Our parents and grandparents came by their alcoholic behavior honestly. Up until the early 1900s, even water contained alcohol in it as an antiseptic. If you didn’t put alcohol in your water, you were at risk for dysentery, so everyone was pretty much shit-faced, which actually explains a lot about why men were so comfortable wearing white curly wigs. Until pretty recently, people were either wasted or taking care of someone who was, breeding a generation of caretakers who created a blueprint for future generations to emulate and, voilà, the insidious vortex that is present-day codependence.
I’d be remiss to ignore how codependence also could have some roots in our various religions, many of which transmit the message “Take care of people at all costs and put yourself last.” I can’t argue with “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” assuming you aren’t one of those people who likes to pierce his face and hang himself from hooks. In that case, maybe leave others out of it.
I went to some religious schools as a kid and I felt shame and guilt if I took care of myself because selflessness and sacrifice were so glorified there. In church I learned that if I care for others at all costs, I not only get to go to heaven but also got to eat yummy low-cal wafers. It always bummed me out that I had to imagine my tasty snacks as being the body of Christ, but once I was able to block out the image of eating the skin of a dying man from two thousand years ago, those wafers were the highlight of my day and made the emotional martyrdom very worth it.
I was working on the theory that capitalism and the “American way” was inculcated into our brains to do whatever was necessary to impress and get the approval of others, to live the American dream, but when I went to Asia, I felt the vibe over there was deeply codependent as well, so maybe this is more of a global or simply deeply tribal phenomenon. The truth is, it’s deeply codependent of me to feel I need to impress you with how strong a handle I have on the origins of codependence, but I’m hoping you’re gleaning a bit about how deeply the dynamic of people pleasing is rooted in our collective human history. I’m throwing out some educated-ish guesses, but codependence seems to be a dizzying mix of human nature, cultural conditioning, and people posting photos of themselves on social media looking way happier than they actually are.
I think it’s pretty obvious that I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m essentially a professional party clown who tries to make drunk people laugh at night, but having grown up around codependence and suffering from it my entire life, I do feel I can say with authority that always needing to be perfect, polite, and generous breeds a toxic culture of shame, guilt, competition, and inauthenticity. I grew up in a fragile ecosystem in which the appearance of being happy eclipsed actually being happy. I learned that to be happy yourself, you must make others happy by dazzling them with humor, compliments, gifts—basically anything material and ephemeral. During Christmas at relatives’ houses, no matter how much I could feel we all resented one another, there was always a giant mountain of gifts under the tree. It was always so confusing to me that people would spend the day arguing and then follow that by exchanging gifts. I learned that presents were a way to pretend everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t, even though many of the presents were obvious regifts. My brain learned at an early age: As long as everything looks fine, everything is fine. Hence me in my twenties spending more money on bronzer and wrinkle cream than on food.
Another element of my codependence is doing things out of a feeling of obligation instead of out of the actual desire to do them. Growing up, I learned that wanting to do something had nothing to do with whether or not you actually did it. The messages I heard were “we have to swing by that holiday party” or “you gotta send that thank-you card.” A lot of what we did felt rooted in obligation, which of course comes from a deep fear of disappointing other people and the desire to make sure everyone thought and spoke highly of us. This of course never worked, because every time I was dragged to an event out of obligation, I ruined our reputation by sulking in the corner and wearing way-too-tight clothes from the dELiA’s catalogue. And if you don’t know what dELiA’s is, first of all, congratulations on being so young, and second, dELiA’s was a catalogue in the nineties where emo girls got their cheap, overpriced tank tops.
We’ve probably all had the experience as kids of having a phone jammed in our faces and being told to “say hi to your aunt Glenda!” even though you’ve never liked, or worse, never even met Aunt Glenda. I don’t have an aunt named Glenda, but the point is that I was often forced to be nice to people and had to learn very early on how to fake enthusiasm. I was never able to develop an organic desire to connect with my metaphorical aunt Glenda. I’m sure she would be lovely if she existed, but how could we ever have a healthy, mutually enjoyable relationship if I wasn’t able to talk to her by choice instead of as a chore? I learned that if someone wants something from you, you don’t get to say no; you have to be inauthentic and force a connection with people instead of letting it develop naturally. I understand our society labels a chat with Fake Aunt Glenda as “polite,” but as a child I found this very confusing. It taught me to put other people’s needs before my own, and when I was an adult, it taught me to fake everything from happiness to interest to orgasms.
Birth order is another ingredient that factored into the development of my codependence. Being the youngest in the family doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be a codependent, but for me, being the last kid out of the tunnel meant I had to squeeze into an already established system, which meant morphing into whatever shape would get me some attention. I tried every antic I could think of: being funny, dramatic, overachieving, or sick. Naturally, as an adult I continued to do these things out of habit. Given we’re basically fancy monkeys, we keep doing what worked as kids. When I was twenty-seven, I realized that I literally yelled during one-on-one conversations with people. As a kid I always had to talk so loudly to be heard that when I grew up, I didn’t even know the appropriate decibel level to hit in a civilized conversation. Back then, every time I spoke it sounded like I was getting murdered.