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How to Avoid Codependency When You Help Someone in Need

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SOURCE:  Dr. Henry Cloud

Challenge Codependency occurs when we don’t have an accurate awareness of our boundaries and behaviors, and we allow someone else’s needs to control and take over our lives.

Solution You may be inclined to jump in and “save the world.” But there are better things you can do for that individual that will improve their quality of life and spare you from the toxicity of a codependent relationship.

“I’ve been in an accident,” Bethany whimpered. Her voice was filled with pain-staking fear. “I’m ok, but can you come get me?”

I assumed she meant the hospital. She was sitting in jail.

My blurry, tired eyes adjusted to the harsh glow of my cell phone as I looked at the time. If I left within the next few minutes, I’d have a head start on morning rush hour.

As I pulled up outside the Metro Detention Center, I saw Bethany waiting on the sidewalk for me. She stood there looking down at the ground with a defeated look on her face, perhaps still hungover. Her arms were crossed over her torso, clinched tight around her frame.

My door locks clicked. She got in my car, never lifting her head. Her disheveled hair draped over her eyes as if to hide her embarrassment. I didn’t even make it to the first traffic light before her face fell into her hands. Bethany let out deep sobs with diaphragmatic breaths. I offered a napkin from my center console.

“I hit a pole,” she quivered. “No one else was involved, but I think I have a drinking problem, and I honestly have no idea what to do right now.”

When you watch a friend or loved one struggle with pain in their life, your first response may be to do whatever it takes to ensure they don’t have to endure any more than they have to.

Why?

Although you care for that person, what you’re witnessing is uncomfortable for you, so you may be inclined to jump in and be the hero. But there are better things you can do for that individual that will improve their quality of life and spare you from the toxicity of a codependent relationship.

1. Show empathy
Though I had never been in Bethany’s situation, I knew what it was like to experience sadness. I was all too familiar with hurt, and I understood what it meant to feel shame. Bethany didn’t need me to tell her what she had done wrong. She knew, and if I spent time telling her what I think she should have done, it would have closed the door to trust.

2. Set and maintain boundaries
Bethany was in need of emotional support, and the circle of people she trusted was small. She was having trouble processing her feelings and was having anxiety over the legal consequences she’d have to endure. She called frequently, all hours of the night, and while I was at work.

After a few days, I had to let her know I couldn’t always answer the phone, so I sent her a text. “Hey, Bethany. I’m sorry you’re experiencing this right now. I can’t talk at the moment but let’s set aside a time later this week, and I’d be glad to listen to you.” It may have hurt her feelings, but it saved my sanity.

3. Remember it’s not your battle to fight
Bethany had lost her car, her job and her dignity. She was facing more jail time, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to watch her struggle. Part of me wanted to help her make everything go away, but I couldn’t step in and offer to pay her attorney or her court costs.

I knew that what was happening in her life was part of her journey, and if I disrupted the course, I would be denying her the lesson she was meant to learn. If Bethany was going to change, she would have to endure the consequences of her actions.

4. Realize you can’t change someone
I helped Bethany find several local AA meetings to attend and put her in touch with an outpatient recovery program, but I couldn’t make her go. It had to be her decision. Sometimes she went; sometimes she didn’t, and I couldn’t force her into making the choice I wanted for her.

5. Your feelings matter, too
Helping someone in need can leave you feeling exhausted, resentful, angry, hurt, sad or frustrated. Not only is it ok to have these feelings, but you need to be able to express them to the person you’re helping. Sometimes I had to tell Bethany, “You know, what you’re going through is really tough, but I’m feeling overwhelmed with helping you right now.”

When you feel compelled to help someone with a serious problem, whether it’s out of love or as a favor to a friend, it could breed a codependent relationship if you continuously sacrifice your needs for the benefit of someone else. There are myriad reasons why you may find yourself in such situations, but by having an awareness of your own habits and behaviors, you can avoid a potentially dysfunctional relationship.

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How People With Depression Interact With The World Differently

SOURCE:  Lindsay Holmes

The condition has a huge impact on everyday life.

Nothing about depression is easy. But the way it affects a person’s daily life is arguably the most difficult part of the disorder.

Approximately 300 million people globally are affected by depression, according to the World Health Organization. Not only does it create emotional health issues, like excessive rumination and lack of motivation, but it also causes physical health problems, like headaches and trouble eating. It can also cause fatigue, irritability and difficulty concentrating.

The reality is that these symptoms all have a significant effect on routines, from running errands to social situations to even just going to sleep. As with any medical issue, the more knowledge you’re armed with, the better. That’s why we rounded up just some of the ways depression influences a person’s day-to-day life.

Below are a few ways people with the disorder interact differently with the world compared to their peers:

People with depression often ignore routine appointments.

For most, haircuts or dermatologist visits are expected blips on the calendar. However, depression can make these events feel like monumental tasks.

A case in point is a heartbreaking account from Kate Langman, a Wisconsin-based hairstylist. Her Facebook post  went viral after she shared the story of a client with depression who came into the salon.

“She couldn’t get out of her bed for 6 months. Which meant she didn’t wash her hair or brush it,” Langman wrote.

Going to a simple, menial appointment is often one of the biggest victories.

They might snooze more than most.

Depression often leads to increased fatigue and irregular sleep patterns. This means that those living with the disorder may sleep more than usual or even experience insomnia.

This might not sound so bad in theory: Naps are awesome, right? But as writer Cory Steig put it in a Refinery29 post, napping when dealing with depression is more draining than anything:

[Y]ou know you’re probably not going to wake up refreshed and energized enough to take on the task you’re supposed to be doing instead of taking a nap.

They might leave work to-do lists unfinished.

The mental health disorder can take a toll on a person’s work performance. Symptoms like a lack of motivation or energy can prevent an individual with the condition from accomplishing tasks.

Or, the illness can keep people out of the office altogether: Employees with the condition miss approximately four workdays every three months due to its effects, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Serious mental illness costs the country more than $190 billion in lost earnings every year.

People living with depression may avoid fun activities.

Depression can cause a lack of interest in thing people once found pleasurable. That could mean going to parties, participating in sports or even engaging in sex is no longer the norm.

“Depression makes your life dramatically different,” Dr. John Greden, executive director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Depression Center, previously told HuffPost.

Depression makes them see things through a glass half empty.

The condition often makes the person living with it see everything from a pessimistic perspective.

“Depression is a negative view of self, of the world and of the future,” Greden said. “Everything is sort of being seen through dark-colored glasses … It’s pretty common, when people are depressed, for them to think that no one understands them ― and that’s a really tough place to be.”

People with depression have brains that are more prone to stress.

While some cases of depression can be acute and circumstantial (i.e. getting laid off of a job or going through a trauma), others can be more biological in nature. Research suggests depression can be influenced by environmental and genetic factors. A 2014 study even found that depression might make that person’s brain more susceptible to psychological stress.

In other words, the condition isn’t just something they “made up” or can “get over” so quickly. It’s a physiological issue that requires care.

Depression makes them want to push others away.

A common side effect of depression is changes to relationships. People living with the disorder may start to withdraw from their friends and family, and the mood symptoms may cause them to become irritable or angry.

That being said, a little encouragement can go a long way. Reader Avarie Downs, who identifies as having high-functioning depression, points out that even just an affectionate gesture can make a huge difference:

I wish he knew how overwhelming being sad during a depressive state is … sometimes it would be really nice to get a hug, instead of just the cold shoulder and being ignored because it is difficult to understand. Support is worth more than words could ever say.

Experts also recommend letting people with depression know that they’re not alone. Offering to listen to them talk about their experience or accompanying them to therapy can also help.

People with depression may need to see doctors more regularly.

Depression not only needs to be treated by a professional, but it also could put the person at a greater risk for other illnesses. So seeing doctors, between primary care physicians or mental health workers, on a more regular basis is so key when it comes to managing the condition.

“Depression is a common problem,” Ken Duckworth, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, previously told HuffPost. “There shouldn’t be shame in seeking help for that. People wouldn’t feel shamed if they got help for a broken arm. Depression is much like that. It’s treatable and you should tend to it.”

Ultimately, depression ― just like any other medical illness ― alters a person’s daily existence. And the more people keep that in mind, the less stigma and more understanding there will be about what it means to live with the disorder.

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Christ In You

Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). The apostle sensed within himself not just the philosophy, ideals, or influence of Christ but the person of Jesus. Christ moved in. He still does. When grace happens, Christ enters. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

For many years I missed this truth. I believed all the other prepositions: Christ for me, with me, ahead of me. And I knew I was working beside Christ, under Christ, with Christ. But I never imagined that Christ was in me.

I can’t blame my deficiency on Scripture. Paul refers to this union 216 times. John mentions it 26 times. They describe a Christ who not only woos us to himself but “ones” us to himself. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God” (1 John 4:15, emphasis mine).

No other religion or philosophy makes such a claim. No other movement implies the living presence of its founder in his followers. Muhammad does not indwell Muslims. Buddha does not inhabit Buddhists. Hugh Hefner does not inhabit the pleasure-seeking hedonist. Influence? Instruct? Entice? Yes. But occupy? No.

Yet Christians embrace this inscrutable promise. “The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you” (Col. 1:27 MSG). The Christian is a person in whom Christ is happening.

We are Jesus Christ’s; we belong to him. But even more, we are increasingly him. He moves in and commandeers our hands and feet, requisitions our minds and tongues. We sense his rearranging: debris into the divine, pig’s ear into silk purse. He repurposes bad decisions and squalid choices. Little by little a new image emerges. “He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son” (Rom. 8:29 MSG).

Today’s devotional is drawn from Max Lucado’s Next Door Savior.

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Sexual Addiction and Sexual Anorexia: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

By Crystal Nesfield, Trauma Therapist, Willow House at The Meadows

While the impact of sexual addiction is becoming more widely understood, and treatment for sexual addiction more widely available, the issues associated with sexual anorexia are often overlooked.

Sexual anorexia is a compulsive avoidance of giving or receiving social, sexual, or emotional nourishment. This is much like a food anorexia, in which a person refuses all nourishment through food, but instead of refusing food, people with sexual anorexia refuse to fulfill their need for intimacy.  Sexual anorexia and sexual addiction could be considered to be on opposite ends of the same spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, a person is sexually binging, while on the other end, a person is sexually restricting. However, the two are actually very similar in some ways. Both conditions can lead the person to experience powerlessness over their behaviors, and consequences for their behaviors and both can impact every aspect of a person’s life. Additionally, both conditions share the tendency for the person to have obsessive thoughts about sex. A person with sexual anorexia has obsessive thinking around the avoidance of sex and intimacy. A person with a sexual addiction has obsessive thoughts around obtaining sexual gratification.

A person with sexual anorexia may experience an uncontrollable need to avoid sexual behaviors at all costs. This often leads to self-destructive patterns and negative impacts on their relationships. A person with sexual anorexia may experience depression, restlessness, irritability or anxiety when engaging in sexual contact, or when faced with the possibility of engaging in an intimate relationship. Interestingly, however, the person with sexual addiction often faces the same emotional consequences when abstaining from sexual contact. And both the person who is compulsively engaging in sexual behavior and the person who is compulsively avoiding sexual behavior may have rigid or judgmental beliefs about their sexuality that they attempt to overcome through their behaviors.

Also, both sexual anorexia and sexual addiction can have similar origins. Either condition can manifest in a person who has grown up in an environment where sex was believed to be shameful, and/or where they experienced sexual abuse or exploitation. Many types of trauma also often lead to distorted beliefs pertaining to sex. Both people with sexual addiction and people with sexual anorexia may be attempting to control unresolved trauma or uncontrolled feelings by either bingeing on sexual behaviors or depriving themselves of intimacy.

By abstaining from intimate relationships and isolating themselves, a person with sexual anorexia is attempting to protect themselves from further harm. This person may go to extreme lengths to avoid relationships. This could include self-mutilation or adjusting their appearance. A person with sexual addiction may go to extreme lengths to engage in sexual behaviors, such as exposure to disease or bodily harm.

With both sexual addiction and sexual anorexia, a person has difficulty forming healthy, intimate relationships, and both feature symptoms of a deeper issue the person may be experiencing and need to be addressed through the appropriate treatment. This may include attending a 12-step meeting focusing on compulsive sexual behaviors, such as SLAA or SAA, and working with a qualified therapist. By engaging in treatment for sexual anorexia, a person can begin to form healthy relationships and have a more fulfilling life.

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Repeated Exposure to Porn in Childhood Increases Risk of Sex Addiction

By Joe Turner

In a world which is becoming increasingly reliant on the internet, exposure to the explicit sexual content lurking in its dark corner is inevitable. The fact that we have a world of information at our fingertips is as harmful as it is useful, especially to curious youngsters who are just beginning to become aware of their sexuality.

Recent studies have found that a person’s first exposure to pornography happens at around age 11, with 93 percent of boys and 62 percent of girls being exposed to explicit materials before the age of 18. Studies also show that the young adult demographic regularly views pornography. Around 66 percent of young men and 18 percent of young women consume adult materials a minimum of once per week—likely more.

These statistics are strikingly different from previous years; a fact we can attribute to the modern accessibility of online pornography. No longer are adult materials only available on top shelves of grocery stores or in the back rooms of video stores; instead, they are only a few clicks away. Furthermore, it is not only the nudity associated with magazines like Playboy that is readily available online, but also depictions of explicit sexual acts.

Countless personal accounts have stated that early exposure to pornography on a brain which isn’t sexually mature can have crippling effects. Two-thirds of college students have stated that they feel that watching porn can be a healthy way of “exploring their sexuality.” But, what many don’t realize is that these can have a powerful, subconscious, neurobiological effect on their brains.

How Porn Hot-Wires the Brain

Pornography is highly addictive for a number of reasons. First, sexual arousal (from pornography or other sources) releases multiple chemicals into the brain, most notably dopamine and endorphins. These chemicals provide a sense of pleasure, craving, and a powerful emotional high on which one can become dependent. Additionally, oxytocin and vasopressin are fed to the brain; chemicals which “bind” a person’s sexual desire to the object which provided their stimulation.

This process is ideal when one engages in sexual activity with their partner. When we experience these highs as a pair then come to relate one another with the pleasurable experience over time, we begin to form a natural bond.

However, regular pornography viewing “hot-wires” this process. Instead of forming a connection to a person, the connection is formed to the act of viewing porn. Your brain recalls how and where this high was achieved, so whenever you desire sexual release, your brain itches for pornography again.

Furthermore, pornography provides an abnormal amount of dopamine to the brain; significantly more than sexual intercourse provides. When the dopamine surge subsides, the brain craves the same amount of dopamine it had taken previously to achieve the high. However, it becomes more difficult to reach the required levels without seeking out more intense pornography. This means that the viewing of “ordinary” sexual acts begins to fail to produce the same high, forcing the viewer to become involved in an endless cycle of acquiring more and more extreme pornographic material.

These skewed expectations of sexual pleasure can lead to various problems, especially at such a young age. At a time in one’s life when a person is not mentally developed enough to understand that pornography is not representative of reality, this ‘normalizes’ pornography into being the default. There are also multiple peer-related factors which lead young adults to perceive pornography as “normal.” (i.e., “everyone is doing it in pornography, therefore this must be what normal sex/relationships are like.”) It also creates an exaggerated perception of how much promiscuous sexual activity takes place in reality.

Pornography’s Impact on Young Adult Relationships

When a young adult who has been exposed to intense pornography eventually matures to the point that they want to begin dating romantically and forming romantic attachments to people, their preconceptions about what such relationships entail will likely be entirely distorted.

Pornography rarely depicts any kind of meaningful relationship as a pre-condition to sex. It reduces relationships down its primal form: sexual activity without any kind of emotional connection. This can cause:

  • The belief that sexual promiscuity is commonplace.
  • A lack of interest in remaining monogamous with one partner.
  • Sexual objectification of people or persons.
  • Increased normalization of inappropriate or dangerous sexual behaviors (and to some extent, even illegal sexual behaviors).

Studies have further shown that excessive pornography use among young adults has a direct correlation with loneliness and depression.

Over the next several years, those born around the millennium will bridge into adulthood. We are already seeing the “millennial crisis” as many young adults are ill-equipped to deal with reality due to them having unrealistic expectations of adult living; much of which has been brought on by vicariously living via social media.

This is another form of skewed perception through online sensationalism, and romantic relationships will play out very similarly. When they are unable to form a romantic attachment to someone because they are unaware of their pre-conceptions of relationships, they will revert back to pornography due to its ease of access, lack of demands, and the emotional release it provides. This then yields feelings of loneliness, as all they will have to rely on for fulfillment is visual images of a computer.

There is also a direct correlation between excessive pornography viewing and low self-esteem. When viewing pornography, the viewer will subconsciously place themselves into the ‘beta’ role, while placing the on-screen actors as the ‘alpha’. Over time, the viewer will feel conditioned to believe themselves permanently in the ‘beta’ role (Note: this is relevant to both genders).

Signs of Sex or Porn Addiction in Young Adults

Suffering from an addiction to porn or sex is not always obvious—in fact, quite the opposite. Addicts often become desensitized to their symptoms. However, there are some major indicators to be aware of.

  • Do your actions negatively affect your life in any way? (If porn usage or sex stops you from working, meeting friends, hitting deadlines, meeting appointments, losing a job, lying about your whereabouts – then it’s a cause for concern.)
  • Has watching porn ever affected a personal relationship?
  • Do you ever continue viewing porn in spite of realization of consequences?
  • Do you ever feel ashamed or guilty of looking at pornography?
  • Do you often need to increase the intensity of it in order to achieve your desired outcome?
  • Have you tried to cut down on pornography and failed to be able to do so?

These are all symptoms of an over-reliance on pornography or sex. If any of these situations resonate with you, then please address your issues accordingly.

It is important to remember that sex is a part of everyday life and is completely natural for young adults to be curious and to experiment. However, in order to develop a healthy sexuality, it is necessary for young adults to be equipped with knowledge, context, and understanding so as not to create a distorted need for sex, and an inability to create and maintain real intimacy.

Sex Addiction Treatment for Young Adult Men

Sexual behaviors can become particularly problematic for young men of the ages 18 – 25, frequently without them realizing it has occurred. Several factors come into play during this stage of life that can make identifying and treating the condition in this age group unique.

At Gentle Path at The Meadows, our expert staff is trained to help people overcome their sexual addiction and treat underlying conditions that can fuel sexual issues. Clinical evidence suggests that additional factors such as alcohol and substance abuse, eating disorders and financial disorders often accompany — and exacerbate — sexual addiction. Gentle Path at The Meadows has the expertise to address core trauma that drives the addictive disorders as well as treat patients with cross addictions. Call 866-531-8912 to find out how we can help.

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