Are You Co-dependent? Take This Quiz to Find Out!
One of the greatest benefits of having close friendships is that
our friends can support and help us when things get rough in our
lives. In exchange for the support our friends give us during a
crisis, most of us also help our friends when they need it.
In a relationship between two emotionally healthy adults, the
roles of giving and receiving help are balanced. Both people
offer help and receive help from each other in approximately
equal amounts. However, there are some people who always take on
the role of being the helper, no matter what relationship they
are in.
These people have friendships that focus exclusively on trying
to solve the problems of their friends. We sometimes call this
quality "co-dependency", and we may label people who are
obsessed with helping others "co-dependent".
A person who is co-dependent will tend to have relationships
with people who have a lot of problems - emotional, social,
familial and financial. The co-dependent person may spend much
of their own time, money, and energy helping other people who
have problems, while ignoring the problems in their own life.
Why would somebody be co-dependent?
A person who is co-dependent often suffers from a deep sense of
worthlessness and anxiety, and tries to derive a sense of
self-worth by helping or rescuing others. A person who is
co-dependent may not know how to relax and feel comfortable in a
friendship where both people are equals and the relationship is
based on enjoying each other's company.
Co-dependent people may even feel anxious if someone they have
been helping gets their life in order and no longer wants their
help. The co-dependent person may immediately look around for
someone else they can "save".
If you frequently take on the role of helping the people who are
your friends, how can you tell if you are acting out of genuine
kindness and concern, or whether your behavior is in fact
co-dependency? There aren't really any hard and fast lines
between the two.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to see whether your
"helping" behavior may actually be co-dependency:
- Do you have a hard time saying no to others, even when you are
very busy, financially broke, or completely exhausted?
- Are you always sacrificing your own needs for everyone else?
- Do you feel more worthy as a human being because you have
taken on a helping role?
- If you stopped helping your friends, would you feel guilty or
worthless?
- Would you know how to be in a friendship that doesn't revolve
around you being the "helper"?
- If your friends eventually didn't need your help, would you
still be friends with them? Or would you look around for someone
else to help?
- Do you feel resentful when others are not grateful enough to
you for your efforts at rescuing them or fixing their lives?
- Do you sometimes feel like more of a social worker than a
friend in your relationships?
- Do you feel uncomfortable receiving help from other people? Is
the role of helping others a much more natural role for you to
play in your relationships?
- Does it seem as if many of your friends have particularly
chaotic lives, with one crisis after another?
- Did you grow up in a family that had a lot of emotional chaos
or addiction problems?
- Are many of your friends addicts, or do they have serious
emotional and social problems?
- As you were growing up, did you think it was up to you to keep
the family functioning?
- As an adult, is it important for you to be thought of as the
"dependable one"?
If you answered "yes" to a lot of these questions, you may
indeed have a problem with co-dependency.
This does not mean that you are a flawed person.
It means that you are spending a lot of energy on other people
and very little on yourself.
If it seems that a lot of your friendships are based on
co-dependent rescuing behaviors, rather than on mutual liking
and respect between equals, you may wish to step back and
rethink your role in relationships.
If you suspect that your helping behavior is a form of
co-dependency, a good therapist or counselor can help you gain
perspective on your actions and learn a more balanced way of
relating to others.
There are many excellent books available on the subject of
co-dependency. Support groups such as Al-Anon can also help.