Can you become codependent as an adult?

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I have done some reading and I can see many of the traits in myself, but feel I was not that way as a kid.  Some people pleasing, some control issues perhaps, but nothing like now.  Can life with someone with BPD traits send you down that path? Or the combination of a traumatic life event with living with someone with BPD?   

I feel like I never had an incessant need to please or control until I met someone who never seemed pleased and whose behavior could make me feel so lost and guilty that I needed to control their reactions as best I could.

[mssalty]

I have done some reading and I can see many of the traits in myself, but feel I was not that way as a kid.  Some people pleasing, some control issues perhaps, but nothing like now.  Can life with someone with BPD traits send you down that path? Or the combination of a traumatic life event with living with someone with BPD?   

I feel like I never had an incessant need to please or control until I met someone who never seemed pleased and whose behavior could make me feel so lost and guilty that I needed to control their reactions as best I could.

[heartandwhole]

Hi mssalty,

It's a good question, and I wish I had an answer. I feel similarly to you: I knew I had codependent tendencies, but I didn't think they were over the top. With pwBPD, they seemed to almost take me over, however! I was a wreck, trying to control everything around me as much as possible, to keep things in harmony and the love going on high gear. Exhausting.

On an audio recording by a therapist trained in psychology and Buddhism, he said something like "A codependent person should say out loud 'I am an incredibly dependent person,' and then see how he/she feels and reacts." That really hit me, because I have always been extremely self-sufficient and taken responsibility at a young age, very independent, blah, blah, blah.

I think his point was that we are just as needy as our needy partners. We need them to not be upset or unhappy or, fill in the blank. We need them to feel good, so that we can feel okay. Stuff like that. You may not agree with his assessment, but it certainly was an eye-opener for me.

heartandwhole

[Sluggo]

I most identified with this book.  It is on amazon.  It may relate to how you described your situation

https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Caretaking-Borderline-Narcissist-Drama/dp/1442238321