Do you consider yourself to be a kind, generous, loyal person with high levels of integrity? Do you have a lot of love to give but just keep finding partners who manipulate and take advantage of you? If you’ve been in a longstanding pattern of relationships where you are doing all the giving, bending over backward to satisfy a partner who does all of the taking with little to no appreciation for you, then you may be codependent.
Today, I’ll explain 10 reasons why you may have developed codependent traits and tendencies. These factors will make you highly susceptible to narcissistic partners and relationships. At the end of this topic, I will explain why codependents repeatedly fall for the narcissist’s toxic tactics. Okay, let’s talk about 10 reasons people become codependent, in no particular order.
Number one is trauma and abuse.
This can be physical, sexual, and/or psychological. I will go into more depth about the different forms of psychological abuse throughout this article. Typically, the trauma and abuse are experienced frequently over an extended period, creating a deep sense of shame. The child often develops a false belief that they did something to deserve the abuse or that the traumatic incident was their fault.
Some children develop the sense that they are damaged to the core and unlovable. In the case of a codependent, this often causes them to always play nice and be the good guy. They are often highly agreeable and chameleon-like because they don’t want anyone to see them in a negative light. So, they overextend themselves, seeking constant sources of external validation to counter their feelings of unworthiness and shame.
Repeat trauma and abuse can lead not only to codependency but also to many other psychological problems and attachment issues. This is why it’s so important to deal with your past trauma; otherwise, you will never learn to honor, respect, know yourself, have compassion for yourself, and figure out what you want out of life. Instead, you’ll likely find narcissistic people who take advantage of you and possibly re-traumatize you.
Related:
5 Signs of a Toxic Person (Cut These People Off)
10 Steps To Break The Trauma Bond With A Narcissist
What Does a Trauma Bond with a Narcissist Look Like?
15. Narcissistic Parent Tactics That Cause Childhood Trauma and CPTSD
10 Problems Only Narcissists Have
Number two is a narcissistic parent.
Who only shows love and approval when the child is being of service to them. Any attention and approval that the child receives are completely dependent on them serving and meeting the parents’ wants and needs. A codependent has typically been rewarded heavily for what they can do for the parent and punished for not acting in ways that please the parent. The child sees themselves as having very little worth or value beyond what they can do and how they can be of service to the parent. In essence, the child is conditioned very early on to work hard to gain approval and avoid rejection.
Number three is an invalidating.
Home environment or social experience where the child is repeatedly bullied or where their thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and experiences are dismissed or rejected. This leaves a child feeling like they are fundamentally flawed like they don’t fit in, often causing them to believe that the only way to get love, approval, acceptance, and a sense of security is to please and appease others.
Number four is abandonment trauma.
Which can include a caregiver who is often absent, even if it’s for good reasons. It could also be multiple losses of family members or frequent moves, where the child is constantly losing their support and social network, having to create new ones. When a child feel abandoned by someone they love and feel connected to, they might blame themselves and develop feelings or beliefs that they are not worthy enough for people to stay in their lives. In some cases, this causes the child to develop an anxious attachment style, feeling like it’s only a matter of time until the people they love leave. This can make them work hard to maintain connections with others at all costs, even if it means sacrificing their own needs and boundaries.
Number five sick parent.
Is having a parent or family member with a chronic physical illness, where the child is put into a caregiving role at a very young age and expected to tend to the parent and take on adult responsibilities, such as caring for younger siblings. For example, or just taking on responsibilities to a degree that’s not age-appropriate due to the parent’s illness.
Number six parent has an addiction or mental illness.
Does the child have a parent suffering from addiction or mental health issues, where the child has to handle problems that they don’t have the emotional maturity to deal with? In this type of situation, the child is often walking on eggshells, trying to regulate the parent’s moods and behaviors to avoid problems.
This could include suicide threats, hospitalizations, and other major problems that they’re not developmentally equipped to handle. These children often end up in constant survival mode, always waiting for the shoe to drop. They often become hypervigilant, trying to identify and predict the needs of others, as well as to try to avoid any problems that might arise.
Number seven is having overly involved parents.
This can lead to blurred boundaries, making it challenging for the child to set appropriate limits and respect their wants and needs. In this case, the child might find that they don’t have a clear sense of self. They don’t know even what they want, need, or what their goals and values are because they’re so enmeshed with their parents. In these types of enmeshed relationships, there’s a lack of autonomy and individuality, making it unclear to the child where they end and other people begin. So later in life, they tend to become overly involved in other people’s lives, often leaving little room for independent thoughts, feelings, activities, interests, goals, and identity.
Number eight is being the scapegoat of the family.
This refers to a specific role that a child is unfairly assigned within a dysfunctional family. The scapegoat is often blamed for the family’s problems and conflicts, held to unrealistic standards, and consistently the target of accusations, criticisms, isolation, and rejection. The child internalizes the blame and typically develops a very negative self-perception and self-talk, seeing themselves through the eyes of their abusers.
Then often going through life subconsciously attracted to people who resemble and represent the toxic person or people who broke down their sense of self-worth in the first place. Often the people they’re attracted to are people with big problems where the codependent can gain a sense of purpose and some validation by being the rescuer, believing they will gain unconditional love through their heroic efforts. It also gives them a false sense of security, the belief that if they are needed enough and the person depends on them enough, they’ll never leave.
Number nine is having a parent who uses their child as an emotional crutch.
where they share too much of their adult problems with the child, making them feel responsible for providing solutions. For example, when a child is put in the middle of a messy divorce where parents are involving the child in conflict, making the child feel like they need to mediate or making them feel guilty for wanting a relationship with the other parent. This can create problems around codependency.
Number 10 is having an emotionally unavailable parent.
where the child has to entertain themselves, be quiet, self-face, either because the parent treats them like they are always in the way or because the parent is too selfish or stressed to deal with the child’s needs. Here, the parent is not interested or able to consistently meet the child’s emotional needs. They may be providing for the child physically, putting a roof over their head, and food on the table, but they are neglectful of the child’s psychological needs and well-being.
If you have more reasons that you can think of, please add them in the comment section below. I would love to hear your insights on this topic. Due to the reasons that I just listed, the main reason that codependents fall for narcissists is that they are plagued with toxic levels of shame. Codependents have the sense that they’re never good enough and that people will only love them if they’re acting and being how others need them to be – if they’re serving, helping, supporting, saving.
When a codependent meets a narcissist and gets love-bombed or idealized, it gives them a huge sense of relief from their intense feelings of shame. Unlike guilt, which focuses on specific actions or behaviors that are perceived as wrong, shame is more about the self, often stemming from a belief that one is inherently flawed, defective, inadequate, bad, unlovable, and unworthy.
Shame is a complex and incredibly powerful emotion that includes a deep sense of humiliation towards the self. Getting relief from feelings of shame is a motivation for codependence, but unfortunately, love bombing is fake, and idealization is temporary.
So when the narcissist starts pulling away, and the intense validation diminishes and disappears, the codependent’s shame returns and reinforces their pre-existing beliefs that they are unworthy, unlovable, and not enough. So they work hard to get the narcissist’s love back, often allowing themselves to be manipulated, dominated, and controlled, never able to recognize that no one, especially not a narcissist, will ever be able to cure their deep-seated feelings of shame and their sense that they are not enough.
Related:
5 Signs of a Toxic Person (Cut These People Off)
10 Steps To Break The Trauma Bond With A Narcissist
What Does a Trauma Bond with a Narcissist Look Like?
15. Narcissistic Parent Tactics That Cause Childhood Trauma and CPTSD
10 Problems Only Narcissists Have
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