I didn’t think anything was wrong. I thought I was good at relationships. After all, I knew how to read people. I would either push or pull back, and I prided myself on knowing how to keep things from tipping too far in either direction.
If something didn’t feel right, I adjusted. If someone pulled away, I either let them go or leaned in (and I always knew which to do). If there was tension? Well, count on me to smooth it all over.
Wow, did these dynamics cause a lot of effort, but if it’s hard, it’s working, right? I thought this was how to love people. That’s the tricky part of all of this. I thought I was devoted to the relationships in my life.
Then I learned about codependency. It feels like love, but it looks emotionally draining. It carries the language of devotion and commitment, but underneath, something else is running the show.
Something anxious. Something that says: if I get this right, I won’t lose you.
It doesn’t say it that clearly, though. It shows up in smaller ways, like how quickly your mood shifts based on theirs. How a short text or a distant tone can throw off your entire day. In how you replay conversations later, trying to find the exact moment something might have gone wrong. You tell yourself you’re just paying attention, but really, you’re trying to stay ahead of something you can’t fully control.
What is codependency, exactly?
Codependency gets thrown around a lot, and most people picture something that’s obvious and extreme. But it’s usually less obvious patterns.
At its simplest, it’s when your sense of stability starts depending on someone else’s mood, behaviour, or approval. You track them more than you track yourself. You adjust to keep things okay. You feel responsible for how the relationship is going, even when it’s not all yours to carry. It doesn’t feel unhealthy. It doesn’t feel unhealthy. It feels like you’re being careful and thoughtful. Like you’re just trying not to mess it up.
When care starts to cost you
Codependency looks like love, but it’s not about love. It’s about slowly leaving yourself out of the picture. It never happens all at once.
You hold back something you wanted to say. You go along with something that you’re not fully okay with. You tell yourself it’s not a big deal, though. You can be flexible, and that’s a good thing, right?
Maybe.
But then it keeps happening.
You start thinking about what you will say before you say it. You rehearse your words. You filter your reactions. You start asking yourself how something will land before you ask if it’s even true for you. You are good at keeping the peace.
Even when you’re not.
Author Melody Beattie wrote about this years ago, how codependency pulls your focus outward until your own needs feel secondary, or inconvenient, or not even worth having.
You neglect your own needs because somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling safe to have them.
Why it feels so real
If codependency felt obviously unhealthy, most people would walk away from it early. The problem is that it doesn’t feel unhealthy. It feels important.
There’s a kind of purpose in being the one who understands and the one who doesn’t make things harder than they need to be. You become the stable one, the reasonable one, and the one who can handle it.
People notice that, and they rely on it. Sometimes they even praise it, so the cycle continues.
A lot of this has roots that go way back. Psychologist John Bowlby’s work on attachment theory showed how early relationships shape how we connect to others later in life. When love feels unpredictable early in life, you learn to pay close attention.
You learn to read shifts in mood and patterns and to adjust quickly. You learn that connection can depend on how well you manage someone else’s emotional world.
So, when you do that in adult relationships, it feels familiar. And familiarity can be hard to question.
The part people don’t like to admit
There’s another layer that people don’t always want to look at. Codependency can feel like self-sacrifice, but underneath that is control. The belief is that if you stay on top of things, if you say the right thing, respond the right way, anticipate what’s coming, then you can keep the relationship from falling apart.
Relationships are not meant to be managed that closely. You simply cannot prevent every shift or anticipate every reaction. And you definitely can’t earn stability by over-functioning.
It starts to wear on you.
What you start losing (without realising it)
This is where it starts to blur because nothing happens suddenly. It’s all gradual and hard to detect in real time. You don’t suddenly lose yourself.
Your preferences get less clear, and your reactions slow down. You pause more often because you’re constantly filtering yourself. You are always wondering:
Is this okay to say?
Is it too much?
Am I being too much?
Should I just let this go?
You become really good at managing what’s happening around you, that you start neglecting the big picture of what’s going on inside of you. You start to feel restless and disconnected in a way that’s hard to explain.
It’s a strange feeling, because nothing looks obviously wrong from the outside. You’re still showing up, functioning, and doing what you’re supposed to do. But something feels off underneath it all, like you’re there, but not fully in it.
There’s research to back this up. Chronic people-pleasing leads to mental health issues such as anxiety and self-doubt (Kuang et. al, 2025). It makes sense. When your attention is always on others and how you think they perceive you, there’s not much left for you.
Eventually, something starts pushing back, like exhaustion and resentment. Then, there’s the thought you just cannot shake: I don’t feel like myself. I am no longer myself.
What love actually looks like
Real love isn’t intense like media shows. It’s really not. It is not built on constant adjustment. It doesn’t require that you monitor yourself all the time. It’s steady, and there’s plenty of space in it.
You can say what you mean and not worry about rejection. You can have a reaction without immediately trying to fix it. You don’t have to earn your place over and over again. Love isn’t perfect, of course. But it’s not built on fear.
Boundaries are important. Not as in pushing people away, but knowing where you end, and someone else begins. Without that, relationships get tangled and can become codependent.
The turning point
This is where it gets uncomfortable, but it’s the necessary part to see the patterns and take action to change them. You start to see how much of your identity got tied up in being the one who holds everything together.
You realise how often you stretched past your own limits and called it love. That’s not an easy realisation to sit with, but it’s at this point where you start to see things clearly so that you can make changes.
No, it won’t happen all at once, but you can start making small changes. You catch yourself before you over-explain, and you don’t. You let a pause sit instead of filling it. You let someone else be uncomfortable without stepping in to fix it.
You say what you actually think without worrying about how it will be received.
This will feel unnatural, even wrong, at first. Like you’re being difficult. But really, you’re just not abandoning yourself anymore, and that takes practice.
How can White River Manor help?
If any of this feels familiar, you’re not alone. It may be time to take a closer look at the patterns underneath your relationships. At White River Manor, that’s where the work begins: understanding what’s driving the behaviour, and building something stronger from there.
Contact us today to see how we can help. We are here for you.
References:
- Beattie, M. (n.d.). https://www.melodybeattie.com/
- Kuang, X., Li, H., Luo, W., Zhu, J., & Ren, F. (2025). The Mental Health Implications of People-Pleasing: Psychometric Properties and Latent Profiles of the Chinese People-Pleasing Questionnaire. PsyCh journal, 14(4), 500–512. https://doi.org/10.1002/pchj.70016
- Slade, A., & Holmes, J. (2019). Attachment and psychotherapy. Current Opinion in Psychology, 25, 152–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.06.008
About Dr Magda Rall
Dr Magda Rall is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience in care, primarily within the private sector. Holding a PhD in multi-disciplinary studies (sociology and psychology) from the University of Calvary, she has spent the last four years focusing on rehabilitation, working closely with substance users and their families. A recipient of the prestigious Mariette Loots National Award and a passionate volunteer for CANSA, Magda brings a wealth of knowledge and empathy to her role as Head Therapist at White River Manor.
