An honest test, not a verdict
The ten questions
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When someone who matters takes time to answer a message, does anxiety climb until the reply arrives?
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Does your self-esteem depend on the attention they grant you: high when they are present, collapsed when they pull away?
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Do you systematically put other people’s needs before your own, to the point of neglecting yourself?
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Is the prospect of being alone (an evening, a weekend, a life) almost unbearable?
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Have you ever given, lent or sacrificed more than is reasonable (money, time, dignity) to keep someone?
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Do you feel responsible for fixing the problems of the people you love, even unasked?
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Does seeing someone struggle make you feel bad until you have rescued them?
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Do you feel guilt and resentment toward the very person you sacrifice yourself for?
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Have you ever stayed too long with a partner who drinks, uses, or cannot stand on their own, because they needed you?
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At bottom: do you need the other person, or need to be needed, in order to be well with yourself?
This is an information tool, not a diagnostic one: no online test can diagnose anything. If you recognise yourself here and it is causing you difficulty, the right next step is a conversation with a qualified professional.
What the answers mean
Little of this sounds like you
On this evidence your sense of your own worth does not appear to hang on another person’s attention, which is worth knowing rather than assuming. One caution: if a single question pierced you, trust that one over the count. A situation that hurts tells you more than nine that do not.Some of this sounds like you
Patterns of this kind are common and sit on a spectrum; recognising several of them does not make you codependent. What matters is whether they cost you something, sleep, money, self-respect, relationships you would rather have kept. If they do, they are worth understanding rather than managing alone. Start with codependency and emotional dependency, which explains where the pattern comes from.Most of this sounds like you
That most of these landed is worth taking seriously rather than filing away for later. What it describes is not loving too much; it is a sense of your own worth that rests on another person’s gaze, or on being needed, and that is among the more workable things people bring into a consulting room. For where it comes from, read codependency and emotional dependency; if it was the rescuing questions that landed hardest, the saviour complex is the closer fit. And if the suffering is real, a first conversation is confidential and without commitment.What your answers mean
The count is a prompt, not a verdict. One question that pierced you can matter more than five ticked absently, and no arrangement of ten answers amounts to a diagnosis. What the clinic has taught me: when most of these situations sound like you, and above all when they hurt, it is not that you love too much. It is that your self-worth hangs on the other person’s gaze, or on being needed, and that has a name. The good news holds in one sentence: what was learned can be unlearned.
What comes next
To understand where it comes from and how it heals: codependency and emotional dependency, and the saviour complex. For the full ground: the free book The Hold. And if the suffering is real, the next step can be spoken: a first conversation is confidential and without commitment.
Other tests: highly sensitive person, am I with a narcissist, borderline.
Common questions
Is this codependency test a diagnosis?
No, and no online test is. It is a tool for reflection: ten questions drawn from twenty-five years of clinical practice, to help you look honestly at your way of loving and helping. A real assessment happens with a clinician, in a conversation.
What is the difference between codependency and emotional dependency?
A motto for each says it all: emotional dependency is 'I need you in order to be well with myself.' Codependency is 'I need to fix you in order to be well with myself.' The first questions below speak to the first; the last ones to the second; many people recognise themselves in both.
What should I do if I recognise myself?
Read the pages on codependency and the saviour complex, which explain where it comes from and how it heals. And if the suffering is real, talk about it: a first conversation is confidential and without commitment.