Feeding strays keeps 'em coming back for more.

Why Codependency (the unquenchable NEED to be needed) is a self-imposed trap.

I’ve recently been adopted by a stray. He’s an utterly beautiful boy who looks like a Main Coon cat. I’ve seen him around for years and began giving him scraps, leftovers or rejected food my other three didn’t find desirable. “Buddy” was ecstatic to receive these treats!

My mostly outdoor kitty, Greyson died the day after Thanksgiving. There was no saving him from a blood clot that had paralyzed his hind legs. He’d lived a rich, full life according to his fiercely prey-driven nature. Reminiscent of the Frank Sinatra song, he did it HIS way for 8.5 years as my wild child, ridding our property of rats, gophers and voles. Sadly, squirrels and birds seldom escaped his insatiable craving for The Chase.

Greyson was territorial. He’d howl to high heaven, whenever Buddy set foot on our property. He’d learned the hard way not to risk tangling with this mighty stray, who’s more muscular than you might ever imagine a cat to be. Grey attacked coyotes if they dared get too close, and feared literally nothing… but with THIS feline, serious injury had at one point, ensued.

Anyone with common sense knows that when you feed an animal, you never get rid of it. Such has been the case with Buddy, my big, beautiful, affectionate new outdoor companion. Since Grey’s been gone, he’s getting very well fed. He’s in heaven when I sit with him on my front porch bench. He’ll curl up in my lap purring merrily for hours, if time permits. He’s grown from skinny and scrawny with significant hair loss, to full-figured again, in just a few weeks. I’m happy for the company.

It’s not just us animal lovers who can’t conceive of letting a creature suffer, it’s people pleasers, fixers, rescuers and over-givers who cannot help but collect human strays! A gal pal of mine routinely did this for decades, with needy, underdeveloped, low-functioning people, until I helped her break the habit.

Everyone it seems, loves an underdog! The problem is, only the four-legged type will appreciate your kindness and generosity, and love ya back. You can’t presume this will happen with the two-legged version. In fact, they usually resent you for being in the one-up (stronger) position, which makes them feel beholding to you and resentful.

The Borderline Waif seduces us with their tales of woe. They’ll readily share with us the painful outcomes of past romances, and how that last man or woman let them down, abused them or just up and deserted ‘em one day. In short, they play to our sympathies in order to lure us in and hook us~ even when there’s little or no truth to their detailed accounts of past relationships! Pay extra-close attention to statements that sound contradictory to what they’ve conveyed, earlier in your dance.

Emotionally well-formed, healthy adult humans have no need to lie or embellish facts they share with you. Borderlines on the other hand, always do. Their poor self-worth compels them to present themselves to you as smarter, more accomplished, more spiritual or altruistic, more highly educated, etc., than they actually are.

Plagiarism is very common among people with BPD traits. As with toddlers, we really can’t assume they have the capacity to think independently, nor give birth to original ideas, concepts or thoughts. If they seem to, they’ve mentally bookmarked someone else’s written works or video presentations, and are parroting them to you.

[If you ever read someone’s writing on the web and they use phrases that echo mine, or tout concepts that sound like what you’ve read on my website or social media posts, they’ve copied me. Feel free to call or write me about these incidents, because they’re stealing my original work, and committing a punishable crime. Trust me, it happens a lot.]

But I’ve digressed. A man I was once acquainted with, said his dad always warned: “Never get involved with someone who has more problems than YOU.” I thought that was sound, fatherly advice! If you have Codependency traits of course, you’ll reject it faster than jumping off a cliff with only an opened umbrella to break your fall.

Codependency and BPD have far more in common than most think. Codependency is rife with narcissism (the one who needs the least, is always in the driver’s seat, and in charge of a relationship dynamic). When we accept that core trauma stems from our earliest (lack of) bonding experiences with our birth mother, both Borderlines and Codependents have struggled lifelong, with poor self-worth (“I’m not good enough or lovable.”)

The Borderline sexually and emotionally seduces others, to defend against his/her massive insecurities. The Codependent seduces with care-giving, rescuing, fixing and over-giving gestures~ yet neither of these individuals are capable of fully attaching to another. If you’re always chasing after people who aren’t emotionally available, isn’t it easy to convince yourself YOU are, while you’re avidly pursuing them??

Attachment to another person, means needing them emotionally. The narcissistic, caregiving Codependent needs to be needed in order to fuel his/her sense of worth and lovability, but can’t emotionally afford to NEED anyone (it’s ego dystonic, as it doesn‘t fit with his mighty, grandiose sense of Self). Alongside this defense, he believes deep down: “If he or she needs me, they’ll never leave me!” so there are abandonment concerns inherent within this personality disorder, as there are with people who have BPD.

The Borderline believes, “if I can make myself emotionally and/or sexually indispensable to him or her, it won‘t matter how monstrously I behave at times, because all will be forgiven.” BPD and Codependency are two sides of the same core injury coin. Each personality disorder has developed various defenses and survival strategies that enable them to live with their compulsive, relationship-maiming traits, to where some degree of reasonably comfortable survival is achieved.

People who truly wish to outgrow these obstacles in their personality structure will never rest, until they find a seasoned professional who intimately understands what’s required to help these two-legged strays develop emotionally, and mend the awful pain in their heart that’s plagued them since they were newborns.

The moral of this post? Stop taking care of and giving gifts (on birthdays and holidays) to a stray, and they’ll find reasons all on their own, to look for greener pastures! In short, if YOU have problems saying goodbye (because you torture yourself with guilt when you even contemplate it) just QUIT your compulsive giving, and soon enough, you’ll give that monster you’ve created a good enough reason to do your ‘dirty work’ for ya, and leave.