In healing codependency, that deeply ingrained, often invisible survival strategy that many of us learned without realizing, it’s important to begin developing a new kind of muscle. One that might feel clumsy at first, but over time, becomes the thing that brings you back to yourself.
That muscle? Learning to say: “I need…”
Now, I know. For people who struggle with codependency, this phrase can feel foreign, even threatening. Maybe it makes your throat close up or your chest tighten. Because in the home you came from, whatever the details looked like, your needs were often dismissed, minimized, or treated as burdens. Or worse, you learned that having needs made you vulnerable to punishment, abandonment, or guilt.
Maybe your parent struggled with addiction. Or they were drowning in untreated PTSD. Maybe they had depression so thick it fogged up every room, or anxiety that kept them spinning in their own head, unavailable to attune to yours. Maybe there was poverty, mental illness, or just a lack of emotional literacy. Whatever the case, what you absorbed, what your brilliant, adaptive nervous system picked up, was this: My needs either don’t exist, or they don’t matter as much as someone else’s.
And so you adjusted. You became hyper-aware of everyone else's needs and numb to your own. You learned to over-function, over-give, and over-accommodate. And that strategy? It worked. It kept you safe, connected, alive.
But now, as an adult, that very same strategy, what we now label “codependency”, is what’s keeping you stuck.
So when people throw around the word codependent, I want you to resist the temptation to spiral into shame. This isn’t a character flaw. It’s not evidence that you’re broken or unlovable or too much or not enough. It’s a brilliant survival response from a child who didn’t get what she needed and still found a way to keep loving.
Codependency isn’t “bad.” Let’s just name that.
It’s simply not the most efficient or fulfilling way to live a happy adult life. It keeps you in reaction mode, rather than creation mode. It leaves you overly tethered to other people’s moods, choices, and opinions, and under-connected to your own intuition, voice, and truth.
The antidote? Autonomy.
And I don’t mean “hyper-independence” (which, by the way, is often just trauma in a trench coat). I mean true autonomy, the kind where you operate from your own authentic self. Where you know what you feel, what you believe, and what you need, not because someone else gave you permission, but because you gave it to yourself.
Which brings us back to those two little words: “I need…”
I know they’re small, but they’re mighty. They act as a bridge, connecting the part of you that has long been hidden or denied with the part of you that’s ready to be seen. They bring you out of the shadows of guessing what others want and into the light of knowing what you want.
Let’s look at the difference:
“I need you to wash the dishes.”
vs.
“Oh, the dishes aren’t washed. What did you do all day?”
See that? One is a clear, direct statement of need. The other is a passive-aggressive jab masked as a rhetorical question. And we’ve all been there. Because we’re human. And because asking for what we need outright feels vulnerable as hell.
Or this:
“I need you to tell me you love me.”
vs.
“You don’t love me, you’re always out with your friends!”
One is a heart speaking. The other is a hurt speaking.
And maybe most tenderly:
“I need to feel emotionally safe around you.”
vs.
Silently over-pleasing and shape-shifting in hopes someone will choose you, love you, stay.
When you start using “I need…” as part of your everyday language, something wild happens: you begin to know what you actually need. It stops being abstract. It becomes concrete. And yes, there’s risk. People might say no. But when they do, you learn something else, something profound. You learn that you can handle that. You learn that someone else’s “no” doesn’t erase your “yes.”
Asking for what you need isn’t selfish. It’s sacred. It’s the beginning of becoming an individuated human, someone who isn’t bound to repeat intergenerational patterns out of unconscious loyalty.
This work is hard, but it’s holy.
And it starts with a whisper: “I need…”