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Co-Dependency with Sue Reid
Description
Thank you Brandon Ellrich, Giuliana, and many others for tuning into my live video with Sue Reid! Join me for my next live video in the app.
The Pattern Beneath the Pattern
At the core of abandonment, codependence, passive-aggression, gaslighting, and trust is one central issue:
Emotional safety.
Not physical safety.
Relational safety.
The safety of knowing you can exist as you are without being left, erased, or destabilized.
When emotional safety is inconsistent or absent—especially early in life, people don’t become dysfunctional.
They become adaptive.
Abandonment: The Root Wound
Abandonment forms when connection feels unpredictable or conditional.
The nervous system learns to stay alert:
Scanning for shifts.
Tracking tone.
Monitoring distance.
The internal question becomes:
“What do I need to do to stay connected?”
That question becomes the soil from which everything else grows.
Codependence: The Survival Strategy
Codependence develops when connection feels safer than authenticity.
People learn to:
* Anticipate others’ needs
* Manage emotions that are not theirs
* Overgive to reduce relational threat
* Tie worth to usefulness
It looks like care.
It feels like loyalty.
But neurologically and emotionally, it is self-abandonment used to prevent relational loss.
The belief underneath is simple:
“If I’m needed, I won’t be left.”
Passive-Aggression: Suppressed Truth
When direct expression once carried risk: withdrawal, punishment, rejection—truth learned to hide.
Passive-aggression emerges when:
* Needs exist, but they feel unsafe to express
* Anger is present, but feels forbidden
* Boundaries feel too costly
Passive-aggression is not immaturity.
It is fear-conditioned communication.
Gaslighting: Control Through Confusion
Gaslighting occurs when accountability is avoided by destabilizing another person’s reality.
Gaslighting keeps abandonment wounds active by forcing the question:
* “Am I wrong?”
* “Did I imagine this?”
* “Is it me?”
Once self-trust collapses, control no longer requires force.
Trust: The Turning Point
Trust is not believing others will behave well.
Trust is believing in yourself.
Self-trust includes:
* Believing your perceptions
* Noticing patterns instead of excuses
* Speaking directly rather than strategically
* Leaving relationships that require self-erasure
Trust begins the moment you stop negotiating with your own reality.
Healing Reverses the Order
Evidence-Informed Healing Focuses on:
* Rebuilding self-trust and internal safety
* Expressing needs directly and early
* Holding boundaries without justification
* Releasing roles that require emotional self-sacrifice
* Regulating abandonment fear internally rather than outsourcing safety
This is not detachment.
It is self-love.
Bottom Line:
These patterns are not flaws.
They are intelligent adaptations to emotional instability.
But what once protected you will eventually constrain you.
When you stop abandoning yourself,
These dynamics lose leverage.
Vindictiveness: Relevant Statistics
Vindictive or retaliatory impulses are far more common than typically acknowledged, particularly following experiences of emotional harm, injus