Feel Like a Burden to Others? 6 Signs of Dependence Schema

This article is one part of the Schemas: An Introduction series of 18 posts, covering each of the 18 schemas outlined originally by Jeffrey Young. Based on my own clinical experience and style, I’m presenting my own take on these concepts in addition to Young’s original definitions as the founder of schema therapy. You can check out this post for more background on the definition of schemas, which I call the "DNA” of your personality. This series describes what it’s like to have each schema, how to notice it, and how to manage it.

Dependence Schema and How It Happens

The responsibilities that come with just living life can be intimidating and sometimes scary. We’ve all had bad moments at one point or another in life: “This really sucks—there’s no one around to catch me if I fall, and there are so many things to be taken care of. Is my whole life going to be this stressful?”

Think about grocery shopping. Or paying bills and budgeting. Or dating. Or dealing with your boss, or finding a job. Managing health insurance. Calling people back. These are things we all have to deal with, but now imagine having to deal with all of them tomorrow. There’s an overwhelming wave of dread, fear, and panic that can set in, right?

Now imagine having to do all of this, plus:

• You’re convinced you are not good at it.
• You believe you're going to fail and likely humiliate yourself.
• Just thinking about it reminds you of how much of a failure you are.

That kind of approximates what dependence schema can feel like at its worst.

So, if you can imagine having these feelings and reactions, then it’s not hard to see that anytime a hint of these subjects comes up, it can cause a cascade into worrying about all the other loose ends of life.

This can be quite a doom loop.

Because if you avoid the anxiety that goes with these questions, then you likely avoid dealing with the questions. But they get more serious as they’re unattended, and then more stressful to deal with, so you’re more inclined to avoid them, which only makes them worse, etc., etc.

These are starker examples of the experience of dependency, but you can be on a spectrum of this experience, where it comes up only in certain areas of your life, around certain topics, such as finding a new job or dating, or in a much smaller scale, such as dealing with Excel spreadsheets. We all may fall into dependency at times.

Now think about how helpful it would be to have someone in your life who can just take care of this for you, take the pressure off. Right about now, that would feel great. To have someone who cares about you, who is better at adulting, and who can help you. What a relief.

Then a new problem arises by depending on someone else: You are at risk of reinforcing the idea that you are no good at doing it for yourself. Codependency can develop when each partner in a couple has their own issues with feeling defective and dependent.

Dependence schema can be nature–nurture: You may have elements of a sensitive temperament and personality naturally geared toward a dependent attachment, or you formed a dependent style with anxious or insecure parents and family who always kept you close. Young adults suffering from dependence schema are often given the pop diagnosis of “failure-to-launch syndrome” where they don’t “leave the nest.” But it also leads to depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and low self-esteem well into adulthood.

If you already have a personality prone to dependence or come from a background that promoted it, the kind of question that stresses all of us out sometimes becomes a worry that is stressful all the time.

6 Signs of Dependence Schema

1. You feel incapable of handling one or more important elements of living an independent adult life and would not be able to complete them without feeling someone else is in charge.
2. You worry you’re a burden to friends and loved ones.
3. Topics relating to living an independent adult life trigger intense feelings of negativity, failure, and shame.
4. You rely on drugs or alcohol or other kinds of detached self-soothing behavior to cope with these painful thoughts and feelings.
5. You start to believe you are incompetent at tasks that you have managed in the past.
6. You build your sense of self around others and find spending time alone and undistracted is painful and should be avoided.

How to Start Letting Go of This Schema

• Manage feelings. Know that your feelings of negativity and shame have come out of being stuck and are not helping, and are actually part of the problem, so don’t let them guide your action. Create a little flash card for yourself with a simple reminder and affirmation: “This feeling is not helping; focus on what action you can take, and the feeling will pass” or something in your own words. Use it daily.
• One foot in front of the other. Identify one task you need to accomplish and break it down into smaller tasks. Then just focus on the next small task until it’s complete and move on to the next one.
• Get help from the people you depend on. This one may seem counterintuitive. But telling people you depend on that you would like to become more independent helps them cheer you on and take steps to allow you to do your thing.
• Seek help from a therapist. A professional will be a neutral player who can help you build skills for managing difficult feelings, hitting behavioral goals, and offering equal parts compassion and nudging.