Jimmy Piersall was like most red-blooded American boys growing up in the 1930s. He loved to play America’s favorite pastime. From as early as Jimmy can remember, his father taught him to play baseball. In his book Fear Strikes Out, Jimmy recounts, “One of my earliest memories… was standing in the yard behind the house, catching a rubber ball and lobbing it back to my dad. I learned how to catch and throw a ball before I learned the alphabet.”

His worries eventually became obsessions that took over his life.

According to Jimmy, he loved playing catch with his dad. It was fun—until it started to become an obsession. Jimmy’s father, a strict man with a violent temper, put enormous pressure on his son to become a major league baseball player. As early as the first grade, his dad said to him, “I don’t want you thinking about fun. When you grow up, I want you to become a slugger like Jimmy Foxx. That is where the money is.” He drilled into Jimmy’s young head, “You must learn baseball backwards and forwards. The more you know, the better you’ll be.” Jimmy later recounted, “I could tell what a batter should do in any given situation before I could write my name.”

According to Jimmy’s autobiography, one of his biggest concerns was “whether or not I’d ever be big enough or good enough to play major league baseball. My father put the idea in my head, but it became the one burning ambition of my life. I was just as anxious to make it as he was to see me do it.”

… a problem that is more common than most people realize.

Jimmy’s father often warned him about avoiding injuries that could hurt his performance. On one occasion he said, “Remember, son, you grip a bat with all 10 fingers. If anything is wrong with one of them, it can ruin you.” When Jimmy was 17, he broke his arm in a pickup game of touch football. His dad sobbed like a baby and said, “After all I tried to do to keep you for baseball, look what you did to yourself. Now everything’s gone.”

Jimmy’s life was full of pressure and worry. Along with worrying about becoming a professional baseball player and pleasing his father, he had other concerns too. He worried about his mother’s happiness and making enough money to take care of his parents, his wife, and his baby. His worries eventually became obsessions that took over his life. He became extremely suspicious of anyone who didn’t understand his obsessions, and began to alienate anyone who got in his way.

Jimmy made it to the major leagues in 1952. And he was successful. But the obsessions shaped by his father’s expectations drove him over the edge. In June of 1952, he suffered such a severe breakdown that 7 months disappeared from his memory.

“I was just as anxious to make it as he was to see me do it.”

Jimmy Piersall’s story is an example of a problem that is more common than most people realize. The term codependence didn’t exist back then, but today many would see part of Jimmy’s problem as an overreliance on his father’s approval. He was driven by an unhealthy and impossible goal of trying to control anything that would cause him to fall short of his father’s expectations.

Codependency, in whatever form it takes, is a tortured and often misunderstood way to live. People who struggle with this problem live in a personal prison of stress and anxiety that monopolizes their thoughts and feelings. While they are aware of their misery, they often don’t see the underlying problem that is at the root of their trouble.

While most people with codependency don’t end up in a severe state of collapse, many can identify with some or all of the following statements:

  • I worry too much about a person or problem.
  • I feel as if I must stay on top of everything.
  • I feel responsible when others are angry or sad.
  • I minimize or cover for what others do wrong.
  • It seems as though I’m always apologizing for something.
  • I have difficulty disagreeing with others.
  • I tip-toe around those I’m afraid of.
  • I’ll do anything to keep the peace.
  • I tend to cling to others.
  • I want others to take care of me.
  • I tend to offer unrequested help.
  • I try to fix people’s problems.
  • I often feel used by those
    I try to help or please.

If you identify with any of the above statements, please read on. Even though it may be difficult, what you are about to read is written with the confidence that there is a better way to live.