How can one tell if something is codependency or good helping?

[cyan_blue]

I wrote up a codependency checklist a while back. I finally got it online recently, so I thought I'd post a link to it here.

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One of the hallmarks of codependency is an over-concern with the needs of others, to the point where others' needs are frequently and routinely placed ahead of one's own.

Many people grapple with this question: When is being giving to others a positive thing, and when is it 'being codependent'?

Here is a list of 'touchstones' for how to figure out when giving is positive or negative.

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Folks are welcome to link to it, make copies of it, pass copies along to other folks, etc, so long as my name, location and contact info and the original URL remain intact.

Feedback on it is welcome, too - I'd love to hear about it if folks have ideas about how to improve it.

Comments

[adamchristopher.livejournal.com]

;)

[teal-cuttlefish.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link, I'm bookmarking it directly.

Since you mentioned it, is it just me, or is Dido's hit "White Flag" virtually an anthem for codependence?

I could just be cantankerous, but the song irritates me.

[auros]

"Resting Here With Me" and "Thank You" (on the first album) are actually both also rather codependent songs. But they sure are pretty...

[apel.livejournal.com]

I find most popular love songs to be codependent and/or obsessive. I mean "Can't live if living is without you"? Or Whitney Houston wailing "I-I-I will always love you-ou-ou"? Where is the independent adult in those songs? Although I must say that Sting's stalker song is the creepiest in that genre.

[rafaela.livejournal.com]

Or Whitney Houston wailing "I-I-I will always love you-ou-ou"?

Not to nitpick, but "I Will Always Love You" was originally written and performed by Dolly Parton. Who did a much better job with the song, imnsho.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

Heh, that reminds me of the local radio station (STAR 101.3?) that has the "Love Songs" show every night which has not yet played even one song I think of as a love song while I've been listening. Plenty of break-up songs like "White Flag" and the aforementioned stalkery Police hit, and some things that have totally unromantic themes but slow tempos. Actual love songs, not so much.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Glad you like it! And I'm unfamiliar with that particular song, alas - but there are many codependence-anthems out there on the radio today, a la "I can't live... without you..."

[bodhranist.livejournal.com]

Great list!

However, for the slower ones of us in the audience, it might be useful to include what answers to each of the questions would point towards co-dependancy, and which would be healthy.

On the love song front? I seem to be with the rest of you on pretty much all counts. The stalker song IS creepy, most 'love songs' aren't, and I'm forced to listen to star 102.3's mix of a whole dozen different songs ALL DAY LONG at work.

And Real Soon Now I'll scan in my icon.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Glad you like it!

I can see where having an answer key might be useful. But, I don't know if it would be possible to make an accurate one... because a "yes" or "no" answer to a given question could be healthy under one set of circumstances and unhealthy under another.

So I call it a series of "touchstones" - the questions are meant to be thinking-points, with the answers taken in the aggregate to build a gestalt-like overview of one's responses to a particular situation.