r/Codependency • u/Big_Jackfruit_8821 • 5d ago
Anyone else codependent on receiving a text back from their main person?
life is not ok unless they text back
can’t concentrate on anything until they text back
11
u/Jabroni_Direwolfie 4d ago
Its anxious attachment with codependency. I suffer from this. It will ruin my whole day. Its been better but sometimes I have to mental gymnastics in order to get through my day if I don't hear from my partner. I try to think logically in those moments and tell myself, its not personal. He's busy. You will hear from him eventually. It sucks being controlled by these thoughts.
2
u/KarenWalkersBurner 4d ago edited 3d ago
Attached is a great easy-reading book and explained this super well.
11
u/Due-Bookkeeper-8831 5d ago
Absolutely. I’ll check my phone every few minutes, then pretend I’m not waiting when anyone asks. One text from them can completely change my mood.
7
u/Big_Jackfruit_8821 5d ago
Omg same. I only feel ok when they text back. Even if its a mean text. It’s like wtf?
8
u/dollygrace2021 5d ago
Yes. It’s debilitating
2
u/KarenWalkersBurner 4d ago
Debilitating. Wow yes!
On the other hand, when someone is motivating me, oh boy I am motivated!
6
u/_glowingeyes_ 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yupp and it rears up when I start dating. It’s such a difficult thing to feel and it takes away so much time because I want to sit there and stare at my phone.
There’s a little process I’ve developed that’s helped me though. It’s kind of a harm reduction method. First, I mute notifications for that person because waiting to hear a noise from my phone prevents me from focusing on anything. Then I talk to the part of me that feels stuck and frantic waiting for a message. I’ll say something like “I see you’re feeling this way and I understand you.” Then I compromise with it. “You feel safe if we keep checking for this text. It’s also important for me to…(get ready for school, write this work email, make lunch, or whatever task is being interrupted). I’ll set a timer for 20 minutes. If you can step back and let me work on this task until then, I promise I’ll check my phone when the timer goes off. We can do it again if they haven’t answered.”
The method works for me because I’m not trying to force myself to stop feeling anxious or stop the distracting behavior, I’m just giving myself a bit of space to do things in between. You can adjust it for whatever feels comfortable too. There was a time where I could only negotiate a 2 minute timer between checks and the task I got done in between was simply a deep breathing exercise. That was still a win for me!
2
6
u/otterwist 4d ago
The sad thing is when the text does arrive it should make me feel happy and connected. Instead it just temporarily stops me from feeling 'not ok'.
4
3
u/Arcades 5d ago
Sounds more like anxious attachment, which is often the attachment style of those suffering from codependency (so they go hand-in-hand). It's worth reading about it, so that you can learn where it comes from, how it manifests and, most importantly, the techniques you can practice to self-soothe when you enter a period of hypervigilance (waiting on the responsive text and trying to interpret the silence).
3
u/Initial-Owl2404 4d ago
Yes, and I hate it. If I don't hear from them by a certain time I start overthinking and feel like they don't want to talk to me and it ruins my mood.
2
u/eat-real-chips 4d ago
I would text my gf at like 930 or 10am or so, and I would get a response about 8pm…. The waiting made me so anxious.
I asked her about it and told her i feel like a low priory and not very cared for when I wait 9 hours or more for her text… she said she didn’t want to feel pressured to text back or “expected” to respond. In the mean time I could see her reply to group chats, post on instagram etc etc so it’s not like she didn’t look at her phone or not want to interrupt her work or something….
As you can imagine that made me feel like shit. Is this normal, or am i codependent wanting a response in a more reasonable time frame?
1
u/Jabroni_Direwolfie 4d ago
Maybe a bit of both but I do have to say that would hurt me as well. Like you are chatting up with others but can't respond to me? I would feel like shit. And you can't control this person and what she does, but maybe you shouldn't make messaging her your priority. She isn't doing it for you, so why give in that way? You can't control her but you can control what you do. If you back off a bit and not be so available I guarantee she will see. Sometimes you need to treat ppl as they are treating you.
1
u/Accomplished-Exam999 4d ago
I can be this person. Especially if I get busy, and hyper focused, I might not reply for hours on end.
I literally don’t remember when I’m hyper focused. It’s absolutely not personal. It’s just my ADHD and autism. When I get hyper focused, which doesn’t happen very often, I’m really deep in it.
I also have autism so I get very overwhelmed by text messages. Which makes it really hard to get back to people. They can take days. Even a week.
My ex partner also shared that they’d like more communication when this happens. I slowly learned how to develop more communication so that my ex partner knew I cared and was present.
To be honest, this might be a part of my autism. The part where I am learning by watching people. And then being social in those ways. A.k.a., I don’t know how to do it and I have to literally learn and mock what people do. People skills.
However, I’ve also received this on the other side. I would get very anxious. Unless we had an agreement about replying whenever throughout the day. It’s more complex than that because my ex partner would flip scripts all the time.
If Communication was weird for an entire day and the next day, that’s when I would speak up. Sometimes I’d ask my ex partner to just give a thumbs up or a heart so I know that they were present. I hate when messages go ignored. That’s happened a lot with this ex partner. So again it’s more complicated.
2
u/Reasonable_Tie_9975 4d ago
It's what my relationship, well more so when she weaponized silence, then made me out to be the crazy one, when I would finally get angry because of it. Such bullshit
2
u/KarenWalkersBurner 4d ago
Fp = favorite person.
Yeah I lived and breathed for fp.
Fp got me thru hell.
Now fp is gone and life feels unstable.
1
u/codependencyrecovery 3d ago
What if you fell in love with the feeling of wanting them to text back? If that happens, then the return text isn't needed to make the feeling go away.
17
u/[deleted] 4d ago
[removed] — view removed comment