Codependency is the veil that covers our true selves.
Not a heavy curtain, not a wall, but a lace veil, subtle, delicate, and deceptively beautiful. Like the kind a bride wears, where the softness of the lace disguises the fact that something essential is being obscured: you.
Because beneath that veil is your actual face. Your real essence. Your true beauty. The you that existed before you learned to be what everyone else needed.
What would that look like, unveiled?
If you grew up in a household where your caregivers couldn’t attune to your emotional needs, whether because of addiction, depression, trauma, narcissism, or simple emotional immaturity, then you learned to adapt. Not because you were weak, but because you were brilliant. You learned to survive by tuning out your own needs and tuning in to everyone else's.
You became the helper. The fixer. The strong one. The one who took on too much and complained too little. The one who figured out, at far too young an age, that love was transactional: if you wanted affection or approval or safety, you had to earn it.
You learned to read a room before you learned to read a book. You learned that it was safer to meet someone else’s needs than to acknowledge your own.
And that, my dear, is where codependency is born.
It’s easy to think of codependents as meek or fragile, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Codependents are some of the most competent, reliable, and over-functioning people you’ll ever meet. They’re the planners, the providers, the givers. They’ll show up for you at 3AM. They’ll take on the emotional labor of the room. They’ll anticipate your needs before you even know you have them.
Some will literally die for you.
But they won’t live for themselves.
Because here’s the cost: in being everything for everyone, they forget how to be anything for themselves.
Ask a codependent what they want, and you might get a blank stare. Ask what they need, and they’ll probably pivot to what you need. Ask where their boundaries are, and you’ll often find… they don’t know. Not because they’re weak. Because no one ever taught them it was okay to have any.
Codependents often look like modern-day saints, but saints with a simmering resentment tucked just beneath the surface. Sometimes it leaks out in passive-aggressive comments, sometimes in exhaustion, sometimes in physical illness. Sometimes in secret fantasies of running away from everyone they take care of.
And the heartbreaking thing? They don't even realize this pattern is happening. It’s just how they’ve always lived.
But there’s hope. And it starts with a single word: boundaries.
Boundaries are the blueprint of self-love. They’re how you begin to define where you end and someone else begins. Healing codependency means learning not just how to say “no,” but how to feel it in your bones, that your “no” matters. That your limits are sacred. That your needs aren’t selfish; they’re human.
It’s not just about learning to say no to others. It’s about learning to say yes to yourself.
That’s where the real work begins: in figuring out who you are when you’re not busy being who everyone else needs you to be. It’s not just about breaking free from others, it’s about returning to yourself.
Because healing from codependency doesn’t just free you from your untruths. It reconnects you to the parts of yourself you abandoned to survive. The joyful part. The playful part. The assertive part. The you you put on a shelf when you decided, consciously or not, that being loved meant disappearing.
You’re not here to disappear.
You’re here to live, fully and freely. To laugh loudly and rest deeply. To speak honestly. To take up space.
So, yes. Learn about codependency, not to pathologize yourself, but to liberate yourself. This isn’t about blaming your parents or caregivers. It’s about stepping into your own life. Becoming your own caregiver. Giving yourself what no one else could.
Because here’s the truth: your life may very well depend on it.
And your beauty, the unveiled, unedited, unapologetic version of it, it is waiting to be seen.
“A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her and is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior ”