png.3600x4200 px, 300dpi

I used to think that codependency was a term for unhappy couples who deserved only sympathy. But one day, I encountered the idea that “codependency” isn’t just about relationships with partners; it can be about our relationship with anything, not necessarily with another person. Codependency is the phenomena surrounding us, pressing down on us with their wrongness and complexity. They repel us by their very nature. Yet! We accept them; we learn to live within them. Initially out of hopelessness, and then—by gaining secondary benefits. This drawing is a metaphor for such codependency. How painful it must be for a bare girl to sit on long, sharp needles piercing her body! But she has gotten used to it; she endures it; she knows how to cope. She can calm herself with the thought that, despite the needles, she can still enjoy the beautiful flowers that this environment offers her.

Art is hand-drawn in Procreate