- 1457 Jordan Ave, Crofton, MD 21114
Codependency Counseling In Crofton, MD
Picture these three scenarios:
- You’re at home, and you hear a noise outside. When you investigate, you discover that your house has no front door, and your intrusive neighbor has just walked in and helped herself to something from your refrigerator.
- Someone knocks on your front door. You look through the peephole, and you don’t recognize the man outside. Instead of going away, he knocks harder and then insists that you let him in. Even though you don’t want to do so, you find yourself unlocking the door and letting him in.
- A friend of yours comes over to visit. When she knocks on the door, you try to open it, only to find that it is locked with a padlock to which you do not have the key.
These scenarios all sound ridiculous, don’t they? If you look at them literally, yes, they do. They make sense, though, if you look at them as analogies that describe problems with personal boundaries. These boundary problems are often part of codependency.
When you are codependent with someone, it can be hard for you to tell where you stop and they begin. They have a disproportionate effect on your life; you may feel incomplete without them. You may neglect your own needs in favor of taking care of them. You may also take the responsibility for their life that should be theirs, while neglecting to take responsibility for your own life.
If you’re in a relationship with someone who abuses alcohol or other substances, there’s a good chance that you are codependent. In this case, you may enable them to continue to engage in addictive behaviors by protecting them from the consequences of their actions.
Returning to the door analogy, here are a few examples of healthy boundaries:
- Someone knocks on your front door. You look through the peephole and don’t recognize the person. You ask them to identify themselves. If you’re satisfied with their answer, you let them into your house, but you don’t let them go farther than the living room until you get to know them better.
- Someone knocks on your front door. You look through the peephole and recognize them as someone who has treated you badly in the past. You decline to let them in.
- Someone knocks on your front door. You look through the peephole and see that it’s the friend you invited over for dinner. You open the door and let her in. Because she’s someone you trust, you give her access to the whole first floor of your house, not just the living room.
With the help of a skilled therapist, recovery from codependency is possible.
How do People Become Codependent?
Humans are pack animals, not solitary beings. We need relationships with other people in order to be healthy.
As a child, you observed the relationships among members of your family and (unconsciously) decided that that was the way relationships were supposed to work. Unless something has happened to change it, you have probably recreated these dynamics in your adult relationships. If your family members had healthy boundaries, then you learned to have healthy boundaries. If your family members were codependent, then it’s likely that you learned to be codependent, too.
Codependency and Communication Styles
There are four basic ways to approach other people when you need or want something. You can be aggressive, passive, passive aggressive, or assertive. When you’re aggressive, you demand that the other person give you what you want. When you’re passive, you are afraid to ask for what you want. When you’re passive aggressive, you find indirect ways, like hinting, to try to get what you want. When you’re assertive, you ask directly for what you want and accept the fact that the other person can choose to give it to you or not.
Guess which one of the four is the healthiest? If you said “assertive,” you got it!
If you learned unhealthy communication patterns from observing your parents, there’s no need to feel shame. You’re following patterns that have probably existed in your family for generations.
Codependency Counseling Can Help You To Develop Healthier Relationships
US Olympic skier Jessie Diggins offers some wisdom regarding codependency:
“You know the book ‘The Giving Tree,’ by Shel Silverstein?” she said. “Horrible book. The tree just keeps giving and giving. If it had only given apples, it could have given apples forever. But the kid keeps coming back and saying, ‘Can I have a branch?’ ‘Can I have a limb?’ ‘Can I have all of you?’ And what is left is a stump. And essentially I had become a stump, because I hadn’t set limits. I just kept trying to say yes and give too much. This skiing world has given me everything, and I felt like I owed it to say yes to everything and be everywhere. I had to learn to just give apples. Now I feel my cup is full because I’m giving apples and I’m able to sustain that and I’m in balance.”[1]
Jessie is describing a healthy middle ground between giving too much and too little. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing: she can give generously without depleting herself.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/magazine/jessie-diggins-ski-winter-olympics-milan.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260206&instance_id=170684&nl=the-morning®i_id=112624336&segment_id=214869&user_id=9348c19d9ff56745e21a444d646c93f0
Codependency counseling can help you to find your own balance. The therapeutic relationship is one in which you can learn and practice interpersonal skills that you weren’t taught when you were growing up. In our sessions, you will learn to be emotionally complete within yourself so that you choose relationships because you want them, not because you feel like you need them in order to be whole. With help and support, you can learn that you are worthy just as you are, without having to do anything to earn it. You will learn to set and to respect boundaries with other people.
There is also a 12-step group called Codependents Anonymous, or CoDA, which can be an excellent adjunct to codependency counseling.
How Do You Know That I’m Qualified to Offer Codependency Counseling?
Codependency is an integral part of the dynamics in an alcoholic family, which means that I have extensive personal and professional experience with it. While I did not have an alcoholic parent, my family followed the same patterns as families that do. When I observed how my family members interacted, I witnessed passive, aggressive, and passive-aggressive communication styles. I did not learn to be assertive until years later, when I was an adult. I didn’t learn what healthy boundaries looked like, either, until I was an adult.
I have been working with clients who have chemical dependencies and/or are codependent my entire counseling career, and I am a licensed alcohol and drug counselor. I have spent many hours helping clients to break out of codependent patterns.
Some Common Questions About Codependency Counseling
I’m used to being the listener in relationships; I don’t think I can handle a relationship where the other person listens to me instead of the other way around.
I understand the discomfort with being seen and listened to. I also know that all humans want to be seen and valued for who they are, so I will work to help you to feel safe enough to allow that.
I was always taught to give to others, like in the book The Giving Tree. If I stop giving to other people, won’t that make me selfish?
In a word, no. I help clients to find a healthy middle ground between extremes. In this case, one extreme is giving people all of yourself all of the time (and probably hoping that they’ll give you what you need in return). The other extreme is never giving anyone anything. In our work together, you’ll learn to decide how much you have available and want to give to others, and then practice doing that.
I’m afraid that my therapist will decide that I’m too needy and fire me.
I know from personal experience what it’s like to worry that I’ll be too needy for a therapist and that she’ll reject me. I have done a lot of work with so-called neediness, personally and professionally, and you cannot overwhelm me or drive me away with your neediness.