Why We’d Rather Be Victims Than Do the Work

📍 It’s easier to stay stuck than to grow. Especially when an entire culture gives us the language of wounds but not the tools for development.

You want to heal. You read the books. You know your attachment style. You’ve got a list of red flags and probably a therapist on speed dial. But the hard truth is, knowing why you’re stuck isn’t the same as getting unstuck.

In fact, the more emotionally intelligent we become, the easier it is to talk about our wounds than actually do the work to grow out of them.

That’s the paradox of healing in our modern culture: we have more insight than ever, but less development. We are fluent in the language of trauma but allergic to the discomfort of growing out of our survival patterns.

And nowhere is this more evident than in the way we deal with codependency.

☠️ The Problem Isn’t Just Codependency—It’s the Way We Think About It

We’ve been sold the idea that codependency is a disease. That we’re “in recovery” from it. That it’s some kind of emotional flu we caught from our childhoods or our narcissistic ex.

But let’s be honest: this medicalized, 12-step-flavored narrative lets us off the hook. It’s neat. It’s externalized. It gives us a label and a community. And most dangerously, it gives us a new identity—the codependent, the empath, the caretaker, the overfunctioner.

It replaces our Authentic Self with another mask—this time, a victim mask.

Because if we’re codependent by nature or by disorder, what’s left to do but manage it?

👉 We confuse naming the problem with solving it.

🧠 Codependency Isn’t a Condition—It’s a Developmental Delay

Here’s the truth most people avoid: Codependency is not a lifelong illness or addiction. It’s a symptom of interrupted development. It’s what happens when a child doesn’t get their emotional needs met and adapts to survive instead of growing into their Authentic Self.

This means you’re not broken. You’re simply unfinished just waiting to pick up your development where it left off.

Codependent behavior—people-pleasing, over-giving, hiding your needs, controlling others to feel safe—isn’t a defect. It’s a survival strategy your brain was wired in early childhood. But the longer we stay in those automatic behaviors without questioning them, the more they become who we think we are.

🛑 Insight Without Action Becomes Just Another Defense

Let’s say it clearly: talking about your codependency isn’t the same as changing it.

We prefer identifying as victims because it’s less threatening than confronting how we’re still participating in our own suffering.

Why?

Because the victim identity is safe. It doesn’t ask us to risk. It doesn’t require us to take responsibility. It doesn’t challenge our belief that others are the reason we feel small, unseen, or not enough.

But here’s the kicker: when we stay stuck in that identity, we give away the very power we need to grow.

Instead of reclaiming our psychological development, we perform healing. We become “trauma-informed,” “emotionally intelligent,” or “recovering people-pleasers”—but still can’t say no, ask for what we need, or hold a boundary.

⚠️ The Medical Model Is a Trap That Feeds the Imposter Persona

The outdated medical model of codependency paints a picture of someone forever struggling. Always in recovery. Always managing. Never growing.

It turns behaviors that were once protective into pathologies. And then it convinces us that these behaviors define us.

But here's the danger: the more we identify with the label, the harder it becomes to separate from the behavior.

We don’t ask, “What part of my development got delayed, and how can I restart it?”

Instead, we say, “I’m a codependent. This is just how I am.”

This is how we quietly collude with the very patterns that hold us back. We give up the work of development in exchange for the comfort of diagnosis.

🔄 Familiar Pain Feels Safer Than Unfamiliar Growth

Let’s be honest: development is hard.

It asks us to feel things we’ve avoided our entire lives—shame, grief, anger, unmet needs. It asks us to stop hiding behind competence, kindness, or control and actually learn to be with ourselves. To choose boundaries even when we fear rejection. To speak truth even when we shake doing it.

That’s why we stay stuck. Not because we can’t grow, but because we’re still afraid to outgrow our protective patterns.

And because being seen in our survival strategy is easier than becoming someone new.

💥 The Cost of Staying Stuck

Here’s the brutal truth: the longer we delay our development, the more we stay trapped in fate.

We keep repeating the same relationship dynamics
We remain unfulfilled in work and love
We keep “fixing” ourselves while secretly believing we’re broken

All while calling it healing.

Victim identity tells us we’re powerless. Development reminds us we’re simply unfinished. One gives us sympathy. The other gives us agency.

You get to choose.

✨ The Path to Your Authentic Self Isn’t in Recovery—It’s in Development

You don’t need another label. You don’t need to “manage” your codependency.

You need to finish what got interrupted: your emotional development.

The moment you recognize that your behaviors were once necessary adaptations—but aren’t needed anymore—you begin to reclaim your power.

Healing starts when we:

• Stop identifying with our adaptations
• Tolerate the emotional discomfort of growth
  
• Rewire the brain with new, developmental behaviors
  
• Build the blueprint for our Authentic Self
  

🗝 You’re Not Meant to Live in Survival

We are not here to endlessly manage symptoms. We are here to become. To shift from performing identities to living from our core.

The question isn’t “How do I recover from being codependent?”

It’s: “Who am I becoming now that I don’t need to survive?”

This is your invitation to stop staying small under the weight of old stories. To stop identifying as a victim of what happened to you—and start developing the Self that never got a chance to grow.

Because you were never broken. You were just busy surviving.

And now?

Now it’s time to grow.

📍 Ready to stop performing your healing and start becoming who you’re meant to be? Contact Me and restart your developmental journey today.

Coming October 2025, Rethinking Codependency for the Emotionally Intelligent is the book that finally breaks the cycle of shame and survival. If you’ve ever felt stuck in people-pleasing, perfectionism, or over-functioning—despite all your emotional insight—this book will show you why. Psychotherapist Anne Dranitsaris, Ph.D., reframes codependency not as a disorder to recover from, but as a developmental delay you can grow beyond. It’s time to stop managing symptoms and start reclaiming your Authentic Self.

Send me an email (anned@annedranitsaris.com) to preorder now and begin the work that changes everything.

​​📍 You’re not codependent. You’re unfinished.

That’s the truth most people miss. We’ve been taught to wear the label like a diagnosis—something to recover from, something to hide. But what if your people-pleasing, over-functioning, and anxiety aren’t flaws… but survival patterns wired into you when your emotional development got interrupted?

It’s easier to stay in the role of the victim than to risk becoming someone new. That’s why we get stuck—smart, self-aware, exhausted—and still afraid to grow.

🔥 If you’re done managing your symptoms and ready to reclaim your development, this article is for you.