October 22, 2024 • 44 mins
Terri is a licensed psychotherapist and relationship expert. She is the author of ‘Boundary Boss’ and ‘Too Much’. This is the third time Terri has joined us on the podcast! The first time was to speak about cheating, the second was to speak about boundaries and today Terri is joining us to unpack codependence! But, not the standard idea of what codependency is.
Today we speak about what Terri refers to as ‘high functioning codependence’ and how we are able to recognise when we are doing ‘too much’ for other people, and need to prioritise ourselves more. Spoiler, none of us identified as being codependent… until we learnt what high functioning codependency looked like and the alarm bells RANG!
We speak about:
-
High functioning codependency isn’t what we typically think of a a ‘codependent person’
-
They’re highly capable, the person everyone depends on, the problem solver, the ‘fixer’
-
Resentment inventories! We all need to identify where we are ‘over giving’ and ‘over functioning’
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Being hyper independent, “I got it” and not wanting to ask for help or owing other people anything
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How it all contributes to burnout and cognitive overload
Do you identify with any of these labels? They might be new to you!
-approval seeking,
-auto fixing/auto accommodator
-self sacrificing
-hyper helping
You can listen to Terri’s previous episodes with us here: People Pleasers Anonymous - Better Boundaries
and Once A Cheater, Are They Always A Cheater?
You can find everything from Terri:
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Or join the Facebook Discussion Group
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land. Hi guys, and
welcome back to another episode of Life on Cut.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Laura, I'm Brittany.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Today's guest that we have is someone who's statistically on
this podcast is our favorite guest because this will be
her third time back here.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, I'm not sure we've ever done a three.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Time what have we No, That's why she's statistically our favorite,
because it's the only person who has ever done three episodes.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
But that's because, I mean, every time we have spoken
to Terry Cole, there have been real aha moments that
both Britt and myself have had around our own lives,
our own personality traits. We've spoken around cheating, We've done
episodes on boundaries. We were speaking about boundaries on our
last ep that we did with Terry, and we were
talking about high functioning codependence. And I remember sitting there
(00:54):
during that conversation, I had this moment where I was
like ping.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
But to give you a little bit of a background.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
On this, I think so many of us have a
perception around what codependent means, and it is not necessarily
a very positive label that we would put on ourselves.
I think we often think clingy, we think needy, we
think can't not be in a relationship. But this definition
and conversation around what a high functioning codependent is something
(01:21):
that's really different, and I honestly think so many people
will have that same aha moment. Who'll be listening to
this episode? So Terry, welcome back to the pod.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Why thanks for having me, Laura and britt.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Terry, you have been in this industry psychotherapist, like twenty years,
You've written multiple books. What was it that led you
now to specialize in this high functioning codependency.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
It's really just what I saw. I've actually been a
therapist for twenty seven year, but it's really what I saw,
you know. I mean, what was happening for me is
that in my therapy practice, I attracted women who were
like me, which was super highly capable women like just
the masters of the universe, like doing it in the
world and managing businesses and homes and families and aging
(02:04):
parents and all the things like just having it going on.
And then I would see a relational pattern. If I
pointed it out and say, hey, what I'm seeing this
is codependent behavioral pattern, they would immediately reject, immediately go yeah, wrong, lady.
Everyone depends on me. I'm the one making all the dough,
(02:24):
making all the decisions, making all the moves, moving everything forward,
doing all the emotional labor. Like I'm the rock in
my family and in my friend group, and like I'm
not dependent on shit is basically what they would say.
And I realized they don't know what codependency is. They
think that codependency is codependent. No more melody, baby, You
(02:45):
got to be enabling an alcoholic to be a codependent.
And like you guys said, weak dependent can't make a
decision like the long suffering wife of like the debtor
who's going out and spending the rent money. You know
what I mean. But that ain't it. And that wasn't
what I was seeing in my therapy practice and what
I had experienced myself. So I my definition of codependency
(03:10):
is being overly invested in the feeling states, the outcomes,
the situations, the circumstances, the relationships, the careers of the
people in our lives, to the detriment of our own
internal peace.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
How does one identify that in themselves?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Though, because I think the alternate, this original understanding of
what codependency is it's way easier to point out. It's
way easy to be like, oh, that's someone who can't
be without a man or can't be without a person.
But the definition of what you've just described, I feel
like the line is so blurred between figuring out, oh,
maybe I have high functioning codependency or I'm just super
(03:46):
invested in my family and my friends and my loved
ones and my businesses.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
All right, So I'm going to say exactly how you
can figure it out. First of all, how you feel. Right,
if you are going to do a quick resentment inventory,
anybody listening to this or watching them, yes, and that's
going to show you in what relationships you are most
likely overfunctioning overgiving because the overfunctioning underfunctioning dynamic creates resentment.
(04:12):
So if you're doing all the things for all the people,
and you're invested in the people that you love, and
you feel congreat and you have no resentment and you're
not exhausted and burnt out, then go you. Then it's fine.
And even if it is high functioning codependency, that can
also be a choice. You can say, hey, this is
my identity and I want to be that way. What
I'm finding is that it's not sustainable that right, like
(04:35):
what you could do like in your twenties for a
long time as you age start hitting perimenopause menopause, you
just don't have the bandwidth to do all the things
for all the people. So maybe it would be helpful
if we identify it what are the traits of high
functioning codependence so that people can see like do they
see themselves in these traits? And then we could talk
(04:56):
about behaviors really because that's how you're going to be
able to go is this me or is this not me?
If we look at the traits feeling overly responsible to
fix other people's problems, let's just start there, giving, like
going above and beyond, giving till it hurts, even if
you're not asked to, always ready to jump into damage
control there's a problem and you're like, okay, so you're
going to do this. I'm going to do this like
your great in a crisis. It can also look like
(05:20):
kind of being a little judgmental of other people because
we really do think that we know what they should
be doing. We really do have the solutions for them,
and if they would just listen, then they wouldn't be
in pain, and we would be so much happier if
they would just take our friggant advice, because we can
get frustrated and pissed when they don't take our advice,
because now they're still complaining about the same shit that
(05:41):
we could have solved. We did solve two weeks ago,
they just didn't take action on feeling exhausted, resentful, bitter.
Another trait is being hyper independent, where you're not the
best at asking for help or allowing people to help you,
where you're sort of like the mantra of the HFC
is I got it, I'm good. We don't love it.
(06:01):
We don't love being vulnerable to other people, which is
what asking for help makes us. So it's like that
hyperindependence is really something that's there, and what does it
look like like in your day to day life? If
you're like, hmm, I wonder if I'm an HFC, well,
do you give untolicited advice called auto advice giving the
second a situation happens, are you immediately like, Okay, I've
(06:24):
got the answer, So I'm going to google this, I
talk to this person. I'm connecting you with my friend
who's an MD. Like we're doing all the things for
other people, and.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You don't even know that you is sitting next to
them at the cafe, just overheard the conversation.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Fact literally, those are true stories which I shared in
the book about you could be codependently attached if you're
an HFC to people you just friggin meet. So there
are some distinctions between sort of the old school self sacrificing.
We talked about auto accommodating, right, what is auto accommodating.
I share a story in the book. I'm at my
hair salon in Manhattan. It's like a busy Saturday and
(06:57):
I'm laying in the sink because I have a ask
on my hair and now the sink traffic is backing up,
and the more it backs up, the more anxious I'm getting.
Here's me just laying taking a sink. I don't even
need a fucking sink. I could be sitting somewhere like
I don't need you know. I raised my hand. I
have the assistant come over. I'm like, you know, I
could move. She's like, yeah, lady, how you doing. We
(07:18):
got it. We do this every Saturday. So that's auto accommodating.
I took it upon me. Terry Cale I should, I
should be responsible for the sink flow at my busy
hair salon.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
But is that not just because you're a normal person
that has some level of empathy and you can see
that you're inconveniencing other people, even if it is indirectly.
It's not you. You don't own the salon. But I
feel like I would do the same thing. I would
feel like, why are we stopping this flow? And I'm
stopping the next person from getting there, shit done and
getting out just because I'm laying here.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
But it's not though, you know, Britt, it's like it
sounds like that. But here's the thing that was not
my side of the street. The girl who was running
that sink flow could if she needed me to move,
she would have asked me. She has eyes too, she
saw that I was laying there doing nothing right. So
it isn't that it wasn't my side of the street.
(08:10):
But I was so codependently dialed into my environment it
made me so uncomfortable that I was trying to fix
what wasn't mine to fix. And here's why we should
give a shit. What is the cost of doing that?
The hypervigilance I could be laying there meditating, calling my mother,
(08:33):
doing nothing, resting my exhausted brain. But instead you wonder
why my brain was exhausted. I was not doing that.
I was thinking about how they could have a better
sink flow, and I was going to tell someone my
idea in the middle of my ten minutes laying there
like incorrect.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
You said something, and my very first thought was, but
isn't that a contradiction to the literal definition of independence?
You were like, it's the person who is so self
sufficient that they can't take help, that they're so independent
that they repel help.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
How are those things connected?
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Well, they are because we can be hyper helpers to
other people and we love the I mean, listen, there's
a helpers high. That shit is real right where it
feels amazing to help someone who's in a jam or
to come up with a solution and someone's like, oh,
thank God for you. You know, there's a high that comes
along with that. So you can be that and not
(09:31):
want to allow someone else to do that for you,
because to do that, you must be in that state
of vulnerability, and when you're in HFC, it doesn't feel good.
We're very comfortable and we may not even be conscious
of it. But we're very comfortable giving and doing and
providing and helping and saving, right, we're super comfortable putting
(09:51):
on that cape. We don't want to be a burden
to other people. We don't want to owe other people.
These are other reasons besides the vulnerability. But part of
it is if an HFC, if you let someone do something,
you feel like you owe them, kind of like there's
a lack of mutuality in some of the relationships with ahfcs.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I think that this is why it's so hard for
someone who is a high functioning codependent to figure out
that that's what they are, because you would see those
traits as being I've got this, I'm independent, like you know,
and exactly like you said, some of these women who
may display these characteristics may very well be the breadwinner
in their family, you know, and those attributes don't lend
(10:30):
themselves to your classical ideologies around codependency. And so that's
why when we were having that conversation, when we were
talking about boundaries, I had this real moment and I
know that in some of my past relationships, I've definitely
displayed codependent tendencies, but I definitely didn't think it permeated
all through my life, and then the more we spoke
about it, the more we were like, oh, yeah, yeah,
(10:51):
I see this.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Now can we draw a.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Picture here for everyone and just really simplify what takes
something from codependency to high functioning code dependency. What are
those characteristics that a high functioning person has that a
normal codependent person doesn't have.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Well, part of it is that the irony of HFC
is that the more capable you are, the less codependency
looks like codependency, but it still is codependency. So again
the same way, my clients were not identified with codependency
the old school definition. And so why it matters is
(11:28):
because if you're an HFC, nobody's checking on you, you
know what, because you're fine, right, You're always fine. We're
the ones checking on other people usually, So really it's
just a way of outing people. Where the way that HFC,
the way our codependency and our boundary crossing, because that
is what it is shows up is auto advice giving,
(11:50):
auto accommodating, overfunctioning, overgiving, taking on more responsibility in the relationship,
being like I got it, having the over and underfunctioning
where you know, I would tell a joke that you know,
in my twenties, I could take a perfectly functioning boy
and turn him into an underfunctioner in two weeks or less.
You know what I mean, Because I would just like
do it all. I got it, Like, just just relax,
(12:13):
I got it all. And it's almost like your value
sometimes is in the doing and being the person that
everyone comes to for, you know what I mean, for
whatever they know they can count on you.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yeah, because I think sometimes we get stuck in idjusted
it to my partner this morning on the way here.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
We get stuck in it.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It's easier if I just do it, Like it's easier
for you to just send me that and I will
do it, then tell you how to do it now
and walk you through it. So I think a lot
of people get sucked into that vacuum. But we tend
to talk about and see HFC in this negative bubble
like it has this negative connotation to it. Can it
ever be a positive that someone is an HFC? Yep,
(12:49):
I say it like they've got a disease and HFC.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
That's correct, That is correct. Here's the thing when we
balance out the disordered boundaries and the overfunk in the
auto right, the reactions of being an HFC. Being an
HFC is your superpower, right, Your high capabilities don't suddenly
go away because you get into recovery, which is all
(13:13):
we can hope for with AHFC. There's no like curing it. Right,
this is your nature, this is what you learned. It's
a combination of nature and nurture. But when people on
the Internet push back to me and they're like, maybe
I'm just nice. How about that, Terry, Maybe I'm just generous?
You ever think of that, I'm like, here's the thing.
If you can't not do it, it's not you being nice, yea.
(13:39):
If you can't not do it, it's a compulsion like
any other compulsion. So I know we love to think
of ourselves as mother Terisa, But what I'm saying to
Internet people is that if you are compulsively doing this shit,
it is not a choice. So it's not you consciously
being nice. It's you automatically trying to change someone else's
(14:00):
feelings or situation or circumstance because it is making you uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I don't want to gender it, but I do see
this in my friendship group. You have to see this
with the women that I'm close with, you are often
the ones that get lumped with a lot of the stuff.
It's the mental load, it's the kids, it's the trying
to maintain a friendship group, it's the trying to you know,
have a successful career. So I wonder if it's sometimes
hard for people to identify whether it's like almost as
(14:27):
though they feel as though it's forced upon them, like
figuring out like what is it that they're choosing and
opting into doing because it's a characteristic of HC, or
it's because it's literally the nature of which we live,
where a lot of women are tasked with the burden
of not only just being the care but the worker.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And it's like you can do it all, and you've
got to do it all at the same time.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Indeed, but here's the thing. We have choices, And the
thing is I think that what I hope this book
does is bring those choices from the basement to the
conscious part of the mind, because if what does a
life look like if we just HFC it up until
we're dead, Like, what does that life actually look like?
It's not that satisfying, I can tell you for sure.
(15:10):
And that the bitterness and the anger and the feeling
put out and the feeling martyred. You know, you don't
think that women in when they're twenty one, they're like,
I can't wait to grow up and become a martyr.
It's got to be amazing, Like nobody wants that, you
know what I'm saying. It happens over time and time
and time and time and time when we're overgiving and
(15:31):
we don't create equitable relationships in our lives. But you
can change it. If you're in a situation where even
if you've taken it all on because you're like, that's right,
I'm superwoman. I can do it all. But maybe you're
burnt out, or maybe you're resenting your partner, or maybe
you don't have energy, or maybe you feel depressed, or
maybe you've gained weight or whatever the things are, you know,
or maybe you're going into perimenopause or menopause, and this
(15:53):
creates a whole other ball of wax that we got
to deal with. That gives us we don't have the
same capacity when the hormones are because it's changing your brain.
There's so many things that are going on you can change.
So that's what I'm walk you through in the book
is we have to be able to tolerate our own feelings
because it's not your job to do what you're doing
(16:13):
right now. In many of your relationships, it is not
your job to fix other people's problems.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It sounds like one of the main byproducts in a
romantic relationship. Maybe not romantic, but is resentment. Like if
you have this high functioning relationship for so long and
you build resentment, And in my eyes, resentment is one
of the hardest things to overcome in a relationship.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I think, I think it's probably easier to don't come
for me.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I think it's easier to probably overcome a physical infidelity
in one night than it is of fifteen years of
resentment that's been built up.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I will agree with that assessment, because the thing is
a lot of times, if it's a one off with infidelity,
that can be the trigger for a relationship. You know,
not if somebody had a con separate family that you
didn't know about, but if it really was a one
night experience, that can be the catalyst to you know.
Esta Parrel would say, you know, this can be the
thing that brings that brings people really together and sort
(17:07):
of you got to burn it down to rebuild it,
but with resentment, and it's such a slow build with resentment,
it's cumulative. So it's like all of the stuff you're
not talking about, all of the truth that you may
not be telling because you just want there to be peace.
You just want everything to be okay. You want everyone
to be okay. But that can only happen if you
(17:30):
are actually okay. And if you feel burdened and underappreciated
and exhausted, you're really not okay. And your relationship is
not okay either because sooner or later there's going to
be some kind of a crack. Right, it's going to
come to a head. But you don't have to wait
for that to happen. You can do an inventory right now.
(17:51):
If you do a resentment inventory and you go, okay,
I realize now I'm resenting my partner because they said
they would do this with the kids, and they don't
do it unless I ask them, and then I check,
and then I set it up and then I'm the
one who does the calling. You have to have a
conversation that says, hey, here are the things that we
do as a couple. Here are all the things. I
was being interviewed by someone and she said, I'm having
(18:12):
a seven hour meeting with my husband tomorrow. I was
like wow, and she said, I realized she's like, my
husband's great. I mean, people would consider him like he's modern.
You know, he does a lot. But here's the thing.
I still resent the shit out of him. I was
like why, and she was like, because, first of all,
he wants me to throw him up a parade when
he does shit, and he has no idea how much
(18:33):
that I do. Like he wants a parade for the
four things that are on.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
His list when he packs the swashaw yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
And she's like, and I don't want to give him
that because he doesn't even know the one tenth of
what I actually do to keep the shit running, like
he does not know. And I was like, but babe,
who's fault is that he doesn't know? Because you're not
telling him, but you're holding him responsible for knowing even
though he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
But you will say that, and you get into this
area of like schoolkeeping when you're doing that, when you're like,
well you did this and I did this, and I
feel like that is just you know, when you get
to that point in a relationship when we're talking about resentment,
like schoolkeeping is such a dangerous thing to do to
your pot.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
The I'm going to disagree, and I'm going to tell
you why. I agree that bean counting, scorekeeping bean county
is not the way to go. But if you have
a very lopsided relationship right now, where you're doing all
the emotional labor, where you do all the cooking, all
the kids, all the stuff, and have a career, there
has to be a come to Jesus like, Okay, we
(19:35):
need to rejigger this thing because it's not working. Right
that moment of that lady being like there's four thousand
things on my list and there's twenty on his list,
I'm like, okay, Well, in your seven hour family meeting,
I guess you can offload some of the stuff on
your list or maybe see if you guys can that
be Can we pay someone to do some of those
things or whatever. But there has to be more fairness
(20:00):
in a relationship. I'm not saying it has to be
perfectly equitable. Definitely, you're going to do things better than
your partner. Your partner's going to do things better than you,
same for me, right. We all have our skill sets.
So it isn't like I planned the vacation this time,
you do it next time. It won't be that right
because I would never let my husband plan vacation because
he would just buy the airfareer. He would just be like,
(20:20):
oh the airfare to LA it was forty five hundred dollars,
Is that okay?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Like No, my pounce would talk it for like the
wrong year. I would never let him touch it.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right, So we know that, But then there are things
that they do better as well. And I think that
we have to come together in our unions and get real.
If we set it up as if it were nineteen
fifty but it's twenty twenty four, we might need to
revisit and recalibrate how we're going to be doing these things.
And yeah, people who are not going to love it sometimes,
(20:51):
you know.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, But even that, even that, I would be devastated.
If my partner came to me and was like, sit
your ass down, I've blocked out our work day seven
hours that we're going to go through all the shit,
I'd be devastated.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I would hope that we could get to a place where.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
You are letting each other know constantly, the constant communication.
But I'm just as guilty of doing the opposite. I'm
just just as guilty as them saying what's wrong and
me being like nothing, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And then that's what.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
You said before, that slow creep of resentment that builds up,
and then one day it's just there.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
It's so sneaking you don't see it. I'd love to know.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
What the effect is if you're an HFC, an effect
on your children or those that you're bringing up, because
I imagine that if there's a level of control and not.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Letting them do anything, you're going to put a level
of independence on those children. Sorry, not dependence, depend independent.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
I know what you meant.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, yeah, my brain knew what I was trying to
get out too.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
I got you. This is a really important reason why
we want to stop the cycle. Right. Kids are like
a perfect reason to do it better than perhaps our
parents did it. What happens when we overfunction for children
is that we are sending them a message. They're coming
to us and saying, Mom, I'm I need help, can't
do this, I don't know how to do it, and
(22:02):
you saying you're right, you can't. I agree with you.
You think you're a loser. Me too, So we're all
on the same page that you're a loser and that
mommy has.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
To say your shoelaces.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Yeah. Now, I mean we want it to be age appropriate.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
Right, I'm gonna say that to my three year old
the next time she wants a wife or as I'll
be like, you do it, you do it three age appropriate.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
But what we want to teach kids is deductive reason
and critical thinking. Right, So the first thing a kid
comes to you and is like, I had a terrible day,
this horrible thing happened. You know, you say what happened?
They tell you this horrible thing, and then I got
so mad, I like kicked the person in the leg
or whatever they said. Instead of you being like, well,
now you need to go and apologize, telling them what
to do or solving their problem, the first step, right,
(22:53):
the first step on the bus has to always be,
no matter who you're talking to. Okay, before we get
into it, what do you think you should do? Even
asking little kids what they think they should do is okay,
we're not going to let them do it. If they're
like I think I should get a gun and shoot Bobby.
We're obviously not going to let them do that, but
we're teaching them to think, think through consequences, trust their gut.
(23:15):
Whenever I'm talking to a little kid and they're wanting
me to fix whatever it is, I'll say, listen, I
know your gut instinct is good, So tell me what
do you think you should do. We'll figure it out together. Like,
I'm not going to abandon the kid, but we can
teach children to problem solve instead of being so afraid
of them making mistakes and so afraid for them. We
(23:35):
treat kids nowadays a lot like they're super fragile and
they're super not I.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Have a question around, like where this comes from.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
We don't just show up in the world and be like, oh,
I'm a high functioning codependent all of a sudden, this
just happened to me. What are the I guess, the
predetermining factors that would make someone high functioning codependent.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
I mean, just look at the way we're raised. It
all I hate to say it, but it all goes
back to seeing the crime, which is the family of
origin and childhood, and most of us were raised to
kind of be good girls, where's my happy girl? Turn
that friend around. If you don't have anything nice to say,
don't say anything at all. Right, So we're taught to
(24:15):
suppress our feelings if those feelings will not be liked
by other people. We're taught to be hopeful the most thing.
When I was being raised, being perceived as being nice
was pretty much more important than anything else. Be nice,
be a good girl. So we're really coming into this
at a disadvantage because we have to learn to prioritize
(24:36):
how we feel, what we want, what we think, and
how we feel. And in this process of getting into recovery,
you have to understand that those things are not just
important what you think, what you want, and how you feel.
It has to be literally the most important thing to you,
more important than what anybody else wants, thinks, or feels.
Now that's not to say we don't compromise in our relationships.
(24:57):
Of course we do. This is how we have relationships.
But for most people, we were taught to not prioritize
what we think, what we want, and how we feel.
And we have to. So we're unlearning a lot of
home training. And then you have personality traits too. Some
of us are just more people pleaser by nature as well,
if you're an extrovert, if you're very positive, if you
(25:19):
like to help, if you were a helper in your
family system. Right, So there's all these different experiences we
may have, and then we all have our unique relational blueprint,
which is what you saw, how did the adults relate?
Like an HFC blueprint is really a relational blueprint what
we learned about how you're supposed to be in relationships.
(25:39):
So if you had a people pleasing mom, if you
had a mom who did all the things for all
the people and nobody ever thanked her, you know you
came by it naturally.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Do people who who have characteristics or can see themselves
as high functioning codependents? Are they more inclined to get
into relationships that do not serve them and are negative
and bad relationship so toxic relationships which we like to
throw around. Or is it quite common that they will
get into a great relationship but then still have high
functioning attributes in that relationship.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Both are true, so I can't say one is more common,
but I have to say high functioning codependence getting involved
in unhealthy relationships. So the overfunctioning and underfunctioning like being
an HFC and getting in relationship with a narcissist. I mean,
I did devote an entire chapter to that in this book,
because the truth is, it is common and it makes
(26:32):
sense if you're an HFC, right, you have a narcissist
whose vibe is it is all about me. You have
an HFC whose vibe is great, it's all about you.
I want you to be happy. I want you to
feel fulfilled. I want you to think I'm the best,
and that sex is the best, and that we're having
so much fun together and taking care of someone whose
(26:53):
expectation is that you will. It's like a perfectly messed
up fit. It's like that cracked pot find the perfectly
cracked lid, and it is like a match made in heaven.
I mean obviously, until it's in. How hell breaks loose?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
So is HFC or just codependency linked to say anxious
attachment style?
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Honestly, I feel like any attachment style could be HFC.
Now other people might disagree, but I identify myself as being
pretty securely attached. I had a very present and responsive mother.
I have the same friends I've had since Nixon was
in office. And you probably don't even know who Nixon is.
Thank you, You know what I mean. I've been with
(27:37):
my husband twenty seven years, Like my ability to have
long term relationships is there, and yet I was the
most HFC of all the HFCs, And so what is
it about? Part of it was my place in the family.
I was the hero child. It was an alcoholic system,
so I was the one who did good so the
whole family could agree. If nothing else, everyone agreed I
(27:57):
was amazing, you know what I mean. But none of
those things free. So family systems roll in your family system.
Attachment style certainly can play a part. But I got
to say, I don't think any attachment style is free
from potentially being an AHFC.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
When did you realize yourself? Well, I mean when you've
done all the study, you've written the books. Literally, when
was it that you were like, oh, this is me,
I'm talking about myself.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
You know. It's interesting In the book, I tell the
story and we might have talked about this, so I
don't need to rehash. But there was a very painful
experience with one of my sisters being in a terrible
relationship with an abusive guy who was doing crack and
she was drinking and they lived in a house without
running water and electricity. This is one of my older
sisters who like had a history of like bad dating life,
and she was in this domestic horrendous domestic situation, which
(28:43):
for an HFC means that every day of my life
was a five alarm fire of like how can I
get her out? What must I do? Like everything is possible. Also,
when you're in HFC, you're really optimistic that if you
just keep at it, you'll figure some shit out, whatever
it is, you know. Yeah, So anyway, I was crying
to my therapist and this is my I was in
(29:04):
my late twenties then, and I was saying, Bev, I've
done everything, I've done everything I can. What am I
going to do? I was talking about my sister and
she said, Terry, let me ask you something. What makes
you think you know what your sister needs to learn
in this lifetime and how she needs to learn it?
And I was like, I don't know, but I think
we can agree she doesn't need to do it with
(29:25):
a crackhead in the woods without running water. I mean,
is that can we agree with that? And she said, honestly,
Tera I can't agree because I don't know what and
how your sister needs to learn what she needs to
learn in this life. And so I'm not God, and
neither are you. And she said, but do you know
what's going on for you? And I was like, obviously no,
so help what is going on for me? Because I'm confused?
(29:47):
And she said, You've worked really hard to create a
pretty harmonious life and your sister's domestic dumpster fire is
really messing with your piece, and you really want your
pain to end. And I was like, you are not lying, BEV.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
That is fucking true, But can't both things be true
at the same time. Can't you want your pain to end?
And also you don't want your sister to be with
a crackhead in the woods with no running water.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Correct, that's true, But the way that I was going
about it, I was trampling on my sister's sovereignty, her
right to make her own decisions even if they suck.
People have a right to succeed or fail, to thrive
or flail without me being like this is too stressful
for me. You need to get out of there now
because I can't tolerate it. So what I did was.
(30:33):
This is when I started. I was introduced to boundaries,
and she was like, and you don't need to talk
to her and let her tell you about this abusive guy. Like,
you literally don't need to You need to protect your
tender heart around this situation. So I drew a boundary
talk to my sister, said, hey, I love you, and
I'm going to step back if you ever want to
get out, though I will always be your person. And
(30:53):
within nine months we talked a couple of times. You know,
it wasn't like I didn't cut her off or anything,
but I wasn't entertaining this conversation because you know, we'd
get off the phone after she's telling me the most
horrible shit in the world, and she's like, I always
feel so much better after talking to you. And I'm like,
cause the toxic waste sight, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
And I think it's codependence.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
We can do this, but fixing problems, we're keeping things
going and actually we're not helping the problem. We're actually
just enabling the behavior to continue.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Yes, we're literally robbing the person of the experience that
will get them to the place in themselves.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
So with my sister, the ps on the story was
nine months later. She called them, was like, hey, are
you still my person? I definitely am ready now and
I was like putting on my sneakers, jumped in my car,
picked her up, She went back to school, She got sober,
Like the most important ps is that instead of Terry
and her cape saving her older sister, my sister got
(31:49):
to be the hero of her own friggin story, got
that self esteem, all respect from me to her, but
also building a life that she loves. Not because I
made that possible for her, because I paid for it,
because I kicked him out or I called the police
or whatever, because I tolerated the way it made me feel,
which was horrible, until she got ready, And then I
(32:11):
am appropriately helping her, me going to get her, helping
her get back on her feet. That's appropriate, right, me
deciding when and how she should leave, and I was
going to make it happen, that's not appropriate. That was
me overstepping it for my own pain.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
You know, Can you tell us what you mean by
the terminology? Let them you speak about this idea, let
them what does that mean to you? And how is
that something that we should be implementing if we do
kind of recognize, Okay, we are hfc's.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, it's funny. There's a couple of things I can
give you to do in the moment that's helpful. And
that's actually that's a Mel Robbins thing that I actually
put in the book and obviously credit her, where she
says when people are about to do something that you
know is like whack, and they shouldn't do it, and
you want to tell them not to do it, or
you want to give advice, you want to control something,
or you want to tell someone the best way that
they should drive down wherever it is, that instead of
(33:02):
saying it in your mind, just think, let them, let
them live, let them go the way they want to go,
let them do what they're going to do. And even
though it's an illusion, why I think it's funny and
why I mentioned it is that, of course it's an
illusion because you're not actually letting them or not letting them.
But what it signals to your central nervous system is
that you can relax, like you're telling yourself in my vernacular,
(33:25):
that's not my side of the street, right, that's for
them to discover or that's for them to learn. So again,
you know, Brett. I almost feel like you've got there's
a black or white thinking that you have. That It
almost means that what I'm saying perhaps is like just
everyone every man for himself, Like you're on your own.
I'm just being dice. Why are you judging me? But
(33:48):
what I say is that there's a place between. And
that's what we're talking about when we say let them,
we are allowing people to make their own decisions because
they do have a right to make mistakes the same
way we do. And how I never would have learned.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Why do I make mistakes? Terry?
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Please? Yeah, of course you don't. Obviously not obviously, I
mean Laura does. That's different though I.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Carry them for the boy of the us. Don't worry.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Okay, But what about in the instance where this whole
idea of letting them, let them, when the decision that
they're making genuinely directly impacts your life, it makes your
life hot.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
When we're talking about let them, I'm talking about you
have a kid who's going to change their major now
they want to become a chef, and you're like, that's
a horrible life. I really don't think he's gonna like it.
He's not even a good cook. I don't even know
what the hell he's talking about. Instead of all of that,
you say to yourself, let them. Yeah, he'll find it out,
maybe up, maybe I'm wrong, he'll get fined, he'll be fine, exactly,
(34:49):
he'll discover it on his own. When you're talking about
we have a family, we are married, right. My husband
came to me many years ago and was like, had
this opportunity to go into a war zone too. He's
an artist and he does on the spot drawing, and
he's incredibly talented. He's very successful. And I did let him,
(35:10):
but it was appropriate that he came to me to say,
how do you feel about me going to Iraq to
an active war zone? I was like, I mean terrible,
but I'm not going to stop you because it's your dream.
And then I don't want you to resent me, so
go go, just don't die, please, which he did not.
So he's gone more than once and he came back.
If I had had children, young children, my kids are grown,
I've got grand because at this point I do not
(35:32):
think I don't think he would have asked me, but
be if he did, I do not think I would
have been like just let him. You got to live
your life. No, I don't think so. If I have
a six month old, yeah, you know when you can
do that later when kids are grown. But we've decided
together to have these children. Let's dissect this decision that
you're going to make because you are not a single
(35:52):
man about town, buddy. You are committed to me for life,
or so he said, and we have kids. We're a kid,
and that is something to consider. It does matter if
it's going to burden you, you may still choose to support
him in it. But the thing is it can't be
his decision. This is a decision we make together. I
wouldn't take a job that was going to suddenly put
(36:14):
me on the road, you know, three weeks a month
when we have a puppy or we have animals to
take care of and assume that my husband was going
to be like, that's cool, no problem, I'll let you
live your life. You know, when we're in unions, this
is where negotiation comes in. This is not across the
board when we say let them. Is when we are
(36:35):
going across getting from our side of the street to
someone else's side of the street, and we can't wait
to tell them what we really think they should do,
and maybe we don't need.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
To do that.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
When we talk about codependency, the antithesis is I'm assuming
hipA independence.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Is that a negative thing? Or is that what we're
striving to be.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I feel like if I was to actually put myself
in a category, I would probably say I am hyping independent.
Don't But then some of the traits that you were
saying about that can also look like codependency. I was like, oh,
maybe maybe I'm not just hyper independent. Maybe some of
those parts are also codependent.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
But it is like I think dependent, Yes, well, you're
a HFC for sure.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
I've lived alone forever. I don't ever ask people for help.
I just don't even with my emotions. I don't unload
on friends. I just keep everything to myself. I like
to think of myself I could go to an island,
and I like to think I could survive on my
own for years.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Like that is genuinely and I truly believe that.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
When I say that, it's so funny because Britt and
you and you would never ever ever admit it, because
I think it's like the antithesis of like who and
how you want to be in life.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
But I I see you and think you're a high
function of codependent completely. That's so interesting because I always
I don't even choose people that are around me, Like
I don't even date anyone in the same country because
I don't want it.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Yeah, but that's just having intimacy issues. That's just like,
that's just you can have coexisting issues, right. That was
I was saying, it's the only date non and other
continents because I really wanted a relationship. My therapist was like,
do you though, because I feel like you don't because
you keep dating men who live in Greece anyway while
you live in New York City. I want to speak
(38:11):
to the hyperindependence because that is one of the traits
of HFC, and one of the reasons for it is
not wanting to be vulnerable. And the thing is to
have the juicy, delicious, amazing life that you deserve, you
have got to learn and allow yourself to be vulnerable
(38:32):
to the right people. Now, that means we need to
figure out who the book is emotionally trustworthy, Who gets
to be in the VIP section of our lives, Who
gets to be in the front row of our amazing lives?
That shit is a privilege, should not be just general seating, right.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Okay, so I'm cooked multiple things at once, multiply sh
at on.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Terry.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I love speaking to you.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I feel like every time we do have these conversations,
I learned so much more around things that I would
have thought were conflicting, and then I see how so
many of these characteristics are interrelated. And that for me
has been such an eye opener, unpacking, especially unpacking the
decisions I've made in the past and kind of how
I now show up in my relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
So I'm very very grateful for that from a personal
perspective as well.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
She also knows what she's going to say in the
seven Hours sit down. She says with her husband Matt tomorrow.
I think the last thing to is if we do
if someone has now recognized this, they've listened to this,
they're like, holy shit. I'm also Brittany, I also have
multiple issues going on at once.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
What do they do?
Speaker 3 (39:40):
What are the steps that you're like, Okay, I'm an HFC,
I'm doing this in my relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Let's put some proactive steps in place.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Yes, I like it. Well, first of all, I have
a gift which is proactive it's an HFC toolkit. It's free.
Just go to Terry Cooll dot com forward slash HFC.
That's going to be a beginning, because I have so
many people who are like, help, where do I start.
We already talked a little bit about doing a resentment inventory, right,
So that's the beginning is being really honest with yourself.
(40:09):
This requires, like, there's so much in the book about
us becoming intimate with our own emotions, because as HFC
is so much of the time, we're very familiar with
other people's emotions and likes and dislikes. It's like you
could have a stadium full of information about other people,
but we don't expect other people to have a stadium
of information about us. We're like, I'm fine, whatever, it
(40:31):
doesn't matter. I'm fine, you know. And so I feel
like we need to be up in our own game
with understanding our own emotions how do I really feel?
So the resentment inventory is sort of a quick sort
of shortcut for you to look at what relationships might
need your attention, Where might you be overfunctioning, where might
(40:52):
you be not asserting how you really feel? So I
feel like that's the beginning, and then the toolkit will
help you. It gives you, I give you something how
to simplify and do less because I feel like, as
HFC is, we're doing too many things.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I mean, there's a whole other conversation here that we
can have around burnout. But I feel as though we've
probably taken so much of your time. But I think
that this would be one of the biggest indicators. Right
Like women who get to their mid thirties and or
forties or whatever it is, and you have this moment
in life where you're like, I am so fucking exhausted
by all of the things, but I can't get off
(41:27):
the hamster wheel because it's spitting so fast, and I
can't drop all the balls that I've got in the
air at the same time, How is burnout so highly interlinked.
Speaker 4 (41:36):
Because we can go, go go, as hfc's because we
actually never say die. It takes us getting to burnout.
Usually it takes us getting to something that stops us
where we have to be like, okay, I need to
regroup what is going on? Burnout? When you get there,
you're not functioning from your right brain. It's so exhausting
(41:58):
that fatigue is so enormous and you really start to
not care. Right, So it's like we go from with
hfc's like too many fucks for too many people for
too long, and then like the pendulum just smashes into
a rock wall where you're like, no fucks for anybody,
don't care, literally, I cannot care. It's like you want
to start cutting people out. We want that bendulum to
(42:19):
swing back to the middle, so you get to burn
out where maybe you don't have any EPs to give
to anybody. But when we start to treat ourselves better,
take better care of ourselves in a real way, because
trust me, I know if you're an HFC, you're probably
going to soul cycle, You're probably going to the gym,
You're getting your nails done, you get get in the
facial you're maybe doing both tip whatever. Like in your mind,
you're taking care of yourself. But I want you to
(42:41):
The taking care that I'm interested in you doing is
self consideration, which is before you commit to things, before
you take on another thing, you two questions you ask yourself,
do I have the bandwidth to do this without becoming
bitter or overwhelmed? And number two, do I even want
(43:02):
to do it like that? Alone? Not wanting to do
something is a really good reason not to do it,
and I think that as HFC is we never even
consider it. We feel like we have to write a
dissertation on our no as to why we're not doing
something and justify the shit out of it. How about
I just don't it's not my thing or I'm just
(43:22):
not up for it. I'm really exhausted. Like, let people
in on where you really are and stop making yourself
do a bunch of crap you don't feel like doing,
because that makes you better.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Terry, we love having you every time. I can say
every time because it is the third time.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I always have you back in six months.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
I always have a realization and I always take something away.
I think today I'm taking away this resentment inventory. I
haven't heard of that before, and I really like it.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I really like this.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Let's start tracking that ourselves and being a bit more
proactive with it instead of just letting it build up
and then imploding in our relationships, like all relationships. Terry's
Walk Too Much is available now. You can get it anywhere.
You can get a good book, because it is a
brilliant book. But you can get Terry literally everywhere. Websites, Instagram, podcasts, youtubes.
(44:07):
Put it all in the show notes, all the links
we'll link you to. All of Terry She's there.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
But thank you so much for joining us again today.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
It was so much fun. Britton Lauria, thanks for having
me
This episode was recorded on Cameragle Land. Hi guys, and
welcome back to another episode of Life on Cut.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Laura, I'm Brittany.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Today's guest that we have is someone who's statistically on
this podcast is our favorite guest because this will be
her third time back here.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, I'm not sure we've ever done a three.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Time what have we No, That's why she's statistically our favorite,
because it's the only person who has ever done three episodes.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
But that's because, I mean, every time we have spoken
to Terry Cole, there have been real aha moments that
both Britt and myself have had around our own lives,
our own personality traits. We've spoken around cheating, We've done
episodes on boundaries. We were speaking about boundaries on our
last ep that we did with Terry, and we were
talking about high functioning codependence. And I remember sitting there
(00:54):
during that conversation, I had this moment where I was
like ping.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
But to give you a little bit of a background.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
On this, I think so many of us have a
perception around what codependent means, and it is not necessarily
a very positive label that we would put on ourselves.
I think we often think clingy, we think needy, we
think can't not be in a relationship. But this definition
and conversation around what a high functioning codependent is something
(01:21):
that's really different, and I honestly think so many people
will have that same aha moment. Who'll be listening to
this episode? So Terry, welcome back to the pod.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Why thanks for having me, Laura and britt.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Terry, you have been in this industry psychotherapist, like twenty years,
You've written multiple books. What was it that led you
now to specialize in this high functioning codependency.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
It's really just what I saw. I've actually been a
therapist for twenty seven year, but it's really what I saw,
you know. I mean, what was happening for me is
that in my therapy practice, I attracted women who were
like me, which was super highly capable women like just
the masters of the universe, like doing it in the
world and managing businesses and homes and families and aging
(02:04):
parents and all the things like just having it going on.
And then I would see a relational pattern. If I
pointed it out and say, hey, what I'm seeing this
is codependent behavioral pattern, they would immediately reject, immediately go yeah, wrong, lady.
Everyone depends on me. I'm the one making all the dough,
(02:24):
making all the decisions, making all the moves, moving everything forward,
doing all the emotional labor. Like I'm the rock in
my family and in my friend group, and like I'm
not dependent on shit is basically what they would say.
And I realized they don't know what codependency is. They
think that codependency is codependent. No more melody, baby, You
(02:45):
got to be enabling an alcoholic to be a codependent.
And like you guys said, weak dependent can't make a
decision like the long suffering wife of like the debtor
who's going out and spending the rent money. You know
what I mean. But that ain't it. And that wasn't
what I was seeing in my therapy practice and what
I had experienced myself. So I my definition of codependency
(03:10):
is being overly invested in the feeling states, the outcomes,
the situations, the circumstances, the relationships, the careers of the
people in our lives, to the detriment of our own
internal peace.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
How does one identify that in themselves?
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Though, because I think the alternate, this original understanding of
what codependency is it's way easier to point out. It's
way easy to be like, oh, that's someone who can't
be without a man or can't be without a person.
But the definition of what you've just described, I feel
like the line is so blurred between figuring out, oh,
maybe I have high functioning codependency or I'm just super
(03:46):
invested in my family and my friends and my loved
ones and my businesses.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
All right, So I'm going to say exactly how you
can figure it out. First of all, how you feel. Right,
if you are going to do a quick resentment inventory,
anybody listening to this or watching them, yes, and that's
going to show you in what relationships you are most
likely overfunctioning overgiving because the overfunctioning underfunctioning dynamic creates resentment.
(04:12):
So if you're doing all the things for all the people,
and you're invested in the people that you love, and
you feel congreat and you have no resentment and you're
not exhausted and burnt out, then go you. Then it's fine.
And even if it is high functioning codependency, that can
also be a choice. You can say, hey, this is
my identity and I want to be that way. What
I'm finding is that it's not sustainable that right, like
(04:35):
what you could do like in your twenties for a
long time as you age start hitting perimenopause menopause, you
just don't have the bandwidth to do all the things
for all the people. So maybe it would be helpful
if we identify it what are the traits of high
functioning codependence so that people can see like do they
see themselves in these traits? And then we could talk
(04:56):
about behaviors really because that's how you're going to be
able to go is this me or is this not me?
If we look at the traits feeling overly responsible to
fix other people's problems, let's just start there, giving, like
going above and beyond, giving till it hurts, even if
you're not asked to, always ready to jump into damage
control there's a problem and you're like, okay, so you're
going to do this. I'm going to do this like
your great in a crisis. It can also look like
(05:20):
kind of being a little judgmental of other people because
we really do think that we know what they should
be doing. We really do have the solutions for them,
and if they would just listen, then they wouldn't be
in pain, and we would be so much happier if
they would just take our friggant advice, because we can
get frustrated and pissed when they don't take our advice,
because now they're still complaining about the same shit that
(05:41):
we could have solved. We did solve two weeks ago,
they just didn't take action on feeling exhausted, resentful, bitter.
Another trait is being hyper independent, where you're not the
best at asking for help or allowing people to help you,
where you're sort of like the mantra of the HFC
is I got it, I'm good. We don't love it.
(06:01):
We don't love being vulnerable to other people, which is
what asking for help makes us. So it's like that
hyperindependence is really something that's there, and what does it
look like like in your day to day life? If
you're like, hmm, I wonder if I'm an HFC, well,
do you give untolicited advice called auto advice giving the
second a situation happens, are you immediately like, Okay, I've
(06:24):
got the answer, So I'm going to google this, I
talk to this person. I'm connecting you with my friend
who's an MD. Like we're doing all the things for
other people, and.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
You don't even know that you is sitting next to
them at the cafe, just overheard the conversation.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Fact literally, those are true stories which I shared in
the book about you could be codependently attached if you're
an HFC to people you just friggin meet. So there
are some distinctions between sort of the old school self sacrificing.
We talked about auto accommodating, right, what is auto accommodating.
I share a story in the book. I'm at my
hair salon in Manhattan. It's like a busy Saturday and
(06:57):
I'm laying in the sink because I have a ask
on my hair and now the sink traffic is backing up,
and the more it backs up, the more anxious I'm getting.
Here's me just laying taking a sink. I don't even
need a fucking sink. I could be sitting somewhere like
I don't need you know. I raised my hand. I
have the assistant come over. I'm like, you know, I
could move. She's like, yeah, lady, how you doing. We
(07:18):
got it. We do this every Saturday. So that's auto accommodating.
I took it upon me. Terry Cale I should, I
should be responsible for the sink flow at my busy
hair salon.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
But is that not just because you're a normal person
that has some level of empathy and you can see
that you're inconveniencing other people, even if it is indirectly.
It's not you. You don't own the salon. But I
feel like I would do the same thing. I would
feel like, why are we stopping this flow? And I'm
stopping the next person from getting there, shit done and
getting out just because I'm laying here.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
But it's not though, you know, Britt, it's like it
sounds like that. But here's the thing that was not
my side of the street. The girl who was running
that sink flow could if she needed me to move,
she would have asked me. She has eyes too, she
saw that I was laying there doing nothing right. So
it isn't that it wasn't my side of the street.
(08:10):
But I was so codependently dialed into my environment it
made me so uncomfortable that I was trying to fix
what wasn't mine to fix. And here's why we should
give a shit. What is the cost of doing that?
The hypervigilance I could be laying there meditating, calling my mother,
(08:33):
doing nothing, resting my exhausted brain. But instead you wonder
why my brain was exhausted. I was not doing that.
I was thinking about how they could have a better
sink flow, and I was going to tell someone my
idea in the middle of my ten minutes laying there
like incorrect.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
You said something, and my very first thought was, but
isn't that a contradiction to the literal definition of independence?
You were like, it's the person who is so self
sufficient that they can't take help, that they're so independent
that they repel help.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
How are those things connected?
Speaker 4 (09:08):
Well, they are because we can be hyper helpers to
other people and we love the I mean, listen, there's
a helpers high. That shit is real right where it
feels amazing to help someone who's in a jam or
to come up with a solution and someone's like, oh,
thank God for you. You know, there's a high that comes
along with that. So you can be that and not
(09:31):
want to allow someone else to do that for you,
because to do that, you must be in that state
of vulnerability, and when you're in HFC, it doesn't feel good.
We're very comfortable and we may not even be conscious
of it. But we're very comfortable giving and doing and
providing and helping and saving, right, we're super comfortable putting
(09:51):
on that cape. We don't want to be a burden
to other people. We don't want to owe other people.
These are other reasons besides the vulnerability. But part of
it is if an HFC, if you let someone do something,
you feel like you owe them, kind of like there's
a lack of mutuality in some of the relationships with ahfcs.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I think that this is why it's so hard for
someone who is a high functioning codependent to figure out
that that's what they are, because you would see those
traits as being I've got this, I'm independent, like you know,
and exactly like you said, some of these women who
may display these characteristics may very well be the breadwinner
in their family, you know, and those attributes don't lend
(10:30):
themselves to your classical ideologies around codependency. And so that's
why when we were having that conversation, when we were
talking about boundaries, I had this real moment and I
know that in some of my past relationships, I've definitely
displayed codependent tendencies, but I definitely didn't think it permeated
all through my life, and then the more we spoke
about it, the more we were like, oh, yeah, yeah,
(10:51):
I see this.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Now can we draw a.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Picture here for everyone and just really simplify what takes
something from codependency to high functioning code dependency. What are
those characteristics that a high functioning person has that a
normal codependent person doesn't have.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Well, part of it is that the irony of HFC
is that the more capable you are, the less codependency
looks like codependency, but it still is codependency. So again
the same way, my clients were not identified with codependency
the old school definition. And so why it matters is
(11:28):
because if you're an HFC, nobody's checking on you, you
know what, because you're fine, right, You're always fine. We're
the ones checking on other people usually, So really it's
just a way of outing people. Where the way that HFC,
the way our codependency and our boundary crossing, because that
is what it is shows up is auto advice giving,
(11:50):
auto accommodating, overfunctioning, overgiving, taking on more responsibility in the relationship,
being like I got it, having the over and underfunctioning
where you know, I would tell a joke that you know,
in my twenties, I could take a perfectly functioning boy
and turn him into an underfunctioner in two weeks or less.
You know what I mean, Because I would just like
do it all. I got it, Like, just just relax,
(12:13):
I got it all. And it's almost like your value
sometimes is in the doing and being the person that
everyone comes to for, you know what I mean, for
whatever they know they can count on you.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yeah, because I think sometimes we get stuck in idjusted
it to my partner this morning on the way here.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
We get stuck in it.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
It's easier if I just do it, Like it's easier
for you to just send me that and I will
do it, then tell you how to do it now
and walk you through it. So I think a lot
of people get sucked into that vacuum. But we tend
to talk about and see HFC in this negative bubble
like it has this negative connotation to it. Can it
ever be a positive that someone is an HFC? Yep,
(12:49):
I say it like they've got a disease and HFC.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
That's correct, That is correct. Here's the thing when we
balance out the disordered boundaries and the overfunk in the
auto right, the reactions of being an HFC. Being an
HFC is your superpower, right, Your high capabilities don't suddenly
go away because you get into recovery, which is all
(13:13):
we can hope for with AHFC. There's no like curing it. Right,
this is your nature, this is what you learned. It's
a combination of nature and nurture. But when people on
the Internet push back to me and they're like, maybe
I'm just nice. How about that, Terry, Maybe I'm just generous?
You ever think of that, I'm like, here's the thing.
If you can't not do it, it's not you being nice, yea.
(13:39):
If you can't not do it, it's a compulsion like
any other compulsion. So I know we love to think
of ourselves as mother Terisa, But what I'm saying to
Internet people is that if you are compulsively doing this shit,
it is not a choice. So it's not you consciously
being nice. It's you automatically trying to change someone else's
(14:00):
feelings or situation or circumstance because it is making you uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I don't want to gender it, but I do see
this in my friendship group. You have to see this
with the women that I'm close with, you are often
the ones that get lumped with a lot of the stuff.
It's the mental load, it's the kids, it's the trying
to maintain a friendship group, it's the trying to you know,
have a successful career. So I wonder if it's sometimes
hard for people to identify whether it's like almost as
(14:27):
though they feel as though it's forced upon them, like
figuring out like what is it that they're choosing and
opting into doing because it's a characteristic of HC, or
it's because it's literally the nature of which we live,
where a lot of women are tasked with the burden
of not only just being the care but the worker.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And it's like you can do it all, and you've
got to do it all at the same time.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Indeed, but here's the thing. We have choices, And the
thing is I think that what I hope this book
does is bring those choices from the basement to the
conscious part of the mind, because if what does a
life look like if we just HFC it up until
we're dead, Like, what does that life actually look like?
It's not that satisfying, I can tell you for sure.
(15:10):
And that the bitterness and the anger and the feeling
put out and the feeling martyred. You know, you don't
think that women in when they're twenty one, they're like,
I can't wait to grow up and become a martyr.
It's got to be amazing, Like nobody wants that, you
know what I'm saying. It happens over time and time
and time and time and time when we're overgiving and
(15:31):
we don't create equitable relationships in our lives. But you
can change it. If you're in a situation where even
if you've taken it all on because you're like, that's right,
I'm superwoman. I can do it all. But maybe you're
burnt out, or maybe you're resenting your partner, or maybe
you don't have energy, or maybe you feel depressed, or
maybe you've gained weight or whatever the things are, you know,
or maybe you're going into perimenopause or menopause, and this
(15:53):
creates a whole other ball of wax that we got
to deal with. That gives us we don't have the
same capacity when the hormones are because it's changing your brain.
There's so many things that are going on you can change.
So that's what I'm walk you through in the book
is we have to be able to tolerate our own feelings
because it's not your job to do what you're doing
(16:13):
right now. In many of your relationships, it is not
your job to fix other people's problems.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
It sounds like one of the main byproducts in a
romantic relationship. Maybe not romantic, but is resentment. Like if
you have this high functioning relationship for so long and
you build resentment, And in my eyes, resentment is one
of the hardest things to overcome in a relationship.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I think, I think it's probably easier to don't come
for me.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I think it's easier to probably overcome a physical infidelity
in one night than it is of fifteen years of
resentment that's been built up.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I will agree with that assessment, because the thing is
a lot of times, if it's a one off with infidelity,
that can be the trigger for a relationship. You know,
not if somebody had a con separate family that you
didn't know about, but if it really was a one
night experience, that can be the catalyst to you know.
Esta Parrel would say, you know, this can be the
thing that brings that brings people really together and sort
(17:07):
of you got to burn it down to rebuild it,
but with resentment, and it's such a slow build with resentment,
it's cumulative. So it's like all of the stuff you're
not talking about, all of the truth that you may
not be telling because you just want there to be peace.
You just want everything to be okay. You want everyone
to be okay. But that can only happen if you
(17:30):
are actually okay. And if you feel burdened and underappreciated
and exhausted, you're really not okay. And your relationship is
not okay either because sooner or later there's going to
be some kind of a crack. Right, it's going to
come to a head. But you don't have to wait
for that to happen. You can do an inventory right now.
(17:51):
If you do a resentment inventory and you go, okay,
I realize now I'm resenting my partner because they said
they would do this with the kids, and they don't
do it unless I ask them, and then I check,
and then I set it up and then I'm the
one who does the calling. You have to have a
conversation that says, hey, here are the things that we
do as a couple. Here are all the things. I
was being interviewed by someone and she said, I'm having
(18:12):
a seven hour meeting with my husband tomorrow. I was
like wow, and she said, I realized she's like, my
husband's great. I mean, people would consider him like he's modern.
You know, he does a lot. But here's the thing.
I still resent the shit out of him. I was
like why, and she was like, because, first of all,
he wants me to throw him up a parade when
he does shit, and he has no idea how much
(18:33):
that I do. Like he wants a parade for the
four things that are on.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
His list when he packs the swashaw yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
And she's like, and I don't want to give him
that because he doesn't even know the one tenth of
what I actually do to keep the shit running, like
he does not know. And I was like, but babe,
who's fault is that he doesn't know? Because you're not
telling him, but you're holding him responsible for knowing even
though he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
But you will say that, and you get into this
area of like schoolkeeping when you're doing that, when you're like,
well you did this and I did this, and I
feel like that is just you know, when you get
to that point in a relationship when we're talking about resentment,
like schoolkeeping is such a dangerous thing to do to
your pot.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
The I'm going to disagree, and I'm going to tell
you why. I agree that bean counting, scorekeeping bean county
is not the way to go. But if you have
a very lopsided relationship right now, where you're doing all
the emotional labor, where you do all the cooking, all
the kids, all the stuff, and have a career, there
has to be a come to Jesus like, Okay, we
(19:35):
need to rejigger this thing because it's not working. Right
that moment of that lady being like there's four thousand
things on my list and there's twenty on his list,
I'm like, okay, Well, in your seven hour family meeting,
I guess you can offload some of the stuff on
your list or maybe see if you guys can that
be Can we pay someone to do some of those
things or whatever. But there has to be more fairness
(20:00):
in a relationship. I'm not saying it has to be
perfectly equitable. Definitely, you're going to do things better than
your partner. Your partner's going to do things better than you,
same for me, right. We all have our skill sets.
So it isn't like I planned the vacation this time,
you do it next time. It won't be that right
because I would never let my husband plan vacation because
he would just buy the airfareer. He would just be like,
(20:20):
oh the airfare to LA it was forty five hundred dollars,
Is that okay?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Like No, my pounce would talk it for like the
wrong year. I would never let him touch it.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right, So we know that, But then there are things
that they do better as well. And I think that
we have to come together in our unions and get real.
If we set it up as if it were nineteen
fifty but it's twenty twenty four, we might need to
revisit and recalibrate how we're going to be doing these things.
And yeah, people who are not going to love it sometimes,
(20:51):
you know.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, But even that, even that, I would be devastated.
If my partner came to me and was like, sit
your ass down, I've blocked out our work day seven
hours that we're going to go through all the shit,
I'd be devastated.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I would hope that we could get to a place where.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
You are letting each other know constantly, the constant communication.
But I'm just as guilty of doing the opposite. I'm
just just as guilty as them saying what's wrong and
me being like nothing, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
And then that's what.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
You said before, that slow creep of resentment that builds up,
and then one day it's just there.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
It's so sneaking you don't see it. I'd love to know.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
What the effect is if you're an HFC, an effect
on your children or those that you're bringing up, because
I imagine that if there's a level of control and not.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Letting them do anything, you're going to put a level
of independence on those children. Sorry, not dependence, depend independent.
Speaker 4 (21:38):
I know what you meant.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, yeah, my brain knew what I was trying to
get out too.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
I got you. This is a really important reason why
we want to stop the cycle. Right. Kids are like
a perfect reason to do it better than perhaps our
parents did it. What happens when we overfunction for children
is that we are sending them a message. They're coming
to us and saying, Mom, I'm I need help, can't
do this, I don't know how to do it, and
(22:02):
you saying you're right, you can't. I agree with you.
You think you're a loser. Me too, So we're all
on the same page that you're a loser and that
mommy has.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
To say your shoelaces.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
Yeah. Now, I mean we want it to be age appropriate.
Speaker 5 (22:17):
Right, I'm gonna say that to my three year old
the next time she wants a wife or as I'll
be like, you do it, you do it three age appropriate.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
But what we want to teach kids is deductive reason
and critical thinking. Right, So the first thing a kid
comes to you and is like, I had a terrible day,
this horrible thing happened. You know, you say what happened?
They tell you this horrible thing, and then I got
so mad, I like kicked the person in the leg
or whatever they said. Instead of you being like, well,
now you need to go and apologize, telling them what
to do or solving their problem, the first step, right,
(22:53):
the first step on the bus has to always be,
no matter who you're talking to. Okay, before we get
into it, what do you think you should do? Even
asking little kids what they think they should do is okay,
we're not going to let them do it. If they're
like I think I should get a gun and shoot Bobby.
We're obviously not going to let them do that, but
we're teaching them to think, think through consequences, trust their gut.
(23:15):
Whenever I'm talking to a little kid and they're wanting
me to fix whatever it is, I'll say, listen, I
know your gut instinct is good, So tell me what
do you think you should do. We'll figure it out together. Like,
I'm not going to abandon the kid, but we can
teach children to problem solve instead of being so afraid
of them making mistakes and so afraid for them. We
(23:35):
treat kids nowadays a lot like they're super fragile and
they're super not I.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Have a question around, like where this comes from.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
We don't just show up in the world and be like, oh,
I'm a high functioning codependent all of a sudden, this
just happened to me. What are the I guess, the
predetermining factors that would make someone high functioning codependent.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
I mean, just look at the way we're raised. It
all I hate to say it, but it all goes
back to seeing the crime, which is the family of
origin and childhood, and most of us were raised to
kind of be good girls, where's my happy girl? Turn
that friend around. If you don't have anything nice to say,
don't say anything at all. Right, So we're taught to
(24:15):
suppress our feelings if those feelings will not be liked
by other people. We're taught to be hopeful the most thing.
When I was being raised, being perceived as being nice
was pretty much more important than anything else. Be nice,
be a good girl. So we're really coming into this
at a disadvantage because we have to learn to prioritize
(24:36):
how we feel, what we want, what we think, and
how we feel. And in this process of getting into recovery,
you have to understand that those things are not just
important what you think, what you want, and how you feel.
It has to be literally the most important thing to you,
more important than what anybody else wants, thinks, or feels.
Now that's not to say we don't compromise in our relationships.
(24:57):
Of course we do. This is how we have relationships.
But for most people, we were taught to not prioritize
what we think, what we want, and how we feel.
And we have to. So we're unlearning a lot of
home training. And then you have personality traits too. Some
of us are just more people pleaser by nature as well,
if you're an extrovert, if you're very positive, if you
(25:19):
like to help, if you were a helper in your
family system. Right, So there's all these different experiences we
may have, and then we all have our unique relational blueprint,
which is what you saw, how did the adults relate?
Like an HFC blueprint is really a relational blueprint what
we learned about how you're supposed to be in relationships.
(25:39):
So if you had a people pleasing mom, if you
had a mom who did all the things for all
the people and nobody ever thanked her, you know you
came by it naturally.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Do people who who have characteristics or can see themselves
as high functioning codependents? Are they more inclined to get
into relationships that do not serve them and are negative
and bad relationship so toxic relationships which we like to
throw around. Or is it quite common that they will
get into a great relationship but then still have high
functioning attributes in that relationship.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Both are true, so I can't say one is more common,
but I have to say high functioning codependence getting involved
in unhealthy relationships. So the overfunctioning and underfunctioning like being
an HFC and getting in relationship with a narcissist. I mean,
I did devote an entire chapter to that in this book,
because the truth is, it is common and it makes
(26:32):
sense if you're an HFC, right, you have a narcissist
whose vibe is it is all about me. You have
an HFC whose vibe is great, it's all about you.
I want you to be happy. I want you to
feel fulfilled. I want you to think I'm the best,
and that sex is the best, and that we're having
so much fun together and taking care of someone whose
(26:53):
expectation is that you will. It's like a perfectly messed
up fit. It's like that cracked pot find the perfectly
cracked lid, and it is like a match made in heaven.
I mean obviously, until it's in. How hell breaks loose?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
So is HFC or just codependency linked to say anxious
attachment style?
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Honestly, I feel like any attachment style could be HFC.
Now other people might disagree, but I identify myself as being
pretty securely attached. I had a very present and responsive mother.
I have the same friends I've had since Nixon was
in office. And you probably don't even know who Nixon is.
Thank you, You know what I mean. I've been with
(27:37):
my husband twenty seven years, Like my ability to have
long term relationships is there, and yet I was the
most HFC of all the HFCs, And so what is
it about? Part of it was my place in the family.
I was the hero child. It was an alcoholic system,
so I was the one who did good so the
whole family could agree. If nothing else, everyone agreed I
(27:57):
was amazing, you know what I mean. But none of
those things free. So family systems roll in your family system.
Attachment style certainly can play a part. But I got
to say, I don't think any attachment style is free
from potentially being an AHFC.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
When did you realize yourself? Well, I mean when you've
done all the study, you've written the books. Literally, when
was it that you were like, oh, this is me,
I'm talking about myself.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
You know. It's interesting In the book, I tell the
story and we might have talked about this, so I
don't need to rehash. But there was a very painful
experience with one of my sisters being in a terrible
relationship with an abusive guy who was doing crack and
she was drinking and they lived in a house without
running water and electricity. This is one of my older
sisters who like had a history of like bad dating life,
and she was in this domestic horrendous domestic situation, which
(28:43):
for an HFC means that every day of my life
was a five alarm fire of like how can I
get her out? What must I do? Like everything is possible. Also,
when you're in HFC, you're really optimistic that if you
just keep at it, you'll figure some shit out, whatever
it is, you know. Yeah, So anyway, I was crying
to my therapist and this is my I was in
(29:04):
my late twenties then, and I was saying, Bev, I've
done everything, I've done everything I can. What am I
going to do? I was talking about my sister and
she said, Terry, let me ask you something. What makes
you think you know what your sister needs to learn
in this lifetime and how she needs to learn it?
And I was like, I don't know, but I think
we can agree she doesn't need to do it with
(29:25):
a crackhead in the woods without running water. I mean,
is that can we agree with that? And she said, honestly,
Tera I can't agree because I don't know what and
how your sister needs to learn what she needs to
learn in this life. And so I'm not God, and
neither are you. And she said, but do you know
what's going on for you? And I was like, obviously no,
so help what is going on for me? Because I'm confused?
(29:47):
And she said, You've worked really hard to create a
pretty harmonious life and your sister's domestic dumpster fire is
really messing with your piece, and you really want your
pain to end. And I was like, you are not lying, BEV.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
That is fucking true, But can't both things be true
at the same time. Can't you want your pain to end?
And also you don't want your sister to be with
a crackhead in the woods with no running water.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Correct, that's true, But the way that I was going
about it, I was trampling on my sister's sovereignty, her
right to make her own decisions even if they suck.
People have a right to succeed or fail, to thrive
or flail without me being like this is too stressful
for me. You need to get out of there now
because I can't tolerate it. So what I did was.
(30:33):
This is when I started. I was introduced to boundaries,
and she was like, and you don't need to talk
to her and let her tell you about this abusive guy. Like,
you literally don't need to You need to protect your
tender heart around this situation. So I drew a boundary
talk to my sister, said, hey, I love you, and
I'm going to step back if you ever want to
get out, though I will always be your person. And
(30:53):
within nine months we talked a couple of times. You know,
it wasn't like I didn't cut her off or anything,
but I wasn't entertaining this conversation because you know, we'd
get off the phone after she's telling me the most
horrible shit in the world, and she's like, I always
feel so much better after talking to you. And I'm like,
cause the toxic waste sight, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
And I think it's codependence.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
We can do this, but fixing problems, we're keeping things
going and actually we're not helping the problem. We're actually
just enabling the behavior to continue.
Speaker 4 (31:21):
Yes, we're literally robbing the person of the experience that
will get them to the place in themselves.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
So with my sister, the ps on the story was
nine months later. She called them, was like, hey, are
you still my person? I definitely am ready now and
I was like putting on my sneakers, jumped in my car,
picked her up, She went back to school, She got sober,
Like the most important ps is that instead of Terry
and her cape saving her older sister, my sister got
(31:49):
to be the hero of her own friggin story, got
that self esteem, all respect from me to her, but
also building a life that she loves. Not because I
made that possible for her, because I paid for it,
because I kicked him out or I called the police
or whatever, because I tolerated the way it made me feel,
which was horrible, until she got ready, And then I
(32:11):
am appropriately helping her, me going to get her, helping
her get back on her feet. That's appropriate, right, me
deciding when and how she should leave, and I was
going to make it happen, that's not appropriate. That was
me overstepping it for my own pain.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
You know, Can you tell us what you mean by
the terminology? Let them you speak about this idea, let
them what does that mean to you? And how is
that something that we should be implementing if we do
kind of recognize, Okay, we are hfc's.
Speaker 4 (32:39):
Yeah, it's funny. There's a couple of things I can
give you to do in the moment that's helpful. And
that's actually that's a Mel Robbins thing that I actually
put in the book and obviously credit her, where she
says when people are about to do something that you
know is like whack, and they shouldn't do it, and
you want to tell them not to do it, or
you want to give advice, you want to control something,
or you want to tell someone the best way that
they should drive down wherever it is, that instead of
(33:02):
saying it in your mind, just think, let them, let
them live, let them go the way they want to go,
let them do what they're going to do. And even
though it's an illusion, why I think it's funny and
why I mentioned it is that, of course it's an
illusion because you're not actually letting them or not letting them.
But what it signals to your central nervous system is
that you can relax, like you're telling yourself in my vernacular,
(33:25):
that's not my side of the street, right, that's for
them to discover or that's for them to learn. So again,
you know, Brett. I almost feel like you've got there's
a black or white thinking that you have. That It
almost means that what I'm saying perhaps is like just
everyone every man for himself, Like you're on your own.
I'm just being dice. Why are you judging me? But
(33:48):
what I say is that there's a place between. And
that's what we're talking about when we say let them,
we are allowing people to make their own decisions because
they do have a right to make mistakes the same
way we do. And how I never would have learned.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Why do I make mistakes? Terry?
Speaker 4 (34:07):
Please? Yeah, of course you don't. Obviously not obviously, I
mean Laura does. That's different though I.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Carry them for the boy of the us. Don't worry.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Okay, But what about in the instance where this whole
idea of letting them, let them, when the decision that
they're making genuinely directly impacts your life, it makes your
life hot.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
When we're talking about let them, I'm talking about you
have a kid who's going to change their major now
they want to become a chef, and you're like, that's
a horrible life. I really don't think he's gonna like it.
He's not even a good cook. I don't even know
what the hell he's talking about. Instead of all of that,
you say to yourself, let them. Yeah, he'll find it out,
maybe up, maybe I'm wrong, he'll get fined, he'll be fine, exactly,
(34:49):
he'll discover it on his own. When you're talking about
we have a family, we are married, right. My husband
came to me many years ago and was like, had
this opportunity to go into a war zone too. He's
an artist and he does on the spot drawing, and
he's incredibly talented. He's very successful. And I did let him,
(35:10):
but it was appropriate that he came to me to say,
how do you feel about me going to Iraq to
an active war zone? I was like, I mean terrible,
but I'm not going to stop you because it's your dream.
And then I don't want you to resent me, so
go go, just don't die, please, which he did not.
So he's gone more than once and he came back.
If I had had children, young children, my kids are grown,
I've got grand because at this point I do not
(35:32):
think I don't think he would have asked me, but
be if he did, I do not think I would
have been like just let him. You got to live
your life. No, I don't think so. If I have
a six month old, yeah, you know when you can
do that later when kids are grown. But we've decided
together to have these children. Let's dissect this decision that
you're going to make because you are not a single
(35:52):
man about town, buddy. You are committed to me for life,
or so he said, and we have kids. We're a kid,
and that is something to consider. It does matter if
it's going to burden you, you may still choose to support
him in it. But the thing is it can't be
his decision. This is a decision we make together. I
wouldn't take a job that was going to suddenly put
(36:14):
me on the road, you know, three weeks a month
when we have a puppy or we have animals to
take care of and assume that my husband was going
to be like, that's cool, no problem, I'll let you
live your life. You know, when we're in unions, this
is where negotiation comes in. This is not across the
board when we say let them. Is when we are
(36:35):
going across getting from our side of the street to
someone else's side of the street, and we can't wait
to tell them what we really think they should do,
and maybe we don't need.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
To do that.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
When we talk about codependency, the antithesis is I'm assuming
hipA independence.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Is that a negative thing? Or is that what we're
striving to be.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
I feel like if I was to actually put myself
in a category, I would probably say I am hyping independent.
Don't But then some of the traits that you were
saying about that can also look like codependency. I was like, oh,
maybe maybe I'm not just hyper independent. Maybe some of
those parts are also codependent.
Speaker 4 (37:10):
But it is like I think dependent, Yes, well, you're
a HFC for sure.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
I've lived alone forever. I don't ever ask people for help.
I just don't even with my emotions. I don't unload
on friends. I just keep everything to myself. I like
to think of myself I could go to an island,
and I like to think I could survive on my
own for years.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Like that is genuinely and I truly believe that.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
When I say that, it's so funny because Britt and
you and you would never ever ever admit it, because
I think it's like the antithesis of like who and
how you want to be in life.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
But I I see you and think you're a high
function of codependent completely. That's so interesting because I always
I don't even choose people that are around me, Like
I don't even date anyone in the same country because
I don't want it.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
Yeah, but that's just having intimacy issues. That's just like,
that's just you can have coexisting issues, right. That was
I was saying, it's the only date non and other
continents because I really wanted a relationship. My therapist was like,
do you though, because I feel like you don't because
you keep dating men who live in Greece anyway while
you live in New York City. I want to speak
(38:11):
to the hyperindependence because that is one of the traits
of HFC, and one of the reasons for it is
not wanting to be vulnerable. And the thing is to
have the juicy, delicious, amazing life that you deserve, you
have got to learn and allow yourself to be vulnerable
(38:32):
to the right people. Now, that means we need to
figure out who the book is emotionally trustworthy, Who gets
to be in the VIP section of our lives, Who
gets to be in the front row of our amazing lives?
That shit is a privilege, should not be just general seating, right.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Okay, so I'm cooked multiple things at once, multiply sh
at on.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
Terry.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
I love speaking to you.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I feel like every time we do have these conversations,
I learned so much more around things that I would
have thought were conflicting, and then I see how so
many of these characteristics are interrelated. And that for me
has been such an eye opener, unpacking, especially unpacking the
decisions I've made in the past and kind of how
I now show up in my relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
So I'm very very grateful for that from a personal
perspective as well.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
She also knows what she's going to say in the
seven Hours sit down. She says with her husband Matt tomorrow.
I think the last thing to is if we do
if someone has now recognized this, they've listened to this,
they're like, holy shit. I'm also Brittany, I also have
multiple issues going on at once.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
What do they do?
Speaker 3 (39:40):
What are the steps that you're like, Okay, I'm an HFC,
I'm doing this in my relationship.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
Let's put some proactive steps in place.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Yes, I like it. Well, first of all, I have
a gift which is proactive it's an HFC toolkit. It's free.
Just go to Terry Cooll dot com forward slash HFC.
That's going to be a beginning, because I have so
many people who are like, help, where do I start.
We already talked a little bit about doing a resentment inventory, right,
So that's the beginning is being really honest with yourself.
(40:09):
This requires, like, there's so much in the book about
us becoming intimate with our own emotions, because as HFC
is so much of the time, we're very familiar with
other people's emotions and likes and dislikes. It's like you
could have a stadium full of information about other people,
but we don't expect other people to have a stadium
of information about us. We're like, I'm fine, whatever, it
(40:31):
doesn't matter. I'm fine, you know. And so I feel
like we need to be up in our own game
with understanding our own emotions how do I really feel?
So the resentment inventory is sort of a quick sort
of shortcut for you to look at what relationships might
need your attention, Where might you be overfunctioning, where might
(40:52):
you be not asserting how you really feel? So I
feel like that's the beginning, and then the toolkit will
help you. It gives you, I give you something how
to simplify and do less because I feel like, as
HFC is, we're doing too many things.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
I mean, there's a whole other conversation here that we
can have around burnout. But I feel as though we've
probably taken so much of your time. But I think
that this would be one of the biggest indicators. Right
Like women who get to their mid thirties and or
forties or whatever it is, and you have this moment
in life where you're like, I am so fucking exhausted
by all of the things, but I can't get off
(41:27):
the hamster wheel because it's spitting so fast, and I
can't drop all the balls that I've got in the
air at the same time, How is burnout so highly interlinked.
Speaker 4 (41:36):
Because we can go, go go, as hfc's because we
actually never say die. It takes us getting to burnout.
Usually it takes us getting to something that stops us
where we have to be like, okay, I need to
regroup what is going on? Burnout? When you get there,
you're not functioning from your right brain. It's so exhausting
(41:58):
that fatigue is so enormous and you really start to
not care. Right, So it's like we go from with
hfc's like too many fucks for too many people for
too long, and then like the pendulum just smashes into
a rock wall where you're like, no fucks for anybody,
don't care, literally, I cannot care. It's like you want
to start cutting people out. We want that bendulum to
(42:19):
swing back to the middle, so you get to burn
out where maybe you don't have any EPs to give
to anybody. But when we start to treat ourselves better,
take better care of ourselves in a real way, because
trust me, I know if you're an HFC, you're probably
going to soul cycle, You're probably going to the gym,
You're getting your nails done, you get get in the
facial you're maybe doing both tip whatever. Like in your mind,
you're taking care of yourself. But I want you to
(42:41):
The taking care that I'm interested in you doing is
self consideration, which is before you commit to things, before
you take on another thing, you two questions you ask yourself,
do I have the bandwidth to do this without becoming
bitter or overwhelmed? And number two, do I even want
(43:02):
to do it like that? Alone? Not wanting to do
something is a really good reason not to do it,
and I think that as HFC is we never even
consider it. We feel like we have to write a
dissertation on our no as to why we're not doing
something and justify the shit out of it. How about
I just don't it's not my thing or I'm just
(43:22):
not up for it. I'm really exhausted. Like, let people
in on where you really are and stop making yourself
do a bunch of crap you don't feel like doing,
because that makes you better.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Terry, we love having you every time. I can say
every time because it is the third time.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
I always have you back in six months.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
I always have a realization and I always take something away.
I think today I'm taking away this resentment inventory. I
haven't heard of that before, and I really like it.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I really like this.
Speaker 3 (43:47):
Let's start tracking that ourselves and being a bit more
proactive with it instead of just letting it build up
and then imploding in our relationships, like all relationships. Terry's
Walk Too Much is available now. You can get it anywhere.
You can get a good book, because it is a
brilliant book. But you can get Terry literally everywhere. Websites, Instagram, podcasts, youtubes.
(44:07):
Put it all in the show notes, all the links
we'll link you to. All of Terry She's there.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
But thank you so much for joining us again today.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
It was so much fun. Britton Lauria, thanks for having
me
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