery, my job was to rescue and remake people. I’d subconsciously choose a very needy person and befriend them by caretaking their every need and soothing their every drama. In the back of my head, I knew who I wanted these people to be. I had an idea about how to remake and remodel each and every one of them to be the person that I needed them to be. They were like clay and I had to reshape their personalities to ensure that they made me happy in all the ways I thought I needed to be made happy by them. This sometimes went on for months or years before I finally realized that they didn’t appreciate being rearranged to meet my needs. This “realization” was purely on a subconscious level, though. I never got it consciously before recovery. ...