A few years ago, someone gifted me the book Set Boundaries, Find Peace. I couldn't get into it. I tried. I really did. I opened it, read a few pages, and it just didn't land for me.
At the time, I thought maybe I wasn't ready for it, maybe I was being defensive, maybe I was one of those people who needed boundaries but couldn't see it. Maybe I masked my need for love with giving.
But looking back now, I think the problem wasn't that. The problem was that the entire premise felt wrong.
The seduction of self-sufficiency
There's something seductive about messages that tell you to heal yourself and learn to love yourself before you can love others. It sounds like growth, like taking responsibility. But it's actually just isolation repackaged as self-improvement.
We celebrate people who "don't need anyone," pathologise connection, call it dysfunction.
Esther Perel, whose work on relationships has fundamentally shifted how I think about connection, makes an important distinction. Codependence is when you've lost yourself in someone else—your identity becomes so enmeshed with theirs that you can't tell where you end and they begin. Interdependence is different. It's when you maintain a strong sense of self while still deeply needing and relying on others. You know who you are, and you also know you need people.
But we've become so scared of codependence that we've swung too far the other way. We call it "healthy independence." But it's isolation dressed up as self-care.
Your body knows better
Your body knows what therapy culture has forgotten—you are not designed to regulate yourself alone.
Ailey Jolie, a somatic psychotherapist whose work on embodiment has deeply influenced how I think about healing, talks about this. Real healing happens in relationship, not in isolation. Your nervous system co-regulates with other nervous systems. That's not a flaw, that's how it works.
When a baby is distressed and a caregiver stays calm, the baby's nervous system reads that calm and settles. When you're overwhelmed and a friend sits with you without trying to fix anything, your body registers: I'm safe, someone is here.
We don't outgrow this—we just learn to pretend we don't need it. And then we wonder why, despite all our self-care routines and boundary-setting, we still feel alone.
What codependency actually is
Let's be clear—there are unhealthy relational patterns. When you abandon yourself to keep someone else comfortable, that's a problem. When you take responsibility for other people's feelings, that's a problem. When you lose touch with what you want because you're so focused on what everyone else needs, that's a problem.
Here's what that looks like: You notice your partner is stressed about work, so you start managing their schedule, anticipating their needs before they ask, staying up late to help with their projects. You cancel your own plans because they might need you. You stop mentioning your own bad day because theirs was worse. Slowly, your life becomes organised around keeping them okay, and you forget what you wanted.
That's the tipping point—when caring for someone means you stop caring for yourself.
But these patterns don't develop because you need people too much. They develop because you learned that your needs don't matter, that connection is conditional, that love has to be earned through self-sacrifice.
The issue isn't the need itself, it's how you learned to meet that need.
What we're really pathologising
When we label someone "codependent," what are we actually seeing? Someone who anticipates others' needs, prioritises relationships, values connection, finds meaning in caring for others.
Some of this can tip into unhealthy territory. Of course it can. But it's also completely normal. Especially for women.
We're taught from childhood to be accommodating, nurturing, attuned to others' needs. Maybe some of this is wired into us, maybe some of it is cultural, maybe it's both. Whatever it is, there's something in many of us that finds meaning in tending to others, in noticing what's needed, in creating connection.
And somewhere along the way, we learned to call that "too much."
Instagram therapy told us it was people-pleasing. Everyone with a Canva account and a love-me-or-leave-me energy started posting about how caring for others meant we'd lost ourselves. Cut off anyone who doesn't serve your highest good. Remove yourself from any discomfort. Set boundaries. Protect your peace.
And suddenly, needing people became the problem we needed to fix.
What interdependence looks like
Esther Perel describes interdependent relationships as ones where you can say: "I couldn't have done this without you."
Not "I'm nothing without you," but "You being here allowed me to do something I couldn't do alone."
That's how humans have functioned for millennia—in communities, leaning on each other.
Here's what that looks like: You're going through something hard and you call a friend. Not because you can't handle it alone, but because you don't want to. You ask your partner to take the kids for an hour so you can have space to think. You tell someone you're struggling and let them help. You know what you need and you ask for it directly. And when they need you, you show up—not because you have to, but because that's how connection works.
Interdependence means you have a strong sense of self and you deeply need others. You can be alone and you don't want to do everything alone. Take responsibility for yourself and ask for help. Yes, you have boundaries and those boundaries are permeable, not walls.
The goal isn't to need nobody, the goal is to need people in a way that doesn't require you to lose yourself.
What your body knows
Your body holds the truth about what you need—not what you think you should need, not what therapy culture says is 'healthy,' but what you really need.
And sometimes, what you need is another person: to sit with you, to hold space for you, to stay regulated when you're dysregulated, to remind you that you're not alone.
That's not co-dependence. That's co-regulation—your nervous system can't heal in isolation. It needs the experience of safety in the presence of another regulated nervous system, and this is biological.
When we pathologise this need, we're pathologising our own humanity.
The real problem
The real problem isn't that people need each other.
The real problem is we live in a culture that tells us needing anyone is shameful, that asks one person—usually a romantic partner—to meet all our relational needs because we don't have community anymore, that glorifies independence while calling interdependence 'unhealthy.'
We've lost the village, lost the web of connection that used to hold us, and now we're expected to hold ourselves alone and call it growth.
What if you're not broken?
What if the thing you've been told is your biggest flaw isn't actually a flaw?
Your need for connection, your desire to be close to people, your struggle to do everything alone. What if it's just human?
What if "working on your codependency" isn't about learning to need less, but about learning to need more skilfully?
Coming home to need
You're allowed to need people. You're allowed to not want to do everything by yourself. You're allowed to find meaning in caring for others. You're allowed to struggle when you're alone.
None of this makes you codependent. It makes you human.
The work isn't to stop needing—the work is to know what you need, ask for it directly, choose people who can meet some of those needs, accept that no one person can meet all of them, and stay connected to yourself while staying connected to others.
That's interdependence. And it's what your body has been trying to tell you all along.