VBB 291 Darlene Lancer: Healing From Codependency!

If a close friend were to say that you have a co-dependency issue or a relationship addiction, how would you respond to that? Would you tell them where to go and how long to stay there? Or would you seek out someone like our guest, who has over 30 years of experience as a codependency expert? We welcome marriage and family therapist Darlene Lancer to Virgin Beauty bitch.

Darlene Lancer [00:00:47]:

Thank you very much. I've had my own recovery and struggles with codependency. And when I first heard about it, I was, like, ashamed to think that I was codependent. So that was in the seventies. Codependency Anonymous was formed in the seventies. I got my training wheels in Al-Anon, which was a program for family members of alcoholics and loved ones of alcoholics, and historically, they were called co-alcoholics. And then, they found that the symptoms preceded the marriage to an alcoholic and started in the family.

Darlene Lancer [00:01:31]:

And little by little, they discovered codependency, that it's its own thing. Some people call it a disease. And when I wrote Codependency for Dummies back in 2011, actually had an argument with the editor, which was Hazelden, because he thought codependents were something separate from addicts. And I said, no, addicts are codependent, too. And he said they can't be codependent because they're in relationships with codependents. He didn't really understand. And usually, codependents gravitate towards other codependents. So some people say to me, oh, my wife or my husband is so codependent.

Darlene Lancer [00:02:21]:

What should I do? They don't see their own codependency. Cause it can manifest differently with different people. In fact, I'm probably in the minority that thinks narcissists are codependent, too. But if you look at the symptoms, and in my most recent book, dating, loving, and leaving a narcissist. I have a whole chapter comparing codependence and narcissist, and how the key symptoms are the same, or the traits, I should say, but the behavior, the symptomatic behavior, may be the opposite. So, for instance, codependents have dysfunctional boundaries. Well, they don't have boundaries around themselves. They can't say no to people. They focus on someone else.

Darlene Lancer [00:03:12]:

They don't really see themselves. Their life revolves around other people. That's part of my definition, is your thinking and behavior revolve around someone else. Or some other thing which would include a substance, a process like sex addiction or gambling. So the narcissist, on the other hand, they don't see other people. Everyone is a projection of themselves. So they both have dysfunctional boundaries, but they manifest differently, similarly, dysfunctional communication. So narcissists will push people away with their aggression, and that's how they feel safe.

Darlene Lancer [00:03:52]:

And codependents want to pull people in, and that's how they feel safe. So they avoid confrontation. They're passive. They can't say no. As I said, they go along to get along. The narcissist wants to get ahead. They want to put themselves first.

Darlene Lancer [00:04:11]:

But it works well with a codependent because they put other people first. So for a while, the attraction works until finally could take 20 years. With some of my clients, they realize their needs aren't getting met. They keep trying harder. You know, that's what they're trained to do. Give more, try more, please more, and then I'll get the love because then I'll feel lovable. Well, underneath is shame.

Darlene Lancer [00:04:38]:

That applies to both. The narcissist doesn't feel lovable. They want to take, take, take, and get admired by other people and be given to and sacrificed for, and that makes them compensate for their shame inside. They both have dysfunctional self-esteem. One is inflated and one is devalued themselves. So there's like opposites. But the problem is similar in both.

Christopher [00:05:05]:

So where does this all start? I mean, we've identified now these two tracks of problematic behavior. Where do they begin, the causes? How do we get into these identities? How do we get into that one or the other?

Darlene Lancer [00:05:26]:

Codependency is learned behavior. It starts in childhood, so it's generational. So if you had codependent or addicted parents or something like that, your parenting and yourself are going to be shaped by that. And then that your behavior, your attitudes transfer to your child. So if you have low self-esteem, for whatever reason, from your parents, then your low self esteem gets transmitted in your behavior. Low self-esteem becomes evident in the way you communicate. If you go to a job interview, you reveal your self-esteem by the way you talk. Do you answer questions? Are you evasive? Are you direct? Do you make eye contact? Do you speak with confidence? Are you diffident or reserved or trying to please? And being evasive, things like that.

Darlene Lancer [00:06:25]:

So the parents will be that way. They won't have good boundaries, and then it all gets transferred down. A lot of parents have children. This is maybe more from the mother's point of view, to boost their own self-esteem. Someone will need me. They want to live through their children. If you become famous, then I'll feel that I did a good job.

Darlene Lancer [00:06:54]:

Their parenting becomes their reason for living. And it's about taking care of someone else and living through someone else. And I had one client who said, well, she felt better when she had a child to focus on. Without that, she felt lost and depressed, because underneath is emptiness. This goes for a narcissist, too. And then control is a common symptom for both. So it looks a little different. A narcissist might give orders and tell you what to do and how to dress.

Darlene Lancer [00:07:31]:

And a codependent may be giving you advice and wanting to help you and manage you in control that way and control their own feelings. So a parent might feel this particular person felt more valued, more valuable if they had a child to take care of. And without that, they felt lost. So a lot of times when a codependent leaves a relationship, they just feel lost. And by the way, that's one of the reasons they feel more alive with someone who is very melodramatic, someone who has a lot of drama, someone with a personality disorder, a narcissist, a borderline, a histrionic personality. Or just a lot of conflict, an addict, a lot of turmoil and conflict in the relationship. And then they have something to figure out and work out and work on. They want to work on the relationship all the time.

Darlene Lancer [00:08:28]:

If a relationship is good, it works. You don't have to keep fixing it. You have to communicate. You have to resolve needs and conflicting, you know, opinions and things. But you are able to work that out. So, how do you get into it? So I start to say if the mother is preoccupied with their own depression or problems or marital conflict, things like that, she can't really attune to the child. If you can't connect with yourself, it's hard to connect with other people. So, codependents aren't really connected to themselves.

Darlene Lancer [00:09:08]:

They don't know words, usually, how to describe their feelings. A parent needs to teach that to a child. Oh, you're sad, and then you mirror the child's feelings. So, a lot of codependents are raised in families where it's not okay to be sad or be, quote, unquote, negative, to have negative feelings, or to be angry. So that's shaming. So, codependency and shame kind of, I say they co-emerge. And it's the, you know, codependents have shame.

Darlene Lancer [00:09:42]:

And shame is the cause. So, I don't know where it begins or ends, but it derives from the parenting and the way you're treated. Every person. I wrote a book, Conquering Shame and Codependency, because it's the core issue. Every child needs to feel that both parents want a relationship with them, that aren't interested in them for who they are, not because they get good grades or beautiful or thin or athletic. And if they make time and they're listening, they're attuning to you, they're paying attention. It's not enough to give you money and buy things or say, I love you, but not listen to you or invalidate your feelings, or your interests, or your needs. So that causes shame.

Darlene Lancer [00:10:32]:

It's shame bonding.

Heather [00:10:35]:

What would be your recommendations to our listeners that are hearing, you know, that perhaps with one or both parents, that you know that those needs were not met, and you know that the parent either used gifts or money or just outright didn't pay attention to who they were as an individual? Like, what do you feel are some of the stepping stones to cultivating that self-value and, like, recognizing your own codependency that stems out of that.

Darlene Lancer [00:11:11]:

That is a very important, crucial question. And for instance, a lot of programs and even therapists don't talk about shame. So it's one of the worst feelings. You feel like you're an alien like you don't belong, you're unlovable. At the bottom of that, you might think, I'm not smart enough, I don't make enough money, I don't have a good enough figure. But if you dive down deeper, it's basically like a client who said this to me recently. She realizes as she walks into a room, she has a feeling that people aren't going to like her. She goes to a party, she's in a class, and there's this feeling that I'm just not likable or lovable if people really get to know me.

Darlene Lancer [00:12:00]:

So you can't change the past, you can't go back, but you can get reparented in therapy, but ultimately, you have to reparent yourself. So, the first thing I always say is you have to come out of denial, and you can't change things that are unconscious if you don't know about it. So start writing down all your negative self-talk. The first ebook that I wrote was Ten Steps to Self-Esteem. And now it's also a webinar on how to raise your self-esteem. And that's the first step. So every day and include the shoulds. Like, oh, I shouldn't have said that.

Darlene Lancer [00:12:43]:

I shouldn't have been talking about myself. You know, I shouldn't spend so much time on the phone, you know? But you can't get off with people, or you're embarrassed talking about yourself, or I didn't do that well enough. That was stupid. Why did I make that mistake? All this negative self-talk and that's you shaming yourself so your parents could be dead, but you're continuing a legacy every day, and it's depressing. And you talked yourself out of things.

Darlene Lancer [00:13:14]:

Oh, I would like to go back to school and get this degree. What do you think? It's too late. It costs too much. I haven't studied in a long time. I won't do well, whatever. You just talked yourself out of your dreams and things you want to do. And that's part of that. Not encouraging yourself, not supporting yourself.

Darlene Lancer [00:13:36]:

And I would say, go to Codependents Anonymous, get a therapist, get a sponsor in the meeting. Do the exercises in my books. These are things you can change. Self-esteem is learned. Codependency is learned. And you can learn healthy self-esteem. You can raise your self-esteem by, you know, challenging yourself, learning more skills, how you talk to yourself, then the next step. And by the way, these problems all rise out of denial, which is another symptom.

Darlene Lancer [00:14:11]:

Denial of needs, denial of feelings, denial of wants. You're focused on what your partner wants, what your child wants. You don't think about your own needs. You become needless. The narcissist thinks only of their needs. They're entitled to entitled. And the codependent feels unentitled. They need to be more narcissistic.

Darlene Lancer [00:14:36]:

It's easier for a codependent to change. Narcissism is a personality disorder. And there's a genetic component, too, not just behavioral. So, codependence can change. And ask yourself, this is a really hard question for codependence. I'm feeling glum right now, or I'm feeling down or lethargic. What do I need? And it may take a while to figure that out. Do I need to talk to someone? Do I need to rest? Do I need inspiration? Do I need to eat something? Do I need to set a boundary with someone? Do I need to ask for help or ask for something? A lot of codependents don't want to ask for help.

Darlene Lancer [00:15:21]:

They're used to having to take care of them, their own selves because of their parents not attuning to their needs or their feelings. So, ask yourself those questions. Codependency for dummies takes you through. It's organized like a healing program to get familiar with yourself and raise your self-esteem. And then the hardest thing, I think, is learning to love yourself. Self-esteem is how you think about yourself. Loving yourself is more of a feeling, and for a lot of people, feels incomprehensible. I know what it's like to love another person, but I don't know what it's like to love myself.

Darlene Lancer [00:16:05]:

And what is love? It's. There's. You have to know the person. You have to get to know yourself. You have to listen. When you think of what you do to the person you love, you listen to them, you empathize with them, you offer help, and you give care.

Darlene Lancer [00:16:22]:

You try to understand them well. Apply that all to yourself with tenderness. So, most codependents didn't get a lot of nurturing. They may have had a parent that didn't and doesn't, didn't know how to nurture. So learning how to nurture yourself, I mean, it's more than bubble baths. It's really paying attention to your wants and needs and things like that. So, typically, a codependent, if they say, well, I'm going to go to the gym today, for instance, I'm going to take care of my body.

Darlene Lancer [00:16:55]:

And then someone calls, and they say, oh, I really need to talk about this problem. And then there's no more. They just, oh, this person needs me. I'm not going to go to the gym. So they will. They don't keep appointments or commitments with themselves.

Christopher [00:17:12]:

It's interesting, because if a lot of these conditions begin in your youth, when you really do not know anything about yourself or the world around you, how is it you can see this as a problem or an issue? Of course, you may have relationship after relationship after relationship, which is hurtful and painful. You may even think that's normal because you have no training in your life.

Darlene Lancer [00:17:46]:

You're right. And there's something in particular that I have realized just in the last few years it's that, and it pertains to this generally, not all code events, but I would say the majority of them have never felt safe in their family. They didn't feel safe. Maybe the parents argued a lot. Maybe there was addiction, or maybe they had an angry or neglectful parent. So they don't really know what it's like to feel safe. So they date people, and someone is exciting to them. They don't realize that they may have anxiety.

Darlene Lancer [00:18:27]:

In fact, they go out with someone with a secure, we talk about attachment style and who's calm, a reliable person. They think, oh, they're boring, so they crave that excitement. That's also to feel alive because of all the emptiness inside. They crave melodrama and excitement and making up and breaking up and fighting and then all of that. Or does he love me? Does she love me? That. And then they have sex, and then it's great, and it's high and low. They end up committing to that person in the romance stage. They get to know them, and then they find out, oh, they're not anything like they were in the beginning.

Darlene Lancer [00:19:17]:

And then they try to change them back into their ideal of who it was. So they don't really know what it's like to be safe in a stable relationship, what we call a secure attachment. They're used to an insecure attachment, maybe a mother that's sometimes loving and sometimes is dismissive or scolding or sometimes is there and sometimes is, you know, demeaning you or saying with a father. So they become hyper-vigilant. And when they're dating then or getting into a relationship, they confuse anxiety and excitement. They think it's chemistry. They don't realize, you know, they think, oh, it's a butterfly. They don't realize I don't feel safe with this person.

Darlene Lancer [00:20:09]:

I don't know if he's going to call me again. You know, I don't know if we're really in a relationship. Are we just dating? Are we committed? You know, and that just goes on and on. And even after they're married, you know, is he really there for me? Is he making time for me or her? Goes with men, too, so you don't know. But gradually, as you recover, your friends will change. When you start to get more connected to yourself, you excuse yourself and then pay attention to how you feel. Oh, this person was dismissive. This person ignored my boundaries.

Darlene Lancer [00:20:56]:

You notice those things that you wouldn't notice in the beginning because you're so motivated to please and be liked and be loved, and so you just go along. But when you have a little more recovery, you say, well, wait a minute, this person just ignored me. I said I didn't like that, and then they just went ahead and did it anyway. That's not safe. That's disrespectful, or they're only talking about themselves. So, in the beginning, you would just be a good listener and think he or she's, like, wonderful. You just idealize them.

Darlene Lancer [00:21:32]:

But then, when you start to have more self-worth, you think, were they even getting to know me? Do they think my needs are important? I always have to adjust to their timetable. Things revolve around them. So, as you build yourself, you give yourself more worth, you have more value to yourself, and people will treat you the way you teach them.

Heather [00:21:59]:

That is honestly very, very helpful and so well articulated. And, you know, I think touching back on what you had mentioned before, on writing down these shoulds, or the things I can't do or didn't get done, or, I don't know, the perpetual. Sometimes, it isn't things that your parents have necessarily said, but that, you know, a concept of your worth has been embedded in your mind. So the shoulds continue on. What have you found to be helpful with your clients to, you know, to write down those? Those pieces of self-talk and try to transition like that thinking. I know that people talk a lot about affirmations, so trying to get to the core root of why you feel these things that you're negatively saying in your mind and try to address that wound and understand it, and either through different mechanisms, paint a different picture about yourself and then replace them, if and when genuine, to bring in an affirmation that helps to heal that wound. But I'd be so interested to hear what you found to be helpful as transitioning from that list of what you are not doing or not capable of or the negative self-talk into a different narrative in your mind.

Darlene Lancer [00:23:28]:

Good question. Well, that's why there's ten steps, ten steps to self-esteem. And in my book, Conquering Shame, like, one-third of the book is self-help exercises. So the first step is, you know, hearing that voice, and then you have to identify it as the critic. And it's true, a lot of times parents didn't say those things, but you inferred that if you were perfect or you achieved or you behaved in some certain way, then you'd get praise. So it's maybe how you survived. Maybe if I don't get angry or if I get AIdS or whatever, then I see my brother or sister is getting it, then I'll get the attention. So it could be an inference.

Darlene Lancer [00:24:17]:

And then you tell yourself that to be safe or to get love identifying the voice. And then sometimes it's so prevalent that it's taken over a person's whole personality. So what you want to do is start to become a witness of it. Oh, it's just that voice in my head. And you might give it a name. So people come up with very creative names, or maybe it reminds you of a parent or a sibling. So that's my mother talking, or my father or my sister or critic or whatever. And then other steps include dialoguing with it.

Darlene Lancer [00:25:06]:

So there's the aware part of you, and with your non dominant hand, your left hand, usually you can dialogue to find out. What was the purpose of that? Well, it might be, like I said, to keep you safe. Or, for instance, before you're going on a first date with someone, you might shame yourself. Oh, you can't fit into your, you know, your nice dress and you're too fat. And look at your, you know, your hair looks terrible, whatever. So the purpose might be not just to shame you but to try to encourage you to look better, to be loved, to get the prize, to get the guy or the girl on the date. But then you realize, is that helping? No, it makes you insecure. So when you go out, you're probably going to behave in a way that's going to not just your looks, but your behavior will maybe ruin the date because you're insecure because now you've made yourself, you've lowered your self-esteem, and you made yourself more anxious.

Darlene Lancer [00:26:09]:

So you look at the motive and you can, and I have a lot of interview questions, which in my webinar and my book to find out, like, and say, is this working? You know, and then another aspect of it is getting in connection, connecting with the part of you that hears that voice, the inner child, you know, who is now being shamed and now wants to go run and hide in the corner, doesn't even want to go out, is afraid to meet people, is afraid to date things like that. So, is afraid to open up or reveal, which could make you more attractive to people. Here's another example. You're afraid to be spontaneous because you're always editing what you say or do. Well, people who are spontaneous are usually more attractive to other people. That's someone who's watching every word that they say because of caution because they don't want to make a mistake; they don't want to be disliked or rejected. So you get to the motives, and you get in touch with the part of you that is listening to all this and how painful it is. And then later steps is like, then you become from a critic to a coach.

Darlene Lancer [00:27:28]:

I cite a coach, I can't think of a name at the moment from USC. He was famous, and he devoted himself to coaching in a way that was going to be supportive because most football coaches were always degrading and abusing the players, and he just made up his mind that he was not going to do that. And he won season over season. If a person fumbled the ball or something, he said, well, go back in there and, you know, learn from your mistake next time. You won't do that.

Christopher [00:28:02]:

I wanted to ask this side question. How much of the codependency is pivoted on gender? And I look at the, obviously, the historic way that gender has put men and women in places of codependency, etcetera. Is there a relationship to our gender in this as well?

Darlene Lancer [00:28:31]:

Well, probably culturally. There's no way to get statistics on it. Also, women are more prone to come to therapy than men. But I have maybe 40% of my clients are male. I wrote a blog on, you know, the codependent male dilemma because they're also trained to ignore their feelings and their needs and be a provider and be, you know, a good boy or a good, nice man provider and just serve the woman, you know, provide and ignore themselves and their needs. So, men become codependent, too. It may look a little different because they're focused on their career generally, but underneath it could be the same. And look at it this way: there are probably more male addicts.

Darlene Lancer [00:29:33]:

I don't know statistically, but in the past, there have been more male alcoholics, etcetera. And underneath that is codependency addiction. If you look at all the gamblers and the drug addicts and sex addicts and alcoholics, the majority of them are going to be male, and they're trying to get their needs met. Instead, a woman might look to a man to rescue her, and a man's going to look to that drug or process to take care of his pain.  It's self-medicating because of the damage in childhood to himself or self-esteem, and looking outside of himself, it's basically a problem of the self. So, instead of accessing your internal resources, you're looking at something outside of yourself to fix you, whether it's a relationship, a drug, food, or something like that. But there is the cultural aspect of women being traditionally not in the workforce. They're more passive, and in some religions, the man is the head of the house.

Darlene Lancer [00:30:53]:

And the woman was trained to go along and not be assertive. She learned to be indirect to get her needs met in an indirect way. So there's that cultural aspect, but it affects men just as much as women.

Christopher [00:31:10]:

So, are there any well-adjusted human beings on the planet Earth?

Darlene Lancer [00:31:15]:

Well, it's interesting because another aspect of your question is that, or earlier questions, is that the idea of codependency is very cultural. So I have clients whose parents were from Latin America, from the Middle East, from Asia, and those are collectivist cultures. And the family is more important, and the family's reputation, in particular, is more important than the individual. So they come over here, and then their children are exposed to the American way of life and values.  They were trying to break away from their family and be independent, maybe marry outside of their ethnicity or religion, or have their own. Spend more time with their friends than with their family. The family tries to pull together, and, like shame, they try to control the Native Americans to follow the cultural values that the parents have.

Darlene Lancer [00:32:29]:

They say, like, you should do all this for the family. You're a bad son, you're a bad daughter. You're not putting your family first. So, it causes a lot of conflict. But in those other cultures, you know, they'd be well adjusted. So, what we call codependent is a cultural point of view. It's a Western, occidental Western idea versus Asia and Latin America.

Christopher [00:33:01]:

That's interesting, because if I look at it from the way you're saying it, and it just clicked in my mind, codependency in those cultures is a strength. Codependency in our culture is a weakness.

Darlene Lancer [00:33:10]:

Right. Well, you can say that a lot about a lot of different things. Cultural.

Heather [00:33:17]:

We love to ask our guests, and I appreciate your responses around codependency and, you know, gender foundations and also different cultural foundations. I'm wondering, for the purposes of our show, we like to ask our guests, what does feminine mean to you?

Darlene Lancer [00:33:41]:

It's interesting. Well, I think, of course, I'm a product of my culture, too. So I think the general definition, and.

Darlene Lancer [00:33:57]:

Influenced by that, too, stems from biology. And so I think of feminine as being soft, nurturing, empathetic. We think of, you know, mothering, but also creative, intuitive. And the masculine is more assertive and goal-oriented, by the way. We need both aspects, so we're productive and productive, I guess men, both men and women, can be creative, but that's how I see it also.

Christopher [00:34:34]:

So share your work and your books with us. People need to know how to contact you if they want to work with you directly. The floor is yours.

Darlene Lancer [00:34:44]:

Oh, thank you. Okay. Well, I coach internationally, and my website, whatiscodependency.com, has all the information on my services page, and then I have a page for resources where all my books, and there's some free meditations on there. And there are also webinars and a self-love meditation that people can listen to. And if you forget that, you usually look up my name, darlenelancer.com, and I'm on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. So I have a lot of information freely available to the public. And if anyone wants to get a list of tips on self-love, they can email me@infolarlinglancer.com. and my ebooks and paperbacks are available online.

Darlene Lancer [00:35:49]:

Stores like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and paperbacks are available in stores and online and brick and mortar. But on my website, I have some audio files and webinars that are only on my website.

Christopher [00:36:06]:

Fantastic. It feels like we've just dipped our toe into a pool of just human condition that is very, very difficult to actually pull apart because every individual has their own version of codependency that they would have to look at themselves. So I would definitely recommend either reading your books or getting in touch with you or getting in touch with another counselor to help go through this. Because, like we said, it is a big blind spot. If this is how you grew up, if this is how you were conditioned as a child, this is not something you see when you look in the mirror. So, definitely, this conversation could go on for a long time and still not cover the breadth of what this is all about. We cannot thank you enough, though, for laying a foundation and giving us some direction as to how we can recognize it and then steps we can take to go past it. So, we cannot thank you enough, Darlene, for taking the time to share your wisdom with us on this topic.

Darlene Lancer [00:37:15]:

Well, thank you for asking me and helping me educate people, which is what I want to do.

Heather [00:37:23]:

It's been an absolute delight to have you. Thank you for everything that you've brought to this, you know, excited to check out your website to dive in more. So, thanks for joining us.