Part of the Healing Looks Like series on Journey On Strong
Healing doesn’t always look the way we expect it to. It isn’t always dramatic breakthroughs, big realizations, or perfectly put-together moments of strength. Often, healing shows up quietly in the small choices we make each day. These are the moments when we choose rest, set a boundary, tell the truth about how we feel, or give ourselves…
CW: Perp, Cis-Harmful, Isolation
the only thing i understood of S5/S6 of “mare fuori” is that Rai and italy isn’t ready for this type of condependent toxic yaoi ship
Am I the only one who finds codependency far more interesting when it’s not rooted in any romantic feelings. like obviously I love codependency between lovers it’s so interesting but codependency between friends or family is somehow more intriguing to me am I weird.
Turns out my mum’s codependent so if that doesn’t explain everything I don’t know what will
So many people are really out here building co-dependent relationships from the ground up
Growing Up with Addiction: How Adult Children of Addicts Can Heal Family Trauma, C-PTSD, and Codependency
by Tian Dayton
This is a topic that interests me greatly, but once again I would like to reiterate that what we read and study is by no means a substitute for good psychotherapy. However, as a form of maintenance, the exercises suggested in this book are excellent.
Questo é un argomento che mi interessa moltissimo, ma anche stavolta vorrei dire nuovamente che quanto leggiamo e studiamo, non sostituisce assolutamente una buona psicoterapia. Come mantenimento invece, gli esercizi suggeriti da questo libro vanno benissimo.
I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.
It’s so nice not having to deal with a man who thinks we have to do everything together. I’m too grown for that codependency shit, let me have my passions and hobbies that are just mine.
Not every child who excels is celebrated.
Some children learn very early that their competence disrupts the emotional balance of the family. Instead of applause, there is tension. Instead of pride, there is comparison. Instead of safety, there is something unspoken in the room.
Children are exquisitely sensitive to emotional shifts. They do not need words to understand when something has…
When Success Feels Dangerous: How Childhood Jealousy Creates Codependency in Adulthood
You know something is wrong. You feel it when you rehearse how to tell them about your day before you get home, making sure to phrase things in a way that won’t set them off. You feel it when you’re apologizing for something that wasn’t your fault — again — and you can’t quite explain how you got there. You feel it in the particular exhaustion of <u>living with a narcissistic partner</u> who can…
Trapped but Not Powerless: Surviving Life while living with a Narcissistic Partner
When you grow up in a family caretaker role, giving so much of yourself feels natural. You see the impact on those you love, and it feels rewarding. I watched my brother’s kids grow from babies to young adults, treating them as my own. I also took care of my grandmother for seven years; I received much praise for it, and that is the only way I could feel special back then was by giving.
You get used to an atmosphere where you are the “Giver.” It feels good to be praised, but often, you don’t know how to love yourself—or how to let others love you. You only know how to let them brag on you.
In the past, I didn’t know how to be a healthy partner. I only knew how to be obsessive. I treated my last two boyfriends like celebrities, putting them on pedestals and “kissing the ground they walked on.” In doing so, I was denying myself and hurting myself. I had no self-respect, nor did I really respect my ex-boyfriends by treating them the way I did. 
It is hard to receive when you have spent a lifetime being the giver. My dad told me you can’t be a good giver without being a good receiver, but learning to receive has been difficult and uncomfortable. It requires vulnerability, humility, and finding worth in yourself. You have to believe you are worthy of someone’s love.
It can be painful to look back at old wounds and ask, “Where was this safe love in the past?” If love is so beautiful and real, why did it feel absent before? But each day is a new opportunity to rebuild, relearn, and grow. Every time you open up a tiny bit and see that someone didn’t use your vulnerability against you, you find a little more trust.
I don’t know what you are healing from, but give yourself grace and patience today. I am still learning to open my hand and trust that good things can happen. You have to trust that you’ve learned your lessons and that this new chapter can actually be good.
It is okay to be a little skeptical—some skepticism is healthy. But we can’t be so guarded that we push away blessings out of a fear of the past.
2-26-26 at 3:15 p.m. (222)
• Snapping is when I assume someone meant something they did not directly say those exact words so I reacted to what I heard but what they said was different so they wonder why I am defensive.
• I do not, in fact, have to be totally responsible for preventing someone else from the consequences of their own actions (or natural consequences).
• Learning to trust openly, that even if the world around me had the ability to destroy me (and it could), that I know within myself I can withstand and persist. That lets me let go of needing control.
• It’s fine if someone found me a little weird or even off-putting. I am a little weird, not everyone will like me, and it’s no big deal.
• I’d rather be misunderstood for being genuine than praised for conforming.
• It isn’t my responsibility to figure out what they feel, how they think, or to understand their intentions and desires.
• I am in control and have agency for making sure that I am comfortable.
I want to be honest with you from the very beginning — because this blog post is personal. For most of my life, I have found myself attracting the wrong people. I am talking about the kind of people who take and take, and somehow I always find a way to give more. I feel other people’s pain deeply. If someone is hurting, I feel it in my chest. I can walk into a room and immediately sense when…
i was the sun made incarnate
& it was there that i did opine
pearls dripping with red wine
wisdom for the ages
but do you remember now
how you’d demanded this of me
if i was to earn your love
then i would first need to burn
the day you took my hand
entangled it in your bracken blest
i knew i wanted forever like this
when i was klept in awe of you
when sang you into my clenched fist
when the…
Originally posted at: https://theonlinetherapist.blog/the-codependents-guide-to-surviving-a-breakup/
Break-ups can be nasty experiences and we all go through them. It can be a shock to the system and can knock us off course for a while. The best case scenario is that a couple can mutually agree to separate and logically work through that process and even then it can be difficult adjusting to the…
Empathy is not when you feel what the other person feels. Empathy is when you can understand what they feel and act accordingly, for example you hide your joy to comfort someone who is sad. Yes, sometimes you cry for their pain.
Co-dependence is when you feel what the other person feels and your emotional landscape depends on the other persons emotions.
A Cinderella Story ?
As a high masking undiagnosed autistic 18 year old with narcissistic parents, I was told I always had to do things that I wasn’t suited to - that was just reality, real life, and anything less, any accommodation, any time for art or writing in my adult life was unrealistic.
They threatened to kick me out of the house (in a brief but brutal ultimatum conveniently after my mom’s parents left) if I didn’t start paying them rent immediately from the date of my highschool graduation.
But the upside was that they would accept 2 hours a day of housework in lieu of rent - they would require this each and every day, even after I’d worked an 8 hour shift at a physical job without transportation to and from work (there were days the vehicle sat idle and they just refused to let me use it). This was designed to break my spirit, to force their will upon me.
I was required to be overstimulated and dysregulated at work, with no energy to do anything else, my raisons d'etre - my hopes and dreams for my writing and art were systematically destroyed. My special interests that served to balance my brain and give me hope, peace and joy were labelled as the worst sins and strictly forbidden.
They made sure I was too exhausted to work on my novel in my spare time, and too shamed to work on my art.
It was kind of medieval, even when they did it, but now, 25 years into the future, it’s so obviously, completely wrong that when I write this, nobody will disagree with me that it was abuse.
It also caused trauma, cPTSD from the repeated cycle, over and over being told the same things by different people and having the rug pulled out from under me by those who had the power to help but absolutely refused, playing judge, jury and executioner of my dreams instead.
A year or so later after my first year of university in a dark, cold place with no sun in the winter, having suffered terribly from the mental and physical ravages of vitamin and mineral deficiencies due to the undiagnosed gluten intolerance and IBS, lack of sunshine, anxiety, and seasonal depression, I knew I couldn’t continue the academic liberal arts trajectory they had set out for me.
Not only was I physically and mentally ill, undiagnosed and untreated, I was also neurodivergent, undiagnosed and untreated.
With God’s help, I managed to identify the fact that my brain was unbalanced in part by the lack of creative pursuits which had been my bread and butter growing up. I was allowed to freely pursue them until I was about 11, and then my dad decided that I needed to grow up and he decided to abuse me just enough to quash my personal creative writing so that I would have “more room” in my life for academics.
I told my parents that I wanted to enroll in an art school in the lower mainland next term, and transfer my scholarships to that program.
They unequivocally refused. They said that since my dad had started the fund (CST) when I was young, he would rather let it go to other deserving children who had no money than let the money go to me getting an arts degree.
So I said, “No thank you, I don’t need your money, and I’m not continuing with university until I’m diagnosed and treated.”
I guess the church decided that was a big sin. A lot of our friends berated me, threatening me with tales of prostitution, single motherhood and struggle. Others mocked the artist as a career choice - but what other choice did I have?
How is “cautionary tale” even remotely accurate description of what I did in response to the abuse and injustices I suffered? How vastly inaccurate is that description of my choices in this time period? Would they, given the same choices, have chosen any different.
It was a privileged position to look down on me from their tower and decide that I’m awesome, while hurting me on purpose without acknowledging or apologizing, at the same time being insulated by their own loving families and their relational alliance/sexual relationship/common law marriage.
Yes, I get my dad had family of origin trauma, and he didn’t want me to turn out addicted and unemployed like his bright and artistic younger sister, but does that give him the right to traumatize me?
What gave the church of God the right to stand in judgement over me for these things?
I had two bright spots in my life when I had known the love of a family (When I was dating Jos and during YWAM) and they were both stripped away with a voracity and violence that could only be accomplished by the devil himself.
I guess this is why the brother thing happened. One day during the lecture phase of my DTS we were asked to put up our hands if we didn’t have a brother. It wasn’t that far off from other types of reconciliation I’d seen happen in YWAM meetings. The guys were supposed to pray and commit to being a brother to one of these young women. There was a lot of trust involved in something like this, but I believe it was spontaneous, prophetic, well-intentioned but poorly planned and terribly supported. (Not supported at all or checked on.)
The brother I was supposed to have ended up on my team and one of his friends had a crush on me but I wasn’t supposed to know…but I had a crush on the brother person and everybody knew.
So this other guy, the friend of the brother, kept getting angry with the brother when he tried to be familial with me, because he felt I was taking it the wrong way - and maybe I was - but isn’t that what you’re supposed to want when your experience of family has been so f9cked up? Aren’t you supposed to be attracted to what is healthy and that is a sign of healing???
Since then and once out of that fishbowl of YWAM scrutiny I have considered the fact that I am now attracted to healthy men (rather than immature ones with bad habits) it is a sign I am healing from having an absent, violent, scary, verbally abusive and controlling father.
Long story short, the brother was persuaded by the other guy to leave me alone so he could have a chance with me - only he never took his place thus - and thereafter I was left alone and uncovered with no one to come and speak truth to advocate for me, in a fierce and ferocious way that protective older males do for their family members when the world threatens them.
So I was devastated, and all alone in a tornado of destruction where everything and everyone I loved were suddenly gone, and anything I could do in my own strength to save myself was ripped away.
I lacked the knowledge to diagnose myself mentally, medically, of neurodivergence; I lacked the words to describe what was going on inside my head. I still thought I was normal. Everyone from YWAM had moved on and they had stopped responding to my messages.
I had nothing, and no one.
I was shocked by the unprecedented witchcraft present in my Christian friends and family evidenced by the lengths of verbal, spiritual, relational and financial abuse they would go to in order to get me back under fear rather than walking in faith for this new thing God was doing.
I guess, dear Emmy, if you are reading this, God may have been warning me after all in those dark predictions I started writing in my journal during the last half of outreach. I now believe that I was hearing Him correctly and the fact that I didn’t - we didn’t- think it was a theme befitting of our God left me sorely bereft. We discounted those words of warning, so I didn’t prepare as I should have because I didn’t expect to return home to a time of struggle, sickness, betrayal and loss.
There is no perfect storm, you say? I would beg to differ.
Love should be constant.
UNSINGLE QUOTES From the book, UNSINGLE: How to Date Smarter and Create Love That Lasts
