Orlando Codependency Counseling and Therapy Services
Offices in Orlando, Central Florida, Winter Park, Clermont, Lake Mary & East Orlando Florida
What is Co-Dependency?
Codependency can be defined as an excessive and unhealthy compulsion to rescue and take care of people or when a person has a strong desire to control people around them, including their spouse, children or co-workers. They believe they are more capable than others, who need help completing the tasks they are responsible for. Codependents feel compassion for people who are hurting and feel they should be the one to help them. They give their emotions, finances, time, and other resources to help others and have a difficult time saying “no” when asked to do something.
Codependents are some of the most generous, sensitive, intelligent, articulate, efficient and wonderful people…they are usually hurting and lonely, and desperately want to be loved!
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Total Life Counseling Codependency Experts Have Been Featured On Multiple TV Networks and News Stations:
Our codependency experts have participated in over 150 national & local news interviews and they are here for you!
At Total Life Counseling Center our Counselors are Experts for National and Local TV, Radio and Print Media. We have an excellent reputation amongst graduate & private schools, attorneys, doctors, therapists, providers and corporations. We strive to ensure our therapists have diverse clinical backgrounds, to allow us to match each client to the therapist that will best meet his or her needs.
If you identify with 5 or more of the following, you may be struggling with codependency.
- I often feel isolated and afraid of people, especially people with authority.
- I typically depend on and seek the approval of others while discounting my inner sense of “a job well done”.
- I am overly frightened of angry people and personal criticism.
- I often feel like a victim in personal and other important relationships.
- I sometimes feel I have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, that it is easier to be more concerned with others than with myself.
- I feel guilty when I stand up for myself instead of giving in to others.
- I mix up love with pity, and so I “love” people I can pity and rescue.
- It is hard for me to identify how I feel.
- It is hard for me to feel or express feelings like joy, anger, or fear.
- I am more a reactor than an initiator.
- I judge myself and my actions harshly.
- I often feel abandoned in the course of my relationships.
If you answer yes to any of these questions, you most likely do not have healthy personal and/or relational boundaries.
- Are you a chameleon in relationships by being whatever your partner needs you to be?
- Are you automatically mad when someone else gets mad, happy when someone else is happy?
- Do other people’s problems become your problems?
- Do you value yourself by what other people think of you?
- Are you always doing something for someone or buying them something?
- Are you always asking “What do you think?”
- Do you lie when you are in an uncomfortable situation?
- Do you have extremely low or high self-esteem?
Several factors can contribute to a person developing codependent behavior:
- Growing up in a dysfunctional family
- Repressed anger
- Keeping a harmful secret
- Hope that another person will change
- History of emotional, verbal, physical or sexual abuse
Realizing you are engaging in codependent behavior is the first step to overcoming it. Counseling will provide a safe setting for you to discover and address the issues that contributed to you becoming codependent. A counselor can help you work through those issues and develop healthy boundaries. People who are codependent have wonderful qualities and usually are hurting people who desperately want to be loved.
References:
Cloud, H., & Townsend, J. (1992). Boundaries: When to say yes, how to say no to take control of your life.
Springle, P. (2003). Untangling Relationships: A Christian’s Perspective on Codependency