When recovery from codependency starts to happen, you expect real change and acceptance from the people around you. Yet, what usually comes is resistance. Some of the people around you will notice the shift in attitude immediately. You will notice it in the way they talk to you, in the silence that follows and them being “hurt” by the new boundaries you are setting. They will call you “distant”, “selfish” and maybe even “cruel”. For a while, you might even believe them and some codependents will give up their work at this point and adapt again. The sad thing is that the people who will use these terms are not reacting to the real you but to a vision of you that made their lives easier. Healing isn’t linear and harmony doesn’t always happen. Sometimes, it truly looks like being misunderstood, standing alone and finally coming to the realisation that their approval didn’t equate to love.
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Recovery from codependency is rarely the smooth, linear process that people imagine and is often portrayed in articles and websites. It is not about being endlessly stoic, calm, or becoming detached. It’s about telling the truth and not lying to yourself and others and maybe for the first time in your life. When this happens, the dynamic with people who found that quiet, agreeable version of you to their liking, will be disrupted. For a codependent, this shift can be difficult to navigate because the healthier version of you, will not be quite as comfortable for them.
At first, this new attitude will also be unsettling for the codependent. You will say no and feel immediately selfish. You stop over explaining and feel heartless. You step back from someone else’s drama and chaos (enabled partly by you) and feel guilty. This is the emotional withdrawal associated with recovery. It’s not a love or person addiction as often portrayed in literature on codependency. It’s an addiction to being needed, the peacemaker, the fixer, the “good one” in everyone else’s eyes. That’s the high of codependency. It’s where the dopamine fix comes from. When this idea starts to crumble in your mind, your nervous system may interpret this as danger because your body still believes safety is being useful for everyone around you.
The real fact is that recovery from codependency means and requires you to disappoint people. It asks you to become tolerant of being misread, to withstand the disapproval of people who gained advantage from the old you. You cannot stay in this role and recover. The two identities cannot co-exist.
For all your life to this point, you have probably equated kindness with self-sacrifice. You learnt the hard truth that love for you, meant absorbing blame, fixing problems and others and that became your identity. You may even have worn these traits as badges of honour. “I’m strong, loyal, and I never give up on anyone”. However, that’s not love, it’s survival and certainly isn’t intimacy. It’s a way to control rejection before it happens. When you become indispensable, it may feel good but in terms of self worth, it’s a fragile state.
This is the point in therapy when some clients will start believing they are wrong. They may have started setting boundaries but can’t yet see them as healthy. They often feel detached and unsure at this point. Yet, what is really happening is individuation, a psychological process of separating identity from the expectations of others. It’s the foundation of emotional maturity but when you have spent your life pandering to others, it can feel like isolation.
What is truly ironic in this situation is that those people who call you selfish were the ones that benefited most from your compliance and selflessness. They mistake your new boundaries for betrayal and distance because they’ve become comfortable with the old you. This is why healing is not just an internal process. It changes the dynamic of every relationship you have. When you stop rescuing and taking responsibility for their moods, they have to sit with themselves. Not everyone will tolerate that.
Still, this discomfort is where healing starts for you and them. You can’t save others without losing yourself in the process. That’s not compassion, it’s control disguised as care. Real love doesn’t require you to feel small so others feel good. It requires honesty, even when honesty hurts or creates distress.
As you move into this new world, there may be setbacks, You might crave the old validation and what you thought was closeness, even if it came at a price. However, every codependent needs to get to the healthy point where they know that they don’t need to sacrifice themselves to make others believe they care.
In time, you will see the guilt you feel is not a sign of something wrong. Indeed, it’s a sign you are growing. You will start noticing that your identity was built around being agreeable and your “loving” behaviors where actually attempts to avoid conflict. You realise that you weren’t calm because you were peaceful but because you suppressed your true self.
Eventually, you will come to a point of clarity. You will see who generally values you for you and who values what you do for them. You will begin to prefer uncomfortable honesty over quiet resentment. You stop confusing approval with connection. The more this is practiced, the less you will feel the need for over explanation of who you are trying to portray. The people who are meant to stay will because they will greet the new you, not have a wish that you stay as you were.
It’s very easy to think of recovery from codependency as a destination and an arrival. A point where you’ve mastered everything and feel fully confident. However, recovery isn’t about perfection, it’s about integration of new lessons learned. It’s learning that you can be kind and still say no, stay empathetic and also detached, loving but unwilling to tolerate dysfunction and drama. Some of the people in your life will quietly withdraw. Other will leave in a storm of insult and turmoil. Others will take your new calmness and call you “cold and distant”. That’s fine, you are there to be authentic.
The loneliness you might feel at this stage is temporary and essential. You are finally alone with your own thoughts and will be able to separate your true feelings from conditioned responses. You will start to see love as a choice and not a duty or an anxious thing that you must have but that’s true healing. You start to understand that being needed and being loved are not the same thing.
In time, all this discomfort fades away. The people who truly value you are still there and the toxic ones that needed the “old” version of you will be gone. It’s a new kind of peace, not the fragile sort that kept everyone happy, but the grounded sort based on being honest with yourself and the people around you. Recovery is about becoming real, not being liked. Healing doesn’t make you harder, it makes you clearer and if that clarity costs you a few relationships, it’s proof you are living life on your terms….finally. That’s the paradox of recovery. The healthier you become, the less people you will need and the ones who remain will love you for who you truly are.
