One of my favorite exhibits at the Atlanta Zoo is the gorilla pen. Right at the front there is a perfect spot to stand, where you can see the entirety of the pen and it feels like you’re close up with the gorillas. At certain points in the day, when they’re out on a grassy knoll in front of this viewing point you can gaze and lock eyes with them, and there’s this communication happening without words which is very cool. What lives we lead, you can intimately connect with a gorilla and it feels like you’re right there in the pen with them!

Of course, this feeling of “being in the pen” is just a well designed illusion. There is an entire ravine and system of intricate fences and barriers dividing our two spaces. It is keeping humans out of the gorilla pen and keeping gorillas out of the human pen.

For if a gorilla or human were to ACTUALLY be inside the pen of the other, it would simply be chaotic. Who knows what might happen if an adult or small child were to intrude into the clearly demarcated space of our simian neighbors? Or if the gorillas suddenly found themselves out in the zoo food court trying to decide between different flavors of gelato? This is why the boundary exists.

Imagine if you were extremely afraid of gorillas. Maybe you were burned by a gorilla in the past and it still hurts to think about it? I’m sure it happens. Perhaps you might still want to see them, but from nothing more than a long distance off. So you stand, not near the exhibit, but rather at the entrance to the zoo. The entrance is quite a distance away, so you squint and gaze in the direction of their pen. You might be able to see a few hairy black blobs moving around, but it’d be nothing at all like standing at the viewing area. There’d be no real connection.

This analogy is far from perfect and I mean no disrespect to either humans or apes. But it illustrates a dynamic many of us can identify with: when it comes to relationships, you may feel caught between two extremes. We are either far too emotionally distant and protective, like people who won’t even step one foot past the zoo’s entrance. Or we’re enmeshed and harmfully entangled: we have fallen into the gorilla pen.

We swing back and forth between these extremes. One minute we’re over-involved with a loved one, the next we’re avoiding all contact. It becomes a patterned cycle of overhelping, overcommitting, and overfunctioning, followed by retreat, withdrawal, resentment, exhaustion, anger, and avoidance. We just can’t seem to find the right balance, our version of the little viewing stand to connect with the gorillas in our life without hopping the fence that is there to maintain healthy boundaries.

In my work as a therapist, I observed this phenomenon in families affected by addiction, trauma, dysfunction, and their closely related cousin - codependency.

Codependency is like falling into the gorilla pen or what I call the “1.3 Principle”. A balanced family, community, relationship or person will always give and receive in a way that’s not too much or too little(1). Though of course there are situational fluctuations up and down, over long periods of time a person will both give and receive a proper amount relationally from those around them. They will also maintain a sense of healthy boundaries, where each person is connected but neither TOO close nor TOO far away. In codependency, this sense of balance is severely disrupted.

In a codependent system, one part is not functioning properly causing the other parts to overcompensate. Take a family of four, where one member struggles with addiction. Normally 1+1+1+1=4, but in this instance the other members must make up the difference, therefore 1.3+1.3+1.3+0.1= 4.

Again, this is an inexact and imperfect description, but rather illustrates the idea that addiction, trauma, and dysfunction are not simply issues for the individual. They create havoc in the whole network of people involved, whether it be a family, romantic relationship, friendship or close community.

Sadly, even if the individual recovers, those around them may still struggle with codependent tendencies for many years. They are frequently giving too much (1.3) or too little (0.7). They can never seem to find that place of balance and appropriate boundaries.

It’s either a cold, standoffish, protective stance by the Zoo’s entrance. A place where they can never experience deeper intimacy and connection, and where they may ultimately end up relationally lonely and unsatisfied.

Or it’s a reckless tumbling, headlong, straight into the gorilla pen.

Falling Into the Gorilla Pen