Cry It Out Recovery

Forced Codependency

When an infant is born, it is born in a state of dependency. This dependency is upon its primary care givers to
provide everything it needs in order to survive and thrive physically, mentally and emotionally. This form of
dependency is both natural and healthy for the infant as well as the parents.
When a child is left to “cry it out” (CIO), this natural and healthy form of dependency (through repeated
emotional trauma) can shift to an unhealthy and potentially life destroying, form of codependency.

Co-dependency in Infants
In her book Codependent No More, Melody Beattie defines codependency as, “Letting someone else’s
behavior effect you then becoming obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior.” For the purpose of
explaining how CIO can lead to codependency, I would like to expand upon this definition. The following
definition of codependency is more in line with the changes that an infant can experience when it is left to
CIO: “Codependency is ‘being’ emotionally traumatized by someone else’s behavior, becoming obsessed
with your behaviors, then becoming obsessed with controlling someone else’s behaviors through your own”.

When an infant is left to CIO, they don’t have the reasoning capability to figure out why they have been
abandoned. Their natural response is to determine that “they” are the reason why their mother has
abandoned them. This is a survival technique because the infant’s blaming of itself allows the infant a certain
measure of control over an uncontrollable situation. To do anything less could cause severe consequences
to the infant’s health both emotionally and physically.

The infant’s determination that they are the reason they’ve been abandoned can cause a number of self
limiting and self loathing beliefs. The infant develops these beliefs in an attempt to understand what it has
done to warrant its perceived loss of its mother’s love. These beliefs can form the foundation of the infant’s
core view towards itself and have long-term effects on its self esteem, as well as their ability to connect with
others. These effects can last a life time.

The infant, suffering from severe abandonment issues, is now filled with an obsession to find out “what they
have done wrong” to cause this abandonment. This obsession and fear that they will be abandoned again
can cause the infant to become “obsessed” with their parents, in particular the mother’s love and attention.
This obsession can lead to an addiction which can permanently affect how relationships are perceived in the
future as the infant grows into adulthood.

In an attempt to survive and further avoid the pain of abandonment, the infant can become obsessed with
changing and monitoring their behaviors in order to somehow gain their mother’s love and attention, thus
completing the pattern of co-dependency.

Due to this unhealthy obsession being one of the first experiences of the infant’s life, it is possible that the
infant may develop beliefs around this obsessive feeling and come to believe that this is a natural part of life
and lose the ability to have natural, healthy desires. These healthy desires can be replaced by pure
obsession and lead to an “all or nothing” mentality as the infant grows into adult hood. Living a life of
obsession can lead to dependencies both chemical and interpersonal as the infant, now growing into
adulthood, seeks ways to fulfill their co-dependent needs.