This is Why You’re Not Codependent – Felicia’s Story

Felicia spent years wondering if she was codependent. She didn’t realize she was experiencing emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse. If you’re wondering if you’re codependent. Hopefully Felicia’s story can help you see why you’re not codependent.

If you’re experiencing emotional abuse check out our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session Schedule, we’d love to see you in a session.

You’re Not Codependent, You’re Seeking Safety

Often, Betrayal Trauma victims have little to no control over their own bodies, privacy, finances, and other aspects of their lives. This leads many women to engage in safety-seeking behaviors. She’s trying to protect herself, which is good! Some people want to put these healthy behaviors in a negative light. They call her codependent, misleading her.

They tell her to blame herself: “What have YOU done to contribute to the problem?” This wrong advice helps the abuser continue to harm her. It also makes it harder for the victim to set healthy boundaries.

But What If I Am Actually Codependent?

Many women find that after they create distance between herself and emotional and psychological abuse, what they thought were “character flaws” often fade away. These traits were really healthy resistance to abuse. They helped her protect herself. She’s not codependent.

Transcript: This is Why You’re Not Codependent

Anne: I have a member of our community, we’re going to call her Felicia, on today’s episode. Welcome, Felicia.

Felicia: Thank you.

Anne: I’m so grateful you’re sharing your story with us. We’re going to be addressing the label of codependent. But let’s start at the beginning. Can you talk about how he seemed to you at first?

Felicia: We met at a Bible college and the first thing that I asked is, Could I use his book? Because I didn’t want to buy the professor’s book. He said, Oh, this is a wonderful book. I’ll buy it for you. I want to tell you my intentions are not to hit on you or to flirt with you. So I love that he was so straightforward and didn’t have any other intentions.

We became friends because I believed that he said what he meant. We fell in love, but there was no flirting, we didn’t have the same friends. So I was like, this is really weird, but I really, really like you. But it’s not like this desperate feeling, and that’s how we started off.

Felicia: It was a long distance relationship at first.

Questioning His Intentions

Anne: Looking back, do you think that he was being honest or do you think he really did have intentions to have a relationship with you?

Felicia: I think he just told me what I wanted to hear. I was like, it’s not this desperate feeling. And he was like, me either. So let’s not date right away. I thought we would date. Because we both just told each other we liked each other.

It was the relationship I thought I wanted at first. Except for lack of an emotional side to it. But yeah looking back, I think he just is really good at picking up on what people want to hear. Then filling that in.

Anne: Like low key. Hey, we’re just friends. Type grooming.

Anne: How did it transition into dating?

Felicia: I was just leaving the area. He said, yeah, let’s just do emails and phone calls. He said, I want you to pray about this for one week, that we should be boyfriend and girlfriend. I was just kind of disappointed that there wasn’t this emotional connection. I didn’t have any boyfriends through life to speak of. He said I want you to think about what you need in a relationship. Then we dated long distance still just talking on the phone.

Crossing Boundaries, Starting The Label Of Codependent</