You Are My Cute Baby

And You Will Stay That Way

Co-dependency is a loop where two people depend on the other in a way that stunts both their growth, in a classic boundary violation. I care too much for you, training you to need me, enabling you to be dependent on me. You depend on me for things that are your own responsibility. I preserve my role as caretaker; you remain dependent. Neither of us grows; we’re both locked in an unhealthy cycle that reinforces itself.

If this starts in childhood and remains past the point of necessity, it can become ingrained, shaping how we engage in other relationships. People-pleasing, poor boundaries, low self-esteem, fear of abandonment, and self-neglect – all are results of a co-dependent relationship, and become habits, carried subconsciously into all else.

Mainstream religions often mirror this dynamic. In Judaism, God is presented as the ultimate caretaker, and people are taught to rely completely on divine authority for purpose, morality, meaning, food, shelter… essentially everything. Even existence. Rituals, prayers, and rules reinforce dependence and forbid independence. God makes people, who need god. People depend on God. God being God depends on the People depending on him (as the religion itself says “there is no king without people” and about which its holy NewYear’s prayers speak profusely – God’s desire for the people to crown IT as King). Each needs the other, and is nothing without the other.

Co-dependency on steroids.

Been part of that and want to break the loop? Sure. You might be able to step out of it superficially, but you’ll probably step right into another. Devotion, reliance, and self-sacrifice have conditioned the self to accept submission and dependence as the default—a pattern it will carry into every other relationship.

Recovery isn’t easy. But it’s possible. Awareness is the first step, so, yeh, accepting that the god-people relationship is unhealthy is a big first gulp.

Assuming you don’t choke on that, you’ll have to dig deep to find your self – the one that doesn’t inherently need external props to be. Then you’ve got to build some fences marking “no unauthorized entry” to your self’s space. And you’ll have to picture the same fences around other people. Their business is their business. Not yours.

There’s more, but that’s a solid place to start.

Establishing independence after partnering in co-dependency, is like a limb that’s been asleep, thawing out: needles, clumsy, maybe even painful, but eventually just fine.