Feeling unseen, unheard, unfelt, unsensed, and emotionally (and sometimes physically) abandoned by those upon whom they depended for survival in the first few years of life, the adolescent or adult with severe codependency or borderline personality disorder craves significance and relevance to others. As well as understanding.
Someone asked me well over a year ago, "Do you sometimes feel paralyzed until your codependent partner messages you?" I answered partially as you see below, but became so intrigued, I began to drill down into Bowlby's attachment theory; Whitfield's, Schaef's and Mellody's codependency, and Mahler's, Brazelton's, Siegel's, Schore's and Stern's studies of very early life interactions. The later piece, Is it Possible to be Addicted to Attention? that follows this one on Pair.A.Docks was a partial, further result. So here we go:
If you want some appropriate (if "old school") background music for this, click on this link. (Just to prove that your grandparents really did understand, even if your parents might not have.)
You need not answer this question online, of course, but... one of the first places a mental health professional well versed in codependency will go is to ask, "Did you have a parent -- or parents -- who ignored you a great deal, were self-obsessed, were too busy with their own careers to take time with and for their children, who often seemed "deaf, dumb, blind & senseless" and unable to understand what you were trying to tell them?"
The question is asked because MHPs recognize that having been conditioned, instructed, socialized and normalized to such treatment in childhood -- and especially in infancy before the child has the neural wiring for either memory or language -- can set a child up to be stuck in perpetual, autonomic fight, flight and/or freeze, Learned Helpless and very insecure as the child grows older... and ultimately desperate for any form of connection from not only a romantic partner or "favorite person," but from less significant others like friends and co-workers. Even one in which they Associate Abuse with Safety & Security.
If all that makes sense to you, and the shoe seems to fit, see also...
The Patterns & Characteristics of Codependence on the Codependents Anonymous website so that you know exactly where your "buttons" are
The lyrics while listening to Alanis Morrissette's "Precious Illusions," and "Death of Cinderella"
Practicing a consciousness raiser / thought questioner / emotion digester like the 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing so that one is able to continue to sense what is actually going on and intuitively know what to do about it
Sternberg's Nine Kinds of Love to see (with those 10 StEPs) where one actually is in those kinds vs. where one would like to be
How to Tell a "Keeper" from Someone who Isn't
Understand the Drama Triangle... (NOT diagnosing, just saying that on the basis of 30+ years observation, many codependents have a few abuse-installed BPD traits... which often becomes obvious reading this article.)
Is the Codependent "Love Addict" just a Commercial & Cultural Creation? (and all the stuff at the links therein)
A 21st Century Recovery Program for Someone with Untreated Childhood Trauma
Resources & References
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