The safety zone is short for some people, longer for others. The alternative is feeling we're alone in the world - which is not only lonely, but less safe. For infants, being alone too long means dying . People abandoned emotionally or physically too often as infants unconsciously grow a personality part who remains terrified of abandonment in adulthood. The other root is toxic shame .
Personal recovery can partially heal each root of co-dependence, over time.
We need to be more than just a featureless face in the crowd - we need to be known and appreciated . A key reason clinical and lay people still mull Maslow's ideas and later theorists is the universality of our longing to be fully ourselves . Identifying each person's simultaneous needs, ranking them, and filling the most important ones first, promotes personal, home, and family harmony and health. This seems obvious. Yet I've met hundreds of stressed co-parents who had lost sight of these three points in their welter of personal, marital, and family conflicts.