Being a very dependent person

According to him, the dependency is considered a disease when there is a dominant and excessive need of being cared for, which entails submissive behavior and exaggerated attachment, as well as fear of separation.

What is a dependent person like?

This way of being usually begins in the early adulthood and it is present in various contexts. In order to be diagnosed, it is necessary that 5 or more of the following facts or signs occur:

• Difficulty take decisions everyday without the advice of other people.
• Need to count on other people to assume responsibilities in most areas of your life.
• Difficulty express disagreement for fear of losing the support or approval of others.
• Difficulty start projects or do things by yourself (lack of confidence, motivation or energy).
• Being able to go too far to gain acceptance and support from others, to the point of voluntarily do things that you dislike.
• Feel uncomfortable or helpless when the person is alone.
• The person urgently seeks a new relationship just after finishing another close relationship with someone. This occurs in.
• Feel unrealistic concern for fear of being abandoned and having to take care of himself.

Why are we dependent?

 It usually occurs in children whose parents are overprotective or authoritarian. In this case the parents prevent the child from exposing himself to difficult life situations, so he does not learn to face them on his own.

It can also be presented in children with low self-esteem because their parents are the ones who assume all the responsibilities and difficulties. So these children receive the message that they are not capable of facing problems by themselves, and this affects their self-efficacy.

 The lack of secure attachment It can generate in maturity feelings of emptiness or mismatch in social relationships, usually satisfying the wishes of the other at all costs and forgetting their own needs so as not to lose the relationship. This makes these people more vulnerable to or even abuse.

 Finally, it may happen that parents are dependent persons and transmit that model of dependency to their children.

Types of dependency?

Independence is an overrated quality in today's world, it is frowned upon as it is associated with strength and courage. However, if an adult were absolutely independent in everything, it would be something pathological, since it would mean being outside of society.

The goal is not to progress from dependency to independence, but change dependency type. There are two types of dependency:

• Vertical dependency: it is the one that occurs in childhood (one being provides and another receives, that is, one is a caregiver and another is a caregiver).
• Horizontal dependency: both give and both receive. This type of dependency is what creates healthy relationships in adulthood, but for it to exist, two elements are needed: Intimacy and autonomy.

How to be an independent person?

To achieve autonomy and privacy we have to talk about two important variables. On the one hand, the relational security which refers to how a person feels safe (being alone or with someone). On the other hand, the emotional regulation which is the way in which a person manages to be well. It can be achieved through two types of strategies

• The self-regulation (what you do for yourself)
• The co-regulation (what you do with another person to feel better)

Ideally, the person should be able to self-regulate and co-regulate correctly, and at the same time be able to feel good both alone and with others. If a person regulates himself well and is well when he is alone, he has autonomy. And if a person knows how to co-regulate and is good with others, then he has privacy.

Both aspects are fundamental for him. Dependent people should reinforce their capacity for self-regulation and their security in solitude. For this it is important:

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• Identify your own values ​​and learn to defend them.
• Decompose emotions, differentiating fear of abandonment from others such as anger, shame, etc.
• Expanding styles of coping with problems aside from submission.
• Setting clear limits that it is important not to exceed at a relational level.

• Dependence is considered a disease when there is an overbearing and overbearing need for care, which leads to submissive behavior and exaggerated attachment, as well as fear of separation.
• The goal is not to progress from dependency to independence, but to change the type of dependency.
• Ideally, the person can self-regulate and co-regulate correctly and that they can at the same time feel good both alone and in company.