These are some of the hallmark signs of dependent personality disorder (DPD). This is a mental health condition where you genuinely believe you can’t function without constant support and guidance from others, as you might feel helpless on your own.1
Such dependency can suffocate relationships, as friends and family risk becoming exhausted. However, this response can cause you to cling even tighter, terrified that your loved ones will abandon you for being too “needy.”
Fortunately, there are supportive therapies to help you better understand your attachment patterns. If you suspect that you have dependent traits that are affecting your relationships, a mental health professional can provide insight and guidance.
This page can also help you understand DPD symptoms and treatment options, as it explores:
Feeling these intense emotions is much different than the “normal” emotional needs we all have. Everyone relies on others sometimes, seeking advice for important decisions. DPD, however, can make you feel unable to function in even basic life areas. People with DPD often believe they lack the skills and “know-how” to handle ordinary responsibilities without constant oversight, support, and direction.1
Such fears of being alone can manifest as overwhelming anxiety at the prospect of caring for yourself. The thought of not having someone to rely on creates panic, and you may tolerate just about anything – abuse, mistreatment, exploitation – rather than face being by yourself.2
Attachment issues with DPD typically center around the fear of potential abandonment. Therefore, you’ll likely go to excessive lengths to get and maintain support from others, all in service of making sure someone will always take care of you.
Understanding Personality Disorders
Personality disorders are mental health conditions that involve ongoing patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting that are quite different from others’ cultural expectations.3
The patterns on display in a personality disorder often feel like core parts of your identity, rather than symptoms you can separate from who you are. For example, they’re separate from conditions such as social anxiety or depression.
Dependent personality disorder is classified as a Cluster C personality disorder, which are notable for their anxious and fearful patterns. Other Cluster C disorders include avoidant and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders, all of which involve major anxiety.3
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Struggling to make everyday decisions: Needing excessive advice or reassurance from others to make routine decisions, such as what to wear or what to eat.
It’s important to note that other conditions, like depression, can create temporary overdependency during episodes, but that this will likely resolve with treatment. Cultural factors matter as well, as some cultures emphasize family interdependence in ways that are not pathological within context.
How Attachment Patterns Affect Relationships
Attachment issues that adults face with DPD can create exhausting dynamics for partners, family members, and friends. Feeling a constant need for reassurance and struggling to make your own decisions can place a tremendous burden on others and may lead to resentment.
For instance, you might call or text excessively when apart from those you care about, or panic if someone doesn’t respond immediately. In other words, your loved one experiencing a normal desire for time apart may feel like the end of the world. In essence, this is descriptive of the insecure-anxious attachment style.
The anxious attachment creates pressure that pushes people away; the very abandonment you fear the most becomes even more likely when your dependency feels overwhelming.
Partners may describe feeling more like a parent than an equal. They make all the decisions, solve all your issues, and carry the full weight of the relationship’s ongoing management. This can create an imbalance in which one person does almost everything, which can be damaging to intimacy.
A fear of being left alone can also make it impossible to leave an unhealthy relationship. People struggling with DPD tend to stay with partners who exploit or abuse them because it still feels safer than being left alone. This can trap you in situations that damage your well-being and self-esteem, and prevent experiencing healthier relationship dynamics.4
A Mission For Michael offers confidential and free assessments for those experiencing a range of mental health concerns, including dependency concerns. We offer free evaluations because we believe that it is important for everyone to understand the full scope of their mental health needs and their treatment options.
There are online quizzes and assessments for various mental health concerns, but we encourage you to err on the side of caution with these. These are often generic “yes” or “no” assessments that do not consider personal factors. Additionally, they may not be reviewed by mental health treatment providers. Call us to begin your personalized assessment today!
DPD likely develops through complex interactions between early experiences and environmental factors. Research has been limited, but a few contributing factors appear consistently in the literature. We discuss these factors in the following sections.
Additionally, harsh or authoritarian parenting styles that punish independence or self-expression can teach children that their judgment can’t be trusted. If expressing options led to criticism or rejection, you might have learned to suppress your own thoughts in favor of pleasing the people who controlled your sense of safety.
Overly-enmeshed family systems or chronic childhood illness might also play a role in the development of dependent personality disorder as an adult.
The development of DPD likely involves combinations of all these factors, rather than a single cause. For instance, a person prone to anxiety who is raised by overprotective parents will likely face a higher risk than someone facing only one possible vulnerability factor.
Therapy for dependency issues can help you to address the fundamental patterns of DPD, working to develop autonomy and build your self-confidence. You’ll also learn to tolerate the anxiety that doing things on your own can create.
Supportive psychotherapy for DPD provides you with a safe therapeutic relationship where you can explore taking small risks toward independence. The clinician will balance support with gentle encouragement toward more autonomous behavior, avoiding both reinforcing dependency and pushing you too fast.
The therapeutic relationship itself is actually a tool for change. Your therapist helps you to discover your own solutions, teaching you to trust your own judgement and come to a better understanding of the challenges that ongoing dependency has brought.
Intensive therapy for adults with DPD is sometimes necessary if you’re struggling to function or make almost any decision about your life. Personality patterns usually develop over decades and don’t shift quickly, so resistance to change is often seen in DPD treatment.
Becoming independent means learning to tolerate anxiety and risking mistakes when facing fears of abandonment. Progress is rarely linear, and having setbacks is a normal part of the process. Attending a residential treatment program can give you the supportive environment and total-person focus you need to build momentum and resolve any ambivalence toward making a change.
A Mission For Michael (AMFM) provides treatment for adults experiencing various conditions. Personality Disorder support is a phone call away – call 866-478-4383 to learn about our current treatment options.
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A Mission For Michael provides quality care and residential treatment services for complex mental health patterns. Our programs offer individual and group therapy to help you build self-confidence, along with a host of holistic and supportive interventions.
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The goal of this article is to give you a better understanding of where relationship dependence comes from and its treatment options. However, it’s normal to have some ongoing questions. For this reason, we’ve provided some answers to FAQs on the topic.
Absolutely, though it often requires ongoing therapeutic work. Many people with DPD successfully develop their autonomy by participating in therapy for dependency issues, learning to make their own decisions and function without constant reassurance.
Treatment focuses on building your skills incrementally, starting with minor decisions and working your way to major life choices as your confidence grows.
DPD and codependency certainly often overlap, but they aren’t identical.
Codependency usually describes relational patterns where your self-worth is derived from being needed by others. You might be highly independent, but still become excessively focused on caretaking.
DPD, on the other hand, involves ongoing feelings of helplessness across all areas of your life, not just within relationships.
Both DPD and codependency can create unhealthy relationship dynamics that require professional help, and some people may display features of both patterns.
