Plus-sized and Codependent with Annelise Asch

Explicit content warning

05/29/23 • 53 min

The Codependummy Podcast

-What does codependency look like in plus-size persons?

-How does judgment from others lead plus-size persons to ‘play small’ in their relationships?

-What are the initial steps to healing from our codependency with body image?

Welcome to Episode 128! This week, we are graced with the presence of Annelise Asch, advocate of body neutrality and liberation, to discuss the interconnection between codependency, body image, and plus-size persons. Annelise shares with us how, as young women, we can become codependent on society’s standard of beauty and attraction. This, in turn, can lead us to become codependent on our body image and becoming obsessed with morphing and molding our bodies to fit the “ideal.” Annelise opens up about her own codependency with body image and how she was able to break the connection. We conclude with the initial steps she suggests for plus size persons to stop playing small and start taking up space! It’s a must-listen!

Links for the show:

Journal! The Confiding Codependummy: 30 Days of Journaling Prompts for a Less-Codependent and More-Conscious YOU for just $1 a day. www.codependummy.com/toolsforhealing

FREEBIE! The Self-Validation Challenge: Learn to validate your GD self: www.codependummy.com/challenge

Money! Funds! Help support the show via a one-time donation via secure Paypal link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=RJ3PSNZ4AF7QC

Work with me! Email [email protected] to inquire about psychotherapy, coaching, or coming on the show!

More on this week’s guest:

Annelise Asch is the Social media chair for the International Association of Eading Disorder Professionals iaedp LA and a Professional Relations Representative for The Renfrew Center. She is Passionate about mental health and has worked for 3 years providing peer support and coordinating outreach for mental health organizations in Southern California. Annelise is an advocate of body neutrality and liberation and channels that into her work and personal social media presence.

instagram.com/anneliseasch

Deets on the episode:

We begin with hearing Annelise’s definition of codependency: when one seeks validation from others and allows others to define one’s boundaries. She opens up about codependency from her own life and admits how she used to think it was a compliment! Her former relationship was, unbeknownst to her, extremely codependent where their “compromise” was really them sacrificing their needs. Can you relate?

Our focus turns to codependency in plus size persons. Annelise shares about how, as young women, we are vulnerable to becoming codependent on society’s beauty standard where we strive to meet the standards of an “ideal body.” This in turn can lead to becoming codependent on our own body image where she obsessively think about, worry about, feel self-conscious about, and hyper-focus on our bodies. Annelise describes her own codependency with her attempts to lose weight and how she was enabled due to the positive attention from others and praise.

I ask Annelise about how a plus sized individual may be vulnerable to being codependent in their relationships. If they worry they aren’t “pleasing others” with their body, then they may be more agreeable, conflict-avoidant, and appeasing to their partners, parents, and friends. Annelise also describes how being teased, criticized, or shamed by others can lead a plus-size person to ‘play small.’

What does recovery look like for a plus-size person? Annelise lists how realization of one’s worth, an understanding of body neutrality and body acceptance, finding community, and challenging the beliefs/standards of beauty can free one of being codependent on their body image.

Thanks for coming on Annelise! And thank you for listening, my dear listener!

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-The Self-Validation Challenge - free 30-day guide to providing yourself with all the validation you seek: www.codependummy.com/challenge

-Get your copy of the Confiding Codependummy: 30 days of journaling prompts for a less-codependent and more-conscious you! www.codependummy.com/toolsforhealing

-If you are wanting to dive into your codependency deeper one-on-one, please email marissa@codepend...

-What does codependency look like in plus-size persons?

-How does judgment from others lead plus-size persons to ‘play small’ in their relationships?

-What are the initial steps to healing from our codependency with body image?

Links for the show:

Journal! The Confiding Codependummy: 30 Days of Journaling Prompts for a Less-Codependent and More-Conscious YOU for just $1 a day. www.codependummy.com/toolsforhealing

FREEBIE! The Self-Validation Challenge: Learn to validate your GD self: www.codependummy.com/challenge

Money! Funds! Help support the show via a one-time donation via secure Paypal link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=RJ3PSNZ4AF7QC

Work with me! Email [email protected] to inquire about psychotherapy, coaching, or coming on the show!

More on this week’s guest:

instagram.com/anneliseasch

Deets on the episode:

Thanks for coming on Annelise! And thank you for listening, my dear listener!

PLEASE:

Rate.

Review.

Subscribe.

Share.

We need more ratings on Spotify! TY!

-The Self-Validation Challenge - free 30-day guide to providing yourself with all the validation you seek: www.codependummy.com/challenge

-Get your copy of the Confiding Codependummy: 30 days of journaling prompts for a less-codependent and more-conscious you! www.codependummy.com/toolsforhealing

-If you are wanting to dive into your codependency deeper one-on-one, please email marissa@codepend...

Previous Episode

Purity Culture with Susanna Guarino, LMHC

-What is purity culture and how does it relate to codependency?

-What are the short- and long-term consequences of purity culture?

-How can we explore and cultivate healthy intimacy?

Welcome to Episode 127! This week, we are graced, for the second time, with the presences of Susanna Guarino, LMHC, to dive into purity culture. In a previous episode, Susanna shared about religious trauma and is here to expand on the impact of purity culture on codependency. We hear what purity culture is, how it left codependent young women to be vulnerable, and the negative consequences it had. Susanna reveals how she helps her clients attempting to heal from codependency compounded by purity culture. You’ll be left with insights on how to address issues related to your own lack of intimacy or sexuality. It’s a must-listen!

Links for the show:

Journal! The Confiding Codependummy: 30 Days of Journaling Prompts for a Less-Codependent and More-Conscious YOU for just $1 a day. www.codependummy.com/toolsforhealing

FREEBIE! The Self-Validation Challenge: Learn to validate your GD self: www.codependummy.com/challenge

Money! Funds! Help support the show via a one-time donation via secure Paypal link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=RJ3PSNZ4AF7QC

Work with me! Email [email protected] to inquire about psychotherapy, coaching, or coming on the show!

More on this week’s guest:

Susanna Guarino is a therapist in private practice in NY working with couples and individuals who have experienced religious trauma, spiritual abuse, or damaging effects from membership in a high-control group. She is licensed in NY, AZ, RI and FL.

http://www.goodearthcounseling.com

Deets on the episode:

Susanna Guarino is back everyone! We begin with reviewing how she defines codependency: overly focusing on what others need to the detriment of oneself. We connect that to Susanna’s specialty working with religious trauma: codependency is seen when one makes decisions based off fear, yields to others influence to avoid sin, and is worried about their eternal damnation if they prioritize their own needs.

Susanna opens up about codependency in her own life with an anecdote about purity culture. She describes being part of a Christian church and promising to not have sex until married during a youth gathering. She recalls how, despite the majority making the pledge, two young women defied the leader and refused to acquiesce to the leader’s shaming them.

We then focus on the interconnection and overlap between codependency and purity culture. Susanna educates us on the history of purity culture, the impact it had on adolescents and teens during the 1990s throughout the US, and it’s consequences.

Susanna lists various consequences, including internal shame, fear, a lack of sexual pleasure, a lack of intimacy between partners, and a patriarchal/male-centric approach to sex. Many adolescents and teens, especially young women, were vulnerable in this environment and often prioritized the needs of their church leaders, families, and community above their own.

We conclude with hearing from Susanna about ways she helps her clients attempting to recover from purity culture through education, developing an understanding, developing comfort discussing sex, cultivating critical thinking, and so on.

Thanks for coming on Susanna! And thank you for listening, my dear listener!

PLEASE:

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Review.

Subscribe.

Share.

We need more ratings on Spotify! TY!

-The Self-Validation Challenge - free 30-day guide to providing yourself with all the validation you seek: www.codependummy.com/challenge

-Get your copy of the Confiding Codependummy: 30 days of journaling prompts for a less-codependent and more-conscious you! www.codependummy.com/toolsforhealing

-If you are wanting to dive into your codependency deeper one-on-one, please email [email protected] to work with me!

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Next Episode

Codependency and Chronic Pain with Dr. Andrea Furlan, MD

-What is chronic pain and how does it relate to codependency?

-How might codependents sabotage their health?

-What are the initial steps we can take to practice self-care and prevent conditions like chronic pain?

Welcome to Episode 129! This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Andrea Furlan, MD, PhD, on the connection between codependency and chronic pain. In the episode, Dr. Furlan educates us on what chronic pain is and how codependency a) contributes to the development of chronic pain and b) ways that codependents may sabotage their healing from chronic pain since we can’t practice self-care. You’ll hear ways Dr. Furlan has navigated codependency in her own life, including with her chronic pain patients. We explore Dr. Furlan’s eight steps to curing chronic pain and discuss ways you can begin to implement them in your life asap! It’s a must-listen!

Links for the show:

Journal! The Confiding Codependummy: 30 Days of Journaling Prompts for a Less-Codependent and More-Conscious YOU for just $1 a day. www.codependummy.com/toolsforhealing

FREEBIE! The Self-Validation Challenge: Learn to validate your GD self: www.codependummy.com/challenge

Money! Funds! Help support the show via a one-time donation via secure Paypal link: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=RJ3PSNZ4AF7QC

Work with me! Email [email protected] to inquire about psychotherapy, coaching, or coming on the show!

More on this week’s guest:

Dr. Andrea Furlan, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a Staff Physician and Senior Scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. Her YouTube page has more than 487,000 subscribers and more than 42 million views. She received a CIHR New Investigator Award, and her research focus is on treatments of chronic pain including medications, complementary and alternative therapies, and rehabilitation.

https://www.iwh.on.ca/people/andrea-furlan

https://youtu.be/hxP5XKcNGmI

https://www.instagram.com/dr.andrea.furlan/

Deets on the episode:

We begin by hearing Dr. Furlan’s definition of codependency: in a relationship between two people, one person puts the interests of another above their own to help them succeed. Dr. Furlan describes ways that she learned about codependency in addiction medicine and started to see it in her patients who would refuse to take care of themselves.

Dr. Furlan opens up about codependency in her own life where, as a mother, she has had to find the balance between doing the right thing for her and her children related to caretaking. She reveals how she and her colleagues often combat codependency with their patients. “We work harder than our patients.” She details empathy research on doctors who prioritize the needs of their patients over their own which contributes to burnout. Can you relate?

We shift focus to Dr. Furlan’s expertise: chronic pain. We learn what the definition of chronic pain is, the difference between acute pain versus chronic pain, and how it relates to the alarm system in a house. Thing is, with chronic pain, the physical “alarm system” is broken.

Dr. Furlan and I discuss the ways she has seen her patients become codependent with their chronic pain where they form an identity as a “chronic pain patient.” We also hear her struggles with codependent patients who have difficulty practicing self-care and sabotage their chronic pain recovery.

What’s a codependent trying to heal from chronic pain to do? Dr. Furlan suggests these eight steps which she details in her book: