Transcript for Episode 78: Co-dependency and Love Addiction

NASW Social Work Talks Podcast

Announcer:
This episode is sponsored by ECINS, the world's most collaborative case management system.

Aliah Wright:
From the National Association of Social Workers, I'm your host Aliah Wright and this is Social Work Talks. In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to survive codependency, love addiction and toxic relationships with social worker and licensed psychotherapist and certified recovery coach, Sherry Gaba, LCSW, who is also an NASW member. Through her practice, Gaba has helped thousands of people with codependency, as well as those struggling with depression, anxiety, trauma, single parenting, and divorce. Author of "Love Smacked: How To Stop the Cycle of Relationship Addiction and Codependency to Find Everlasting Love," and "Wake Up: Recovery for Toxic Relationships, Codependency and Love Addiction," she has also shared her expert advice on Dr. Drew Pinsky's celebrity rehab show on VH1 and VH1's Silver House, CNN, Inside Edition Show This Tonight, Access Live and numerous other programs. Welcome, Sherry!

Sherry Gaba:
Oh, thank you for having me. It's such an honor to be on a social work podcast. I'm a therapist, an author, and an online influencer, and I always forget, oh my God, I'm a social worker. I'm a social worker. This is great. I love it. I went to school a long time ago, so that's why I don't always think of social work. This is great. Thank you.

Aliah Wright:
We are glad to have you on our show, our first show of the new year. Tell us first about why you became a social worker, what you do and how you came to become an expert in this area of treatment.

Sherry Gaba:
I went back to school 20 plus years ago. I was a single mom and my initial dream was to help other single moms, be a court mediator, and it morphed into other things. I ended up working in hospice, and then eventually I worked at a treatment center and I actually married an alcoholic, learned my more about alcoholism from working at a treatment center and living with the disease of alcoholism. I was just a certifiable, codependent love addict. It was really interesting how my career just went from hospice, addiction, and then suddenly I'm helping other people like myself that have gone on through the chaos and drama of loving someone who's an addict. Also what I have found, that a lot of people that deal in this population are also dealing with toxic relationships because often when an addict or alcoholic is in their disease, it becomes a very toxic situation.

Aliah Wright:
Tell us what does trauma have to do with attracting toxic relationships?

Sherry Gaba:
When you don't receive what you need as a child, your emotional growth is really stunted. If you were neglected or abused or had parents that were emotionally or physically unavailable, you become little adults. You become parentified and you don't have the capacity to really understand what's happening around you. This really affects your adult relationships. Victims of trauma have really a false reality of themselves and they don't even know who their real self is. They don't even know who they are so how can they know who they're picking? They don't trust their emotions because they can't access what their true feelings are. The reason being is if you're invisible as a child, due to neglect or abuse or unavailable parenting, there's no one to acknowledge who you were. You learn at a really early age, your feelings don't count and you don't feel validated, you feel invisible.

Sherry Gaba:
Then you start to focus on everything around you rather than your own needs. That is really at the foundation of discovering who you really are, is understanding what your needs are. You become really vulnerable to predators. You become vulnerable to meeting people that might be addicts, alcoholics, narcissists, people that are toxic. Early trauma carries a profound sense of shame. Shame is really rooted in our childhood programming with this very dysfunctional and faulty belief system. There are many types of childhood trauma I could talk about. There's covert, overt, passive aggressive, invisible, apparent or innocuous. But if the feelings aren't heard and you feel invisible, you really don't have this sense of self.

Sherry Gaba:
Let's say your parents were alcoholics and they abandoned you. Suddenly you're picking alcoholics. We repeat what we know, or they were emotionally or physically unavailable so then you start picking unavailable partners. Difficult adult relationships can develop if you felt invisible and your home was not predictable. If you grew up in a home that was really healthy and there was nurturing and there was validation and acknowledgement, you trust your outer world. You know what your feelings are. You know your internal world and your internal world matches your outer world. Your feelings, thoughts, and your wants and needs are validated so it's much easier to pick someone that's going to be accessible, available, not someone maybe who's avoidant. You learn to trust your reality on the inside, which is really made up of your own thoughts, your own unique needs and desires. Then as adult you'll track those people, places and things. Your life will match what you know to be true. You'll know if someone's abusive, you'll know if someone's emotionally unavailable and you'll ward off those individuals because you know that's not healthy for you.

Sherry Gaba:
Like I said, if you came from a home that was... You were abused or shamed or felt invisible, were not validated, were criticized, you distrust your inner reality. Then you're going to end up being out there in the ether, picking whatever because you don't even know. [inaudible 00:05:45] show up in the world in two ways. They either shut down and act as if they have no needs or they're overly emotional, critical and judgemental and try to control everything around them. That is the essence of codependency.

Aliah Wright:
Can you give folks three signs they may be in a toxic relationship and explain how to recognize those signs?

Sherry Gaba:
Sure. There's a lot of ruminating and obsessing. Unhealthy relationships are characterized by constantly worrying about your partner, obsessing about them. Just like the addict or alcoholic is obsessed with the drink or the drug, you're obsessed with them. It's a toxic sign if you or your partner are altering your life habits and needs and wants to be with the other person, you're just changing everything for that person. When you give up all this to be with the other person, they become the single most important thing in your life. This can lead to one of the signs of a toxic relationship, obsessing about every little detail for fear you might lose them. You'll do anything to hold onto them because you really are so afraid of rejection or abandonment.

Sherry Gaba:
If you're in a toxic relationship, you notice subtle changes in their texts and you can't stop ruminating about what it could mean. Now, a normal person just doesn't think that deeply into that. They just feel like they're in a healthy relationship, there's trust. In a toxic one, there is no trust. You want to spend every minute with them, you obsess about them. You obsess about spending time with them and you twist your personality and values to please the other person, making them the center of your universe and the things that you ruminate daily about. You walk on eggshells. After so many fights that are draining and exhausted, all you want is some peace and getting along, but there is none when you're with a toxic person.

Sherry Gaba:
This causes you to be mindful of every single move you make. Should I say this? Should I ask for that? What will happen if I tell them what happened at work or what if I spend some time with friends? What are they going to think? You're always walking on eggshells. You're trying to anticipate every move that they're going to make. You're trying to avoid a fight. You're trying to avoid again walking on those emotional eggshells.

Another sign is feeling guilty for everything. When you're in a toxic relationship, you feel like you're the guilty one. You're the one that's wrong. One of the sure signs of a toxic person is they never take responsibility for their actions. They're always shifting the blame on you. They're always right. You're always wrong. In this case, their partner... If you wonder if you're in a toxic relationship, take a look at the distribution of responsibility and the guilt in your daily reactions. You'll know you're in a toxic relationship if you always are the one that feels like you're the one that's done something wrong. They love to point the finger on you.

Aliah Wright:
Is that a form of gaslighting?

Sherry Gaba:
Oh yes. Gaslighting, absolutely. Gas lighting is definitely where their actions and what they say don't match. There's absolutely no congruence between the two.

Aliah Wright:
Listeners, we'll be right back.

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What's your biggest social work challenge? I bet ECINS can solve it. The world's most collaborative case management system. ECINS can solve just about any case management problem. Even better, you can get ECINS for free by applying for the US pilot program at ECINS.com/NASW. Solve, automate, engage, collaborate. ECINS gives you the tools to provide the best support possible and you can get it for free apply at ECINS.com/NASW. That's ECINS.com/NASW.

Aliah Wright:
We're back! We're chatting with NASW member and psychotherapist and certified recovery coach, Sherry Gaba, about codependency and toxic relationships. Sherry, why do we become addicted to toxic relationships?

Sherry Gaba:
As I was saying earlier, it really has to do with our childhood. Where we grew up, who we grew up with, how did our parents treat us, did we get the nurturing that we needed? Our destiny is going to be dictated by a subconscious desire to somehow resolve those unresolved issues. If we fall into relationships that mirror our childhood, if you had a unavailable parent, you're probably going to pick an unavailable parent. If you had a parent that was an alcoholic or addict, you're probably going to pick an addict or alcoholic. It's just what our subconscious does. If a parent wasn't there for you, for example, or the father who failed to protect their child from abuse from the mother and is emotionally distanced, the tendency then is going to attract men in their adult life that are going to offer the same type of experience.

Sherry Gaba:
The cycle then commences when we're brought to feel those familiar, painful feelings. We try to alleviate them by then going into another relationship, unaware that it's not any different from the last toxic relationship. It's sort of like the same cycle over and over again. Another scenario is when maybe a son has an overbearing mother who doesn't give him the space or independence to grow autonomy. He'll likely repeat the same cycle in his adult life by attracting controlling and needy women. Occasionally might rebel in adult life and instead attract the opposite of what he experienced. Although he doesn't recreate that familiar feeling suffocation, he was swung to the opposite side of the pendulum and the unresolved issues with his mom remain unduly resolved. The truth is it all stems from how we were raised and the relational experience that we experienced as children. It begins if we weren't properly able to develop self-esteem or a positive self image and therefore self love.

Aliah Wright:
Now, how do we overcome our addiction to toxic relationships?

Sherry Gaba:
We have to start looking at every relationship that enters our life as an opportunity to heal and grow and become more self aware. There's no beating yourself up. You have to focus on how can I grow from this experience? Our focus has to shift from the outside in. Every relationship is manifested into our lives to mirror the relationship that we have with ourselves. If we love ourselves, we're going to find a loving partner. If we're attracting toxic relationships or continuing or nurturing our addiction to them, it's because first and foremost we have a toxic relationship with ourselves. One we must... Excuse me. One we might just be addicted to. Investigate the roots of this internal addiction to your toxic self, the dark side, the shadow side, and be aware that healing an addictive, toxic relationship with ourselves doesn't happen overnight. Accept and welcome the process, a constant work in progress, of uncovering and resolving the toxic childhood experience and conditioning that you might have grown up with.

Just start building a connection with your healthy self, your spiritual self, your essence, the light of who you are. At the beginning, this will be more of a cognitive unlearning and relearning relationship and effort, but it'll become more emotional as time goes on, sometimes more spiritual too. Find the light in you and then just love it madly. How? Start with positive thinking and words. Then further down the line, add visualizations so you can feel that love in your emotions and body, as well as thinking it in your mind. It's just really important to have a connection with yourself. If you're someone that has severe trauma that you grew up with, you really want to find a trauma therapist, someone that works in at the field of trauma, not just talk therapy.

Aliah Wright:
Wow. How do you manage working with someone who is in a toxic relationship?

Sherry Gaba:
That's a great leadway to what I was going to get into. The best way to work with someone who has been in a toxic relationship is trauma therapy. Like I said, not just talk therapy. I do somatic experiencing work is where we get in our body and we release all that toxic energy that we have in our bodies. It definitely starts within our bodies. Some therapists use tapping. I do that as well, or social workers. Some social workers are certified in EMDR.

A really new sort of theory is polyvagal theory where we begin to understand the different atomic systems, our sympathetic system, our dorsal vagal system. When you're in a toxic relationship, you're addicted to the peptides it creates. It puts you in a very high sympathetic nervous system. The idea is to recognize, oh, there I am again. I'm in that high sympathetic nervous system. The idea is to calm down again and then move into your ventral vagal system, which is the calming place.

Also really taking a look at your attachment styles. Most likely if someone is a love addict or a codependent who's attracting addicts, attracting narcissists, you probably have a very anxious attachment style. Who wouldn't, if you grew up with parents that were unavailable? Really teaching clients to move away from their anxious attachment style, to a secure attachment style, and then start picking partners that have a secure attachment. You don't want to look for someone who's avoidant or someone who has a disorganized where they're like, come here, go away, come here, go away. You want to find someone that has a secure attachment. I tell my clients to read everything they can about narcissistic abuse, join a support group. There's all kinds of Facebook groups, tons of Instagram information. I have an Instagram feed called @codependencycurious, and they can learn all about codependency and toxic relationships.

Aliah Wright:
Briefly, I want to ask you one follow up question. What exactly is EMDR?

Sherry Gaba:
Okay. All right. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. Okay. That's what EMDR stands for. It's just a different modality therapists use to help with trauma. I understand it's very, very effective.

Aliah Wright:
Sherry, we would like to ask you as well, is there anything else you think our listeners should know about this topic?

Sherry Gaba:
Most importantly, just don't beat yourself up. If you're listening to this, that's the first step is awareness, understanding. Wow, am I in a toxic relationship? Am I a love addict? Am I a codependent? How did I get here? How can I gain the support that I need? How can I work with a great trauma psychotherapist or social worker that can help me move through the fight/flight response, which is often what is... That is what trauma is. If you've had multiple relationships that haven't worked out, again, don't beat yourself up. You didn't wake up one day and say, "Oh, I want to be divorced multiple times," or, "I want to go through this many times." It's because you're responding to what you know. Now it's learning to unlearn what you learned at a young age.

Aliah Wright:
Great. Sherry, thank you so much for joining us.

Sherry Gaba:
Definitely take a look at the show notes for different things that I'm offering. I have a free quiz that you can take, a free ebook. My book Love Smacked is available on Amazon and I have my own support group called Wake Up Recovery and I think all of that is in the show notes.

Aliah Wright:
Yes. Listeners, you can find details about the resources we've discussed, like Sherry said, in our show notes on our website. Thank you so much for joining us.

Announcer:
You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association Of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members to create and maintain professional standards and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing new next episode.