03/05/2025
Some education on trauma and co-dependency on the passing of Melodie Beattie, the author of Codependent No More—a book written 40 years ago, and regularly updated - that I use almost daily in my work with women who experience and are trying to heal from trauma.
📚 Melody Beattie was the incredible woman who wrote a book 40 years ago I still use daily with trauma survivors. Here’s why💗:
Kids who have significant, family of origin trauma are typically raised by a parent/parents who are “emotional manipulators”.
“Emotional manipulators” is a broad term to refer to persons who have personality disorders or features, and/or addiction, and tend toward abuse or neglect of their children, in favor of meeting their own needs.
A role reversal happens in the parent-child relationship,leading the child to become “parentified”—that is, taking care of their parents’ or caregiver’s emotional needs versus the parent meeting the infant’s, then toddler’s, then pre-schooler’s, then elementary aged, then middle school aged, then high school aged—needs. See how much development is occurring and how much trauma can happen during those years?
Kids of emotional manipulators live in a trauma response/responses of fighting back, fleeing, freezing, or fawning (fawning is trying to flatter the parent and keep them happy to avoid wrath and rejection).
These kids tend to grow up to become distrustful, feel shameful when there is no cause, lack autonomy, doubt their ability to produce worthy outcomes school/sports/club, and have trouble with forming their own identity and develop a “patchwork” identity of others around them (Erik Erickson, David Elkind)
As they become adults, they have trouble forming and maintaining intimate relationships (platonic and sexual), believing in their ability to produce good work, become stagnant, and regretful (Erickson).
As the child is transitioning to adulthood, kids have taken the lesson of their childhoods and made a conscious or unconscious decision: no one will meet my needs except me, so I’m going to manipulate others with smoke and mirrors to meet my needs and make them feel badly about themselves (think: gaslighting, abuse) so their focus will ALWAYS be on me and my needs, OR they become co-dependent (Ross Rosenberg)
Codependents have often resolved to live in a fawn state, and so become paired easily with another emotional manipulator. This is an example of intergenerational trauma. As someone who fawns and freezes, codependents are extremely sensitive to the moods of people around them, anticipate their needs, have an almost uncontrollable desire to “fix” things (as a way to decrease their anxiety…..fix it before I get punished).
How do we help heal co-dependency? It depends who you ask. I believe a combination of CoNoMo by Beattie and good trauma work from a licensed professional with ample training in trauma.
Why do co-dependents repeatedly end up with emotional manipulators? Because the dynamic feels familiar on so many conscious levels, and most importantly, on unconscious levels where emotions are encoded in a language that the logical brain cannot read. The attraction is such a “fit” for the “skill set” developed by the co-dependent that they fall immediately and deeply into what Ross Rosenberg calls “limerance”but what they initially believe is love. —Tammi Couch Imel, MA, LMHC. Use with permission.💗❤️🩹
