While it’s wonderful to be supportive of others, helpful, and giving, sometimes we might take it too far and our generous intentions lead to unintended results. But how do you know where to draw the line? Is your helping healthy, or are you, perhaps, codependent? The quiz below is an attempt to help you analyze your behavior.
NOTE: Codependency isn’t considered a mental health condition, and the test below is by no means a diagnostic tool. Check all that apply.
The other person uses your help to escape responsibility for their actions.
You consistently ignore your own needs while trying to please the other person.
You enable the other person’s bad behavior by bailing them out, repeatedly giving them another chance, making excuses for them, etc.
Your helping allows you to gain control of the other person, and you secretly enjoy that.
You are constantly making excuses for the other person.
You are preoccupied with the other person to the point that you don’t know where you end and they start.
You are not free in the sense that you feel the need to tend to the other person.
You define yourself by your ability to meet the other person’s needs.
You feel exhausted emotionally or financially, or both.
You feel forced into taking care of the other person because you believe that something terrible will happen otherwise.
You fix things for the other person while your own tasks are incomplete.
Thanks to all the comfort you provide, the other person cannot take care of themselves.
You repeatedly rescue the other person.
The other person doesn’t develop life skills, work, or study because everything is readily given to them by you.
It feels like the other person is taking advantage of you.
When the other person tells you that you don’t need to fix anything for them, you become annoyed and frustrated.
You resent the other person for manipulating you into doing everything for them.
The other person can’t do their job well. Perhaps they start and quit jobs all the time because there are no consequences.
The more you help and give, the more the other person becomes dependent on you.
You promised to help under certain conditions, but the other person didn’t fulfill these conditions because they believe you will be there for them anyway.
You wanted to help just once but now find yourself stuck fixing things for the other person with no end in sight.
Because the other person relies on you to save them and handle their problems, they become more and more irresponsible.
The other person delays getting professional help, taking their medication, or dealing with their addictions because you do everything for them.
Your help prevents the other person’s development and growth.
The more statements you checked, the more your helping may be affecting your own well-being or making it harder for the other person to take responsibility for themselves. However, there is no specific number of checked items that can diagnose codependency.
There is a big difference between healthy and unhealthy helping. Healthy helping promotes the other person’s growth and independence and empowers them. Unhealthy helping, or codependence, may prevent their growth and development and make them increasingly dependent on you to care for them and handle their challenges.
In addition, if you tend toward codependency, you may find yourself in relationships with people who take advantage of you emotionally, physically, or financially. You may have difficulty recognizing when you need to attend to your own needs and protect yourself, which may cause you to stay in unhealthy or abusive relationships.
Codependent relationships may cause a lot of resentment on both sides and may lead to burnout, feelings of emptiness, anxiety, and depression.
Not all codependent people intentionally manipulate or control each other, and there is a healthy degree of dependency in any close relationship, such as between spouses or between parents and children. A trained professional can offer you an outside perspective and help you figure out where to draw the line.
A therapist or mental health professional can help you recognize patterns associated with codependency and explore past experiences that may have contributed to these tendencies. They can also help with anxiety, depression, and other negative feelings that may stem from unbalanced relationships.
Self-help steps to become less codependent:
1. Try to take more time for yourself.
2. Attend to your own needs.
3. Pursue your own interests.
4. Build or rebuild your other relationships.
5. Consider therapy.
You may also like Empathy Test and People-Pleaser Test.
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