You have spent your whole life taking care of other people. You prioritize their needs, fix their problems, and manage their emotions. You feel responsible for their happiness, and when they are struggling, you feel like you are failing.
You do not know how to say no without feeling guilty. You struggle to identify your own needs because you are so attuned to everyone else’s. Your relationships feel exhausting, but you do not know how to change them without feeling selfish or mean.
If you have been searching codependency, how to set boundaries, or therapy for codependency Colorado, you are recognizing something important. The way you love is costing you your sense of self, and it is not sustainable.
At Better Lives, Building Tribes, we help people in Colorado understand codependency and build relationships where they can give and receive support without losing themselves. This article explores what codependency is, how it develops, and how to change these patterns.
What Is Codependency?
Codependency is a relational pattern where you prioritize others’ needs, feelings, and wellbeing over your own to the point where you lose your sense of self. Your identity becomes wrapped up in taking care of others, and you derive your worth from being needed.
Codependency is not the same as being caring or generous. It is characterized by:
- Difficulty identifying your own needs: You are so focused on others that you lose touch with what you want or need.
- People pleasing: You say yes when you want to say no. You change yourself to make others happy.
- Over functioning: You take responsibility for things that are not yours to manage (other people’s emotions, problems, or choices).
- Poor boundaries: You struggle to know where you end and others begin. You take on other people’s feelings as your own.
- Fear of abandonment: You stay in unhealthy relationships because being alone feels terrifying.
- Resentment: You give and give, then feel angry that no one reciprocates, even though you never asked for what you needed.
How Codependency Develops
Codependency is not a personality flaw. It is an adaptation to environments where your needs were not met or where you had to take care of others to survive.
Common origins include:
Growing Up In A Dysfunctional Family
If you had a parent with addiction, mental illness, or chronic stress, you might have learned to manage their emotions or take care of them. You became the stabilizer.
Emotional Neglect
If your needs were dismissed or ignored, you learned that your needs do not matter and that your value comes from being helpful.
Parentification
If you had to take care of siblings or emotionally support your parents, you learned that love means caretaking.
Cultural Or Family Messages
Some cultures or families emphasize self sacrifice and putting others first. While caregiving is important, codependency takes it to an unhealthy extreme.
Early Trauma Or Loss
Experiencing trauma or loss can make you hypervigilant to others’ needs as a way to prevent future loss or abandonment.
How Codependency Affects Your Relationships
Codependency creates patterns that damage relationships, even when you are trying to help:
You Attract People Who Need Rescuing
Because you are drawn to being needed, you often end up in relationships with people who are struggling, unavailable, or take more than they give.
Resentment Builds
You give without asking for what you need, then feel angry that no one takes care of you. But you never gave anyone the chance to show up for you.
You Enable Unhealthy Behavior
By constantly rescuing or fixing, you prevent the other person from taking responsibility for their own life. This keeps both of you stuck.
You Lose Yourself
Your identity becomes so wrapped up in others that you do not know who you are outside of relationships. When relationships end, you feel completely lost.
Intimacy Feels Impossible
True intimacy requires vulnerability and reciprocity. If you are always the giver, real closeness cannot develop.
What Boundaries Are (And Are Not)
Boundaries are one of the most important skills for healing codependency, but they are often misunderstood.
Boundaries Are Not:
- Controlling others: You cannot set a boundary about what someone else does. You can only set boundaries about what you will or will not do.
- Punishment: Boundaries are not about making someone else suffer. They are about protecting your wellbeing.
- Walls: Healthy boundaries are not about shutting people out. They create space for genuine connection.
Boundaries Are:
- Limits you set to protect your energy, time, and wellbeing.
- Statements about what you will or will not do: “I will not lend money” or “I need alone time on weekends.”
- Flexible: Different people and situations call for different boundaries.
- Self focused: They are about managing yourself, not controlling others.
How To Start Setting Boundaries
Setting boundaries feels terrifying when you are used to codependency. Here is how to start:
Identify Your Limits
What drains you? What feels like too much? Pay attention to resentment. It often signals that a boundary has been crossed.
Start Small
You do not have to set every boundary at once. Start with low stakes situations. Practice saying “I need to think about that before I commit” instead of automatically saying yes.
Expect Pushback
People who benefit from your lack of boundaries will not like it when you start setting them. They might guilt you, get angry, or accuse you of being selfish. This does not mean you are wrong.
Tolerate Discomfort
Setting boundaries will feel uncomfortable at first. You will feel guilty, anxious, or mean. These feelings do not mean you are doing something wrong. They mean you are changing a deeply ingrained pattern.
Follow Through
A boundary without follow through is not a boundary. If you say “I will not lend money” and then lend money, you teach people that your boundaries do not matter.
How To Stop People Pleasing
People pleasing is a survival strategy, but it is exhausting and inauthentic. Here is how to shift:
Notice When You Are Performing
Pay attention to moments when you are saying or doing things to make someone like you or avoid conflict, not because they are true to who you are.
Practice Saying “Let Me Think About That”
Do not give immediate answers to requests. Buy yourself time to check in with what you actually want.
Accept That Not Everyone Will Like You
This is painful but true. Some people will not like you when you set boundaries. That is okay. You are not for everyone, and not everyone is for you.
Prioritize Authenticity Over Approval
Ask yourself “Is this what I actually want to do, or am I doing it to be liked?” Choose authenticity, even when it is uncomfortable.
How Therapy Helps With Codependency
Changing codependent patterns is hard to do alone. Therapy provides support and tools to make lasting change.
At Better Lives, Building Tribes, therapy for codependency might include:
Understanding Your Patterns
We help you see how codependency developed and how it shows up in your relationships now. Awareness is the foundation for change.
Building A Sense Of Self
We help you reconnect with who you are outside of taking care of others. What do you like? What do you need? What matters to you?
Learning To Set Boundaries
We teach you how to set and maintain boundaries without guilt or fear. We practice in session so you can build confidence.
Processing Grief
Letting go of codependency often involves grief. You might lose relationships that only worked because you over functioned. We hold space for that loss.
Building Healthier Relationships
We help you learn what reciprocal, healthy relationships look like and how to build them.
We offer virtual therapy for adults across Colorado, so you can access support from home.
What Healthy Relationships Look Like
Healing codependency does not mean you stop caring about people. It means you care in healthier ways:
- You can support others without losing yourself.
- You can ask for what you need without guilt.
- You can say no without feeling like a bad person.
- You attract people who value you for who you are, not just what you do for them.
- You have energy and space for your own life, not just everyone else’s.
How Better Lives, Building Tribes Supports Codependency Recovery
At Better Lives, Building Tribes, we understand that codependency is not weakness. It is a survival strategy that served you once but no longer does.
Our approach is:
- Compassionate: We do not shame you for codependent patterns. We help you understand where they came from.
- Practical: We teach concrete skills for setting boundaries and building healthier relationships.
- Trauma informed: We understand how early experiences shape relational patterns.
- Empowering: We help you reclaim your sense of self and build a life that feels authentic.
Next Steps: Healing Codependency In Colorado
If codependency is affecting your relationships and your sense of self, therapy can help. You do not have to keep losing yourself to love others.
To start therapy for codependency with Better Lives, Building Tribes:
- Visit betterlivesbuildingtribes.com/ to learn more about our services.
- Schedule a session with Dr. Meaghan Rice or another therapist on our team through the booking link on our site.
- Reach out via our contact form to ask questions or find out if we are a good fit for what you are experiencing.
You can love people without losing yourself. With support, you can build relationships that feel reciprocal, authentic, and sustainable. We would be honored to help.
