Codependence Quotes

The Karpman drama triangle is a classic model of codependent behaviour. First of all, a codependent will rescue someone. Then, when their ‘brave and charitable’ work hasn’t been acknowledged, they become very angry at the person they have attempted to rescue. And finally, they start to feel like a victim. They feel sorry for themselves and complain how the person they rescued never appreciated them. The important thing to learn here is that if a person wants to change, it’s because they have made a decision to do so.

Christopher Dines

Continually trying to satisfy someone who attempts to control you is like bailing someone out of jail when they need to learn a lesson. They will never learn how to take care of themselves unless you are not there to take care of them. Get out of the middle. You take care of you. Let God take care of them.

All of the years I spent trying to be someone you could be proud of would have been better spent being proud of myself for who I already was.

Paula Heller Garland

There is not a woman born who desires to eat the bread of dependence, no matter whether it be from the hand of father, husband, or brother; for anyone who does so eat her bread places herself in the power of the person from whom she takes it.

Susan B. Anthony

It's hard to get enough of something that almost works.

Vincent Felitti

Once they have been affected---once "it" sets in---codependency takes on a life of its own. It is similar to catching pneumonia or picking up a destructive habit. Once you've got it, you've got it.If you want to get rid of it, YOU have to do something to make it go away. It doesn't matter whose fault it is. Your codependency becomes your problem; solving your problems is your responsibility.

Lately, he had been wondering if codependence was such a bad thing. He took pleasure in his friendships, and it didn’t hurt anyone, so who cared if it was codependent or not? And anyway, how was a friendship any more codependent than a relationship? Why was it admirable when you were twenty-seven but creepy when you were thirty-seven? Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another’s slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honoured by the privilege of getting to be present for another person’s most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.

Hanya Yanagihara