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The Promises of Recovery
Recovery is a transformational journey called individuation. The promises of recovery and the benefits it returns are freedom, confidence, and self-love. There are stages of recovery from addiction and codependency, from building awareness and detaching, doing the hard work of changing yourself and your life, to eventually experiencing the promises.
It’s common for people to complain that their partner or loved ones aren’t working on themselves. They think, “Why bother?” This attitude is ill-conceived, because we embark on this journey to change ourselves, and we are the ones who reap the rewards.
What is Narcissistic Abuse?
Narcissists don’t really love themselves. Actually, they’re driven by shame. It’s the idealized image of themselves, which they convince themselves they embody, that they admire. But deep down, narcissists feel the gap between the façade they show the world and their shame-based self. They work hard to avoid feeling that shame. This gap is true for other codependents, as well, but a narcissist uses destructive defense mechanisms that damage relationships and their loved ones’ self-esteem.
What Is a Trauma Bond?
A trauma bond is an attachment to an abuser in a relationship with a cyclical pattern of abuse. Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., coined the term in 1997. He defined it as an adaptive, dysfunctional attachment occurring in the presence of danger, shame, or exploitation in order to survive. It is a trauma reaction created due to a power imbalance and recurring abuse mixed with intermittent positive reinforcement; in other words, good and bad treatment. The abuser is the dominant partner who controls the victim with fear, unpredictability, belittling, and control.
Having a Narcissistic Parent
A narcissistic parent behaves as they imagine themselves to be—the king or queen of the family, or someone whose activities are more important than being part of the family. As a child, your parents are your world until you’re able to leave home. Your survival and self-concept depend on them. A narcissistic parent can severely damage your self-esteem, which to develop requires love and acceptance from both parents. Children of narcissistic parents typically grow up insecure and codependent.Continue reading
Narcissists’ Dirty Little Secret
You won’t guess abusers’ dirty little secret – the one thing narcissists and abusers don’t want you to know. In fact, they find it so shameful that most of them won’t admit it even to themselves. They hide it behind their abuse and bluster, their braggadocio, and their arrogance.
People are fooled by the narcissist’s bold persona. They’re confused by their words and intimidated and shamed by their aggression. They don’t realize that an abuser’s personality is a mask and that their behavior is a smoke and mirror game. It’s manufactured as a defense system to hide a scared, insecure child inside – a child who feels as insignificant as the abuser’s pretense of importance.
Their secret is that they feel insecure and needy. This is why they must at all costs feel powerful and in control. Once you realize this, it explains their entire personality and abuse. They act as if they’re needless and judge their partners for their needs and feelings. Some abusers and narcissists seem quite self-sufficient outside of an intimate relationship.
Are You Feeding Narcissistic Supply?
Narcissists hunger to have their needs for power, admiration, and attention filled is constant and relentless. They require continuous validation and praise but don’t hope for the same in return. If you’re in a close relationship with a narcissist, they expect you to supply them.
The term “narcissistic supply” is based on the psychoanalytic theory that concerns essential needs of babies and toddlers to maintain their mental and emotional equilibrium. Loss of necessary supplies in childhood can lead to depression and later attempts to get them through addiction and other means.
Narcissists’ deficient self and inner resources make them dependent on other people to affirm their impaired self-esteem and fragile ego. They only validate themselves as reflected in the eyes of others.
Despite their facade of confidence, boasting, and self-flattery, they crave attention, respect, and constant admiration and actually fear that they’re undesirable.
Continue reading
How to Have Boundaries in the Pandemic
Maintaining boundaries is challenging for most of us. But the pandemic has made it even more difficult. People have been quarantined with a partner, housemate, or family for nearly a year. Normally, we could create physical space by seeing friends, going to work, the gym, or even taking side trips.
All that has changed. People who have been alone and lonely realize how much they need others. Some couples are closer, while others are headed for divorce.
Drug and alcohol abuse has risen, as well as mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. A recent UK study reveals some interesting statistics:
Why Receiving is Hard
Is receiving a compliment or a gift difficult for you? Do you ever ask for a favor or help, or would you rather do it yourself? These are just small examples of why you may not be getting the love you want in a relationship. In healthy relationships, there is a daily exchange of love, help, and cooperation. Continue reading
Narcissists’ Tactics to Gain Power and Self-Esteem
To some degree, we all desire to improve our social status and self-esteem, but narcissists feel compelled to. A recent study concluded this is their constant concern. More than most people, they look to others for self-definition and self-esteem, which is very high or low. Continue reading
Healing Psychic Wounds of Codependency
Codependency is more than a relationship problem. Wounds of codependency affect our psyche and individual development. Make no mistake. It’s to no fault of our own. Codependency is adaptive and helped us survive growing up in a dysfunctional family system. But that adjustment cost us our individuality, authenticity, and our future quality of life. The beliefs and behaviors we learned led to problems in adult relationships. In fact, they tend to recreate the dysfunctional family of our past. Continue reading
4 Types of Narcissism Share a Core Trait
There are four major types of narcissism. Researchers have been hunting for the core of narcissism that all narcissists share despite varying symptoms and severity. Narcissists use a variety of tactics and defenses to keep you insecure and ensure their status and their needs are met. It’s easy to be confused, but it’s important to understand and spot which type of narcissist you’re dealing with. Recently, two research teams have identified a common trait.
Dating a Narcissist
You won’t realize you’re dating a narcissist. Narcissists are exceedingly skilled at making you like them. They can be alluring, charming, and exciting to date. In fact, in one study, it took seven meetings for people to see through their likable veneer. When dating, a narcissist has a greater incentive to win you over—sadly, sometimes all the way to the altar. Narcissists are never boring. Continue reading
How to Tell if You’re Willful or Strong Willed
Strong-willed people are successful, yet those who are willful often sabotage success. Willful individuals can be fiercely stubborn in their opinions and pursuit of their goals, ignoring what other people think and need. They often fiercely force their will despite obstacles or negative implications. Their behavior has obsessive and compulsive qualities in that they’re unable to let go and is an obstacle to overcoming codependency and addiction. Continue reading
Changing Codependent Dynamics in Abusive Relationships
If you’re in an abusive relationship, you may not realize that your behavior encourages the relationship’s unhealthy dynamics. Often codependents are in abusive relationships with addicts or people who have mental illness. From my personal and professional experience, it’s hard – nearly impossible – to change the dynamics in abusive relationships without support, particularly in a long-term relationship. Continue reading
How to Detach and Let Go with Love
Although it’s painful to see our loved ones be self-destructive, detaching allows us to enjoy our lives despite another person’s problems and behavior. Attachment and caring are normal. It’s healthy to get attached to people we love and care about, but codependent attachment causes us pain and problems in relationships. We become overly attached—not because we love so much but because we need so much. Continue reading
7 Ways of Cultivating Love in Your Life
Most of us seek someone to love or to love us. We don’t think about cultivating self-love or realize that love originates within. You may be seeking a relationship, but research suggests that singles are actually happier than married people, with the exception of happily married people. But even that dwindles over time. A new study shows that on average, after the first year, spouses return to their baseline state of happiness prior to the marriage. Thus, similar to the conclusions reached in the studies done on lottery winners, after marriage and after winning, we eventually return to how happy we are as individuals.
Self-esteem matters. Research has well-established that it’s a big factor in the health and happiness of marriage. Low self-esteem can prevent us from reaping the rewards of love in a relationship.
Science Explains Mind Control!
A new study sheds light on how people influence and control our mind. Research on mice, whose brains are remarkably similar to humans, reveals that our brains are affected by those around us. The key factor is dominance. The brain of the subordinate mouse synchronized with the dominant mouse. This likely applies to our relationships. Typically, people with stronger personalities make the decisions and get their needs met more often than their partners do.
Sibling Bullying and Abuse: A Hidden Epidemic
Sibling abuse is the most common but least reported abuse in the family. Prevalence is higher than spousal or child abuse combined with consequences well into adulthood similar to parent-child abuse. Up to 80 percent of youth experience some form of sibling maltreatment; yet, it’s been called the “forgotten abuse.” [1] Therapists also frequently overlook it. Continue reading
8 Ways We Sabotage Love
Although we seek love, we may unwittingly damage or derail it. Surprisingly, our fear of not being loved, which includes fear of abandonment, loneliness, and rejection, can lead to eight frequent behaviors that sabotage love and relationships. When we lack self-love, although we may have relationships, generally they’re unfulfilling or don’t last. We won’t find real love if we don’t believe we’re lovable. Continue reading
The Startling Reason We Sabotage Love
Most relationships fail and nearly half of American adults are unmarried. Why can’t we find love and why don’t relationships last? As much as we want love, paradoxically, we also fear it. Fear of not being loved is the greatest reason we don’t find love and sabotage it in relationships. Ironically, we can create our worst fear by trying to avoid it. This may sound ridiculous if you attract distancers.
What is Healthy Narcissism? Is It Self-Love?
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance,” wrote Oscar Wilde. Known for his wit and irony, was Wilde referring to narcissistic love or real self-love and healthy narcissism? There is a difference. Wilde’s use of the word “romance” suggests the former. That’s a key to differentiating the two concepts.
Romantic love is filtered by illusion and idealization. In the romantic phase of relationships, intense feelings are predominantly based on projection and physical pleasure. All is rosy, because we don’t really know the other person or see his or her flaws.
Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is about narcissism.
How Shame Feels and What Makes it Toxic
Sprawled on the hallway floor, skirt flying, hitting and kicking, I wrestled with Tina before a crowd of junior high school schoolmates, including a dozen boys from my class. Tina was a gang member who had recently transferred from another school. She and her cohorts had taunted and insulted me all week. She started in again, shoving me at our adjacent lockers. I’d finally had enough, I pushed her back, and we ended up fighting on the floor.
Before actually harming one another, the girls V.P. escorted us to her office. Tina was expelled. I felt relieved that only my modesty was tarnished . . . until I returned home. Then I was mortified to discover a small rip in my panties! My defectiveness, symbolized by that imperfection, had been exposed. This is the essence of shame.
Why You Can Love an Abuser
Falling in love happens to us ― usually before we really know our partner. It’s because we’re at the mercy of unconscious forces, commonly called “chemistry.” Don’t judge yourself for loving an abuser or someone who doesn’t treat you with care and respect, because by the time the relationship turns abusive, you’re attached and want to maintain your connection and love. You may have overlooked hints of abuse at the beginning because abusers are good at seduction.
Why You Were Ghosted and What to Do
Rejection and breakups are hard enough, but being ghosted can be traumatic. It can leave you with unanswered questions that make it hard to move on. Although ghosting also occurs in friendships, it’s usually associated with dating. More devastating, but less common, is when a spouse disappears after years of marriage. It’s like the sudden death of the person and the marriage. But even the unexplained, unexpected end to a brief romantic relationship can feel like betrayal and shatter your trust in yourself, in love, and in other people.
Unexpected Trauma from Abuse
Codependency robs us of a self and self-love. We’ve learned to conceal who we really are, because we grew up pleasing, rebelling against, or withdrawing from dysfunctional parents. This sets us up for trauma. As adults, even if we’re successful in some areas, our emotional life isn’t easy. We’re insecure about our worth and find self-love elusive. Continue reading
Spiritual Transformation Through Relationship
A relationship can be an exciting spiritual path to the unknown. It offers an ever-present opportunity to grow―a path to spiritual transformation and mutual discovery and ultimately the divine. The word spirituality derives from “spiritus,” meaning vitality or breath of life. Like an electric charge, that force awakens our soul. The more we’re aligned with it, the stronger and more alive is our soul. We tap into this power each time we express ourselves authentically.Continue reading
Covert Tactics Manipulators Use to Control and Confuse You
Many of us don’t recognize manipulators or even realize they’re trying to control and confuse us. We may have an uneasy feeling in our gut that doesn’t match the manipulator’s words or feel trapped into agreeing with a request. Most people react in ways that escalate abuse. Or they play into the hands of the abuser and feel small and guilty, but retreat allows unacceptable behavior. If you had a manipulative parent, it may be harder to recognize it in a partner, because it’s familiar.
To “know your enemy” is essential in dealing with a manipulator. Spotting their hidden arrows allows you to respond strategically. Understanding what they’re up to empowers you.
What You Should Know about Narcissists, Their Partners, & NPD
Poor Narcissus. The gods sentenced him to a life without human love. He fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water and died hungering for its response. Narcissism was named for him. Like Narcissus, narcissists only love themselves as reflected in the eyes of others. It’s a common misconception that they love themselves. They actually dislike themselves immensely. Their inflated self-flattery, perfectionism, and arrogance are merely covers for the self-loathing they don’t admit–usually even to themselves. Instead, it’s projected outwards in their disdain for and criticism of others. Continue reading
What is Self-Esteem and How to Raise It?
Self-esteem is what we think of ourselves. When we raise our self-esteem, we have confidence and self-respect. We’re content with ourselves and our abilities, in who we are and our competence. Self-esteem has significant ramifications for our happiness and enjoyment of life. It affects not only what we think, but also how we feel and behave. It influences every aspect of our lives.
Why Narcissists Act the Way They Do
You can enjoy narcissistic symptoms when a narcissist is charming, charismatic, seductive, exciting, and engaging. But they can also act entitled, exploitative, arrogant, aggressive, cold, competitive, selfish, obnoxious, cruel, and vindictive. You can fall in love with their charming side and be destroyed by their dark side. It can be baffling, but it all makes sense when you understand what drives them. That awareness protects you from their games, lies, and manipulation.
Narcissists have an impaired, undeveloped self. They think and function differently from other people, because of the way their brain is wired, whether due to nature or nurture.
What is Codependency?
Codependency is sneaky and powerful. You may not be aware that it’s the root cause of your problems. If your thinking and behavior revolve around someone you may be codependent. Codependents tune out internal cues and instead of expressing their own needs and feelings, they react to someone or something external. Addicts are codependent, too. Their lives revolve around their addiction–be it food, work, drugs, or sex.
Need-Fulfillment is the Key to Happiness
The key to happiness is meeting our needs (need-fulfillment). Although codependents are very good at meeting the needs of other people, many are clueless about their own needs. They have problems identifying, expressing, and fulfilling their needs and wants. They’re usually very attuned to other people and may even anticipate their needs and desires. Over the years, they become used to accommodating others and lose the connection to their own needs and wants.
Combat Narcissists’ and Abusers’ Primary Weapon: Projection
Projection, in general, and narcissist projection are defense mechanisms commonly used by abusers, including people with narcissistic or borderline personality disorder and addicts. Basically, they say, “It’s not me, it’s you!” When we project, we are defending ourselves against unconscious impulses or traits, either positive or negative, that we’ve denied in ourselves. Instead, we attribute them to others. Our thoughts or feelings about someone or something are too uncomfortable to acknowledge. In our minds, we believe that the thought or emotion originates from that other person. Continue reading
The Danger of a Covert Narcissist
You may be fooled by a covert narcissist, but they’re every bit as much narcissists as the stereotypical extroverted narcissists. Some narcissists may emphasize one personality trait over others. A person with an outgoing personality might always show off and need to be the center of attention, while another narcissist might be a vindictive bully, an entitled playboy, an imperious authoritarian, or an exacting know-it-all, as articulated by Madonna, “Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion.”
Why and How Narcissists Play Games
Narcissists play games. To a narcissist, relationships are considered transactional, like buying and selling. The goal is to get what you want at the lowest price. It’s a self-centered, business mindset. Emotions don’t intrude.
In relationships, narcissists focus on their goals. For a male narcissist, that’s usually sex or to have a beautiful woman at his side. A female narcissist may be looking for material gifts, sex, acts of service, and/or an extravagant courtship. It’s important to understand a narcissist’s mind.
They see relationships as a means to get what they want, without concern for the feelings of the other person. Their only concern is what they can get out of it. Continue reading
Beware of the Dark Triad
Think of the Dark Triad of Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism as the Bermuda Triangle – it’s perilous to get near it! The traits of all three often overlap and create personality profiles that are damaging and toxic, especially when it comes to intimate relationships, where we let our guard down.
One woman was the subject of identity fraud. Her bank accounts and credit cards were compromised. She regularly spoke to the FBI and suffered extreme anxiety and emotional stress. The authorities were unsuccessful in finding the culprit.
How to Spot a Narcissist
Narcissists can be beguiling and charismatic. One study showed that their likable veneer was only penetrable after seven meetings. But don’t fall in love with one. Over time you can end up feeling ignored, uncared for, and unimportant. Typically, a narcissist’s criticism, demands, and emotional unavailability increase, while your confidence and self-esteem decrease. Here’s how to spot a narcissist… Continue reading
Love Bombing and Narcissistic Attachment
Love bombing can feel glorious! The lavish attention and affection seem to answer our prayers. We’ve found Mr. or Ms. Right―our soul mate; unsuspecting that we’ve been targeted by a narcissist. The bomber abruptly changes colors and loses interest, and our dream comes crashing down. Rejection is excruciating, especially at the height of romance. It’s a traumatic shock to our hearts. We feel duped, betrayed, and abandoned.
Deprogramming Codependent Beliefs
Codependency is based on false, dysfunctional beliefs that are learned from our parents and our environment. Recovery entails changing those beliefs, the most damaging of which is that we’re not worthy of love and respect – that we’re somehow inadequate, inferior, or just not enough. This is internalized shame. To change, we can challenge our beliefs. Learn how.
Dealing with Toxic Parents
Toxic relationships include relationships with toxic parents. Typically, they do not treat their children with respect as individuals. They won’t compromise, take responsibility for their behavior, or apologize. Often these parents have a mental disorder or a serious addiction.
We all live with the consequences of poor parenting. However, if our childhoods were traumatic, we carry wounds from abusive or dysfunctional parenting. We may not recognize it as such. It feels familiar and normal. We may be in denial and not realize that we’ve been abused emotionally, particularly if our material needs were met. Unfortunately, when they haven’t healed, toxic parents can re-injure us in ways that make growth and recovery difficult. The first step to protect yourself is awareness, followed by detaching and setting boundaries.
How to Tell if a Narcissist Loves You
Anyone who’s loved a narcissist wonders, “Does he really love me?” “Does she appreciate me?” They’re torn between their love and their pain, between staying and leaving, but don’t want to do either. Some swear they’re loved; others that they’re not. It’s confusing, because sometimes they experience caring companionship, only to be followed by demeaning behavior. Narcissists claim to love their family and partners, but do they?
How to Handle Narcissistic Abuse
We’re all capable of abuse when we’re frustrated or hurt. We may be guilty of criticizing, judging, withholding, and controlling, but some abusers, including narcissists, take abuse to a different level. Narcissistic Abuse can be physical, mental, emotional, sexual, financial, and/or spiritual. Some types of emotional abuse are not easy to spot, including manipulation. It can include emotional blackmail, using threats and intimidation to exercise control. However confronting and healing from narcissistic abuse is possible.
Do I Have to Lose Me to Love You?
Some of us get so wrapped up in a relationship that we tend to lose ourselves. It happens slowly until it’s too late. We don’t realize that losing our Self is the ultimate cause of despair. When the relationship inevitably ends, it’s devastating because we are lost. We might seem to do fine on our own, but the struggle to achieve it shows up in our relationships. We lose ourselves gradually in small imperceptible ways.
Do’s and Don’ts in Confronting Abuse
Abuse is about having power over someone. Abusers typically want to feel superior and to control and dominate. To them, communication is not about understanding. It’s a win-lose game. They use verbal abuse and/or violence to accomplish this. They’re frequently self-centered, impatient, unreasonable, insensitive, unforgiving, lack empathy, and are often jealous, suspicious, and withholding. Continue reading
5 Red Flags and Blind Spots in Dating a Narcissist
Narcissists can be beguiling and charismatic. They easily charm codependents. One study showed that narcissists’ likable veneer was only penetrable after seven meetings. I’ve had a number of clients who claimed that the courtship with their narcissistic spouse was wonderful and that abuse only began following the wedding. With greater insight, these clients admitted that there were signs that they’d overlooked. Here’s how to know whether or not you’re dating a narcissist…Continue reading
Gaslighting 101: Signs, Symptoms, and Recovery
Gaslighting is a malicious and hidden form of emotional and mental abuse, designed to plant seeds of self-doubt and alter your perception of reality. The term comes from the play and later film Gaslight with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.
Gaslighting refers to a deliberate pattern of manipulation calculated to make you trust the perpetrator and doubt your own perceptions or sanity, similar to brainwashing. Like all abuse, it’s based on the need for power, control, or concealment.Continue reading
Narcissus and Echo: The Heartbreak of Relationships with Narcissists
The poignant myth of Narcissus and Echo crystallizes the problem of relationships with narcissists. They were tragic characters in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Sadly, both partners feel insufficiently loved but are locked in a painful drama. Yet, the narcissist feels irreproachable and blames his or her partner, who too often readily agrees.
Narcissus was a handsome hunter who broke the hearts of many women. Despite their love, he remained aloof and arrogant. Pridefully, he held them in disdain.Continue reading
Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
Our mother is our first love. She’s our introduction to life and to ourselves. She’s our lifeline to security. We initially learn about ourselves and our world through interactions with her. We naturally long for her physical and emotional sustenance, her touch, her smile, and her protection. Her empathetic reflection of our feelings, wants, and needs informs us who we are and that we have value. A narcissistic mother who cannot empathize damages her children’s healthy psychological development. Continue reading
Trauma of Children of Addicts & Alcoholics
Living with an addict (including an alcoholic [1]) can feel like living in a war zone. The addict’s personality changes caused by addiction create chaos. Family dynamics are organized around the substance abuser, who acts like a tyrant, denying that drinking or using is a problem while issuing orders and blaming everyone else.
To cope and avoid confrontations, typically, family members tacitly agree to act as if everything is normal, not make waves, and not mention addiction. They deny what they know, feel, and see.
This all takes a heavy psychological toll, often causing trauma, especially on those most vulnerable, the children. Yet more than half are in denial that they have an addicted parent.Continue reading
5 Life-Changing Habits that Build Self-Esteem
Our thoughts are powerful – for better or worse. They set off chain reactions that build self-esteem or undermine it. Authority over our mind is the ultimate power. “Mind is everything. What you think you become,” said Buddha. Thoughts affect not only our mental health, relationships, and the ability to achieve our goals, but also our physical health – our digestion, circulation, respiration, immunity, and nervous system. Next are our actions. Change begins in the mind, but is manifested and amplified by our actions. Continue reading
Getting Triggered and What You Can Do
Getting your “buttons” pushed or getting “triggered” can hurt or enrage us. But it’s an opportunity to heal and grow. The more hurts we’ve endured and the weaker our boundaries, the more reactive we are to people and events. Our triggers – our buttons – are our wounds.
Codependents are off the charts when it comes to reacting to others’ feelings, needs, problems, opinions, wants, and more. When we react, we permit our insides to be taken over by someone or something outside of us. We’re pulled off center and might start thinking about that person or about what might happen in the future. There’s no filter or boundary. Continue reading
Relationship Killers: Anger and Resentment
Anger and resentment hurt when we don’t get what we want or need. It can escalate to rage when we feel assaulted or threatened by something physical, emotional, or abstract, such as an attack on our reputation. When we react disproportionately to our present circumstance, it’s because we’re really reacting to something in our past event – often from childhood.
Many of us have a lot of anger and for good reason, but we don’t know how to express it effectively.
How to Spot Manipulation
We all want to get our needs met, but manipulators use underhanded methods. Manipulation is a way to covertly influence someone with indirect, deceptive, or abusive tactics. Manipulation may seem benign or even friendly or flattering as if the person has your highest concern in mind. In reality, it’s to achieve an ulterior motive.
Sometimes, it’s veiled hostility. It can be abusive and the objective may purely be power. You may not realize that you’re being intimidated. If you grew up being manipulated, it’s harder to discern what’s going on, because it feels familiar. Continue reading
10 Tips to Spot Emotional Unavailability
If you’ve ever been in a relationship with someone emotionally unavailable, you know the pain of being unable to get close to the one you love. They’re evasive, make excuses or are just inept in talking about feelings or the relationship. Some use anger, criticism, or activities to create distance. You end up feeling alone, depressed, unimportant, or rejected. More women complain about emotional unavailability than men, yet are unaware that they’re emotionally unavailable, too. Continue reading
The Power of Personal Boundaries
Love won’t last without personal boundaries. It’s easy to understand external boundaries as your bottom line. Think of rules and principles you live by when you say what you will or won’t do or allow.
If you have difficulty saying no, override your needs to please others, or are bothered by someone who is demanding, controlling, criticizing, pushy, abusive, invasive, pleading, or even smothering you with kindness, it’s your responsibility to speak up.
Recovering from Rejection and Breakups
Because our nervous system is wired to need others, rejection and recovering from breakups are painful. Loneliness and the need for connection share the evolutionary purpose of survival and reproduction. Ideally, loneliness encourages us to maintain our relationships and reach out to others. Rejection in an intimate relationship especially hurts. It’s particularly difficult in the romantic phase of a relationship when you have unmet hope for the future.
How to Change Your Attachment Style
We’re wired for attachment – why babies cry when separated from their mothers. Depending especially upon our mother’s behavior, as well as later experiences and other factors, we develop a style of attaching that affects our behavior in close relationships. (Read how early “Attachment Style Shapes Our Choices“)Continue reading
Emotional Abuse: Beneath Your Radar?
Over 10 million men and women are subjected to domestic violence each year. Many more go unreported. Emotional abuse precedes violence, but is rarely discussed. Unfortunately, many don’t even realize it.
Emotional abuse may be hard to recognize, because it can be subtle, and abusers often blame their victims. Continue reading
Dealing with a Passive-Aggressive Partner
Passive-aggressive people act passive, but express aggression covertly. They’re basically obstructionist and try to block whatever you want. Their unconscious anger gets transferred onto you, and you become frustrated and furious. Your fury is theirs, while they calmly ask, “Why are you getting so angry?” or blame you for the anger they’re provoking.
Passive-aggressive partners are generally codependent, and like codependents, suffer from shame and low self-esteem.
Are You a Caregiver or Codependent Caretaker?
Conventional belief is that we can never love too much, but that isn’t always true. Sometimes, love can blind us so that we deny painful truths. We might believe broken promises and continue to excuse someone’s abuse or rejection. We may empathize with them but not enough with ourselves. If we grew up in a troubled environment, we might confuse our pain with love. Although relationships have disappointments and conflicts, love isn’t supposed to be painful and hurt so much. Are you a caregiver or a codependent caretaker? Continue reading
Living with an Addict – Alcoholic
In 2022, 48.7 million people aged 12 or older had a substance use disorder, including 29.5 million using alcohol, 27.2 million using drugs, and 8 million people who used both.
Living with an addict can be a living hell. Unpredictable and dangerous, yet sometimes exciting and romantic. Never knowing when we’ll be blamed or accused. Not being able to dependably plan social events. As the addict becomes more irresponsible, we pick up the slack and do more, often becoming the sole functioning parent or even the sole provider; yet we’re unable to lean on our partner for comfort or support.Continue reading
Are You a People-Pleaser?
A people-pleaser isn’t just big-hearted or kind to others. Nor are people-pleasers compromising. People-pleasing differs from accommodating someone though we rather not, because we value the relationship and know that compromise is necessary to sustain it. People-pleasers don’t have the luxury of choice. Their behavior has become a lifestyle. It’s compulsive, because they’re unable to say no.
Everyone starts out in life wanting to be safe, loved, and accepted. It’s in our DNA. Some of us figure out that the best way to do this is to put aside what we want or feel and allow someone else’s needs and feelings to take precedence. This works for a while. It feels natural, and there’s less outer conflict, but our inner conflict grows. If we’d like to say no, we feel guilty, and we may feel resentful when we yes. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t.
Trapped in an Unhappy Relationship?
Do you feel trapped in a relationship you can’t leave? Of course, feeling trapped is a state of mind. No one needs consent to leave a relationship. Millions of people stay in unhappy relationships that range from empty to abusive for lots of reasons, but feeling trapped often stems from unconscious fears.
People give many explanations for staying, ranging from caring for young children to caring for a sick mate. One unfaithful husband was too afraid and guilt-ridden to leave his wife ( because she was ill and 11 years his senior). His ambivalence made him so distressed, he died before she did! Money binds couples who believe they can’t afford to separate. Yet, couples with more means may cling to a comfortable lifestyle, while their marriage dissembles into a business arrangement. Continue reading
Symptoms of Codependency
The term codependency has been around for almost four decades. It originally applied to spouses of alcoholics, first called co-alcoholics. Research later revealed that the characteristics of codependents were much more prevalent in the general population than had been imagined. They found that if you were raised in a dysfunctional family or had an ill parent, it’s likely that you’re codependent. Don’t feel discouraged if that includes you. You’re in the majority! So, what are the symptoms of codependency? Continue reading
Why Can’t I Get Over My Ex?
Rejection and breakups are painful, especially for codependents – even in an abusive relationship! It can take us longer to get over a breakup, sometimes years, for even a short relationship. Codependents have difficulty letting go.
Breakups affect our self-esteem more than it does for people who are secure and confident. This is because breakups trigger hidden grief and cause irrational guilt, anger, shame, and fear.
What is Emotional Abandonment?
We may not realize that we’re feeling emotionally abandoned or that we did as a child. We may be unhappy, but can’t put our finger on what it is. People tend to think of abandonment as something physical, like neglect. They also may not realize that loss of physical closeness due to death, divorce, and illness can feel like emotional abandonment. However, emotional abandonment has nothing to do with proximity. It can happen when the other person is lying right beside us – when we can’t connect, and our emotional needs aren’t being met in the relationship.Continue reading
Codependency Relationship Problems
Everyone laughs when I tell them that I wrote Codependency for Dummies. But codependency in relationships is no laughing matter. It causes serious pain and affects the majority of Americans, both in and out of relationships. I know. I spent decades recovering.
There are all types of codependents, including caretakers, addicts, pleasers, and workaholics, to name a few. They all have one thing in common: They’ve lost the connection to their core. Their thoughts and behavior revolve around someone or something external, whether it’s a person or an addiction.
The Dance of Intimacy
The relationship duet is the dance of intimacy that all couples do. One partner moves in, the other backs up. Partners may reverse roles, but always maintain a certain space between them. The unspoken agreement is that the Pursuer chases the Distancer forever, but never catches up, and that the Distancer keeps running, but never really gets away.
They’re negotiating the emotional space between them. We all have needs for both autonomy and intimacy – independence and dependency, yet simultaneously fear both being abandoned (acted by the Pursuer), and being too close (acted by the Distancer). Thus, we have the dilemma of intimacy: How can we be close enough to feel secure and safe, without feeling threatened by too much closeness?
Tolerating Other People’s Reactions and Feelings
Tolerating other people’s reactions and feelings isn’t easy. It can be difficult to remain confident when we set boundaries. Others’ reactions can feel intense and personal, especially when they activate old childhood patterns of guilt, fear, or responsibility. Learning to tolerate discomfort is part of becoming emotionally independent and fully ourselves.
We may assume that if we’re being reasonable, clear, and respectful, our boundaries will be accepted. However, when we stop accommodating, rescuing, over-explaining, anticipating others’ needs, or taking responsibility for everyone’s emotional well-being, the people around us may react with disappointment, confusion, hurt, or anger. Others may withdraw, criticize, or challenge our new behavior.
The challenge is not simply learning to say no. The challenge is learning not to assume that their negative reaction means we’re responsible for their feelings or did something wrong, and not to become fearful and backpedal.
Childhood Trauma Adaptations
For many of us, childhood trauma is the cause. If our caregivers frequently blamed, criticized, punished, withdrew affection, became very emotional, or erupted in anger when we expressed our needs, we experienced relational trauma and shame. We learned that other people’s distress was dangerous. Hence, maintaining connection required monitoring, managing, and accommodating the emotional states of the adults around us.
As dependent children, those adaptations made sense. We could not simply leave difficult relationships. Most of us believed our parents were correct and that we were the ones who were wrong. We could not easily challenge authority or create distance from the people we depended upon. Our nervous systems learned to prioritize attachment and safety over authenticity. Additionally, for survival, if we believed we were wrong, then we could change our behavior to avoid shame and secure our relationship with our parents. Many of us became experts at reading moods, preventing conflict, and taking responsibility for feelings that were never ours to carry.
How Childhood Trauma Affects Adult Relationships
The problem is that these childhood adaptations often continue into adulthood. When a partner is disappointed, a friend is upset, or a family member disapproves of our choices, we may react as though we are facing the same danger we once faced as children. We may feel compelled to explain ourselves, apologize, reassure, justify, or retreat. We may become flooded with guilt, anxiety, shame, or fear. In those moments, we are often responding not only to the person in front of us but also to a much older emotional reality.
As adults, we often project old fears and expectations onto present-day relationships. We assume we will be blamed, rejected, abandoned, punished, or made responsible for restoring harmony. The people in our lives may indeed be controlling, critical, or emotionally immature. But even so, we are no longer dependent children and have options we did not have before. We can disagree. We can leave a conversation. We can establish limits. We can refuse unreasonable demands. We can choose which relationships deserve our time and energy. We can survive another person’s disappointment. Yet our nervous system doesn’t recognize this difference immediately and may respond to present-day conflict with fears rooted in our past.
Tolerating Other People’s Reactions
One of the most important steps in growth is distinguishing another person’s reaction from evidence that 1) the other person is injured; 2) we caused it; and 3) we deserve blame. However, someone can be disappointed without being injured, can dislike our decision without being mistreated, and can be upset or unhappy with us when we’ve done nothing wrong.
These distinctions are especially difficult if we quickly blame ourselves for another person’s reaction. The moment someone becomes upset, we assume we’ve made a mistake. Yet healthy relationships require a wider range of possibilities. The fact that different people react differently to us proves that it isn’t our behavior, but the other person’s personality and history that make them react the way they do.
Learning to tolerate these possibilities requires a skill that many of us were never taught: the ability to self-soothe before judging ourselves. When we feel guilty, anxious, ashamed, or afraid, we often instinctively conclude what we did was wrong. We try to eliminate the discomfort as quickly as possible. We apologize, backtrack, explain ourselves, or resume taking responsibility for someone else’s emotions. Yet emotional activation is not always evidence of wrongdoing. Sometimes it’s evidence that an old attachment wound has been activated.
We may regulate anxiety through anger, withdrawal from the relationship, or compliance to reattach to the person; other people become aggressive. Maturity requires a different response. Instead, we learn to pause long enough to determine whether the feeling we are experiencing reflects present reality or an old fear of rejection, punishment, or emotional abandonment. Only when we are calm can we accurately evaluate whether we have acted out of alignment with our values or are simply reacting to our past conditioning.
If we’re used to being understanding, accommodating, and reliable, caring for others becomes intertwined with our sense of identity and worth. When we change, retreating from excessive responsibility for others can feel selfish, cruel, or uncaring.
Healthy Relationships
Healthy relationships require balance. Caring about another person’s feelings is not the same as being responsible for them. We can empathize without absorbing. We can support without rescuing. We can care deeply about someone and still maintain our boundary, recognizing that others’ emotional experience belongs to them.
As we grow, we often encounter grief alongside freedom. We may grieve old identities, familiar roles, and relationships that depended on our self-sacrifice. We may discover that we maintained harmony at the expense of parts of ourselves. Growth often introduces tension into relationships that once felt stable. This does not mean something has gone wrong. It often means that something real is emerging. We are regaining our voice and authenticity.
Mature autonomy is not emotional distance, self-sufficiency, or indifference to others. It is the ability to remain connected without losing ourselves. It is the capacity to care about another person’s feelings while staying rooted in our own experience. It is learning to remain present when others disagree, disapprove, or feel disappointed without abandoning our position.
Relationships are healthiest not when everyone feels the same way, but when people can tolerate differences. Growth introduces complexity, ambivalence, and periods of disequilibrium. The task is not to eliminate these realities but to develop the emotional capacity to withstand them.
Strategies for Growth
One of the most helpful things we can do is learn to soothe ourselves before judging ourselves. When guilt, anxiety, or shame arises, we can pause rather than assume we have done something wrong. Breathing exercises, mindfulness practices, physical movement, supportive friendships, time in nature, or self-compassion can help calm the nervous system enough to think clearly.
Journaling can be invaluable. Writing often helps us separate present-day events from emotional memories and recognize when we’re responding to a current situation through the lens of past experiences. We can evaluate another person’s discomfort objectively and whether we’re being asked to violate our self-worth or values.
Psychotherapy can help us identify longstanding beliefs about responsibility, guilt, conflict, and worth. It provides support, objective feedback, and strengthens our ability to remain ourselves in the presence of other people’s emotions.
Finally, growth requires a willingness to tolerate our discomfort. We will not always feel certain. We will not always feel approved of. We will not always feel comfortable. Yet over time, we begin to discover that guilt is not necessarily proof of wrongdoing, conflict is not necessarily dangerous, and disappointment is not necessarily rejection.
Detaching doesn’t mean we stop caring about other people. The goal is to care without abandoning ourselves. As we change, we discover that genuine connection does not require self-erasure, but depends upon our ability to remain present, separate, and whole.
The Self-Love Meditation and exercises in Conquering Shame and Codependency will help you gain self-acceptance and heal underlying shame. How to Be Assertive provides steps, role-plays, and guidance to set boundaries in healthy ways. If you’re dealing with someone highly defensive, such as an addict or someone with a personality disorder, Dating, Loving, and Leaving a Narcissist provides specific strategies and scripts to detach and communicate with them more effectively.
© Darlene Lancer 2026
How to Stop Overthinking: Causes, Signs, and Solutions
When we grow up in a chaotic or unpredictable environment, we become dysregulated by uncertainty. Our brain can develop a “superpower” that doesn’t feel much like a gift: Overthinking. It’s often a response to trauma.
We often mistake “searching for answers” for “healing.” We tell ourselves that if we can just find the right psychological key—the perfect “why” behind our childhood—the discomfort will finally stop. But for many of us, this seeking is actually a sophisticated form of hypervigilance. In chaos, uncertainty was a threat. Now, as an adult, that same survival brain views unexpected behavior, unanswered questions, or a murky motive as a “danger zone.” The frantic need to know is a drive to regain a sense of safety that was stolen from us long ago.
The Resolution Trap: The Illusion of the Solvable Life
We become obsessed with resolution because we believe life is a puzzle. This is the Resolution Trap: the belief that “If I find the reason, the pain will stop.” In truth, our lives are shaped by variables we can never fully reveal. Seeking is a symptom of disquiet, not a solution. We eventually begin doubting each new “answer” because the nervous system itself hasn’t changed. There’s no gold ring.
This Resolution Trap has two faces, but they are driven by the same engine:
- The Trauma Seeker: If I find the reason for my past, the pain will stop.
- The Ideal Seeker: If I find the ideal partner, the perfect career, my “purpose,” the right home, or enough money, I’ll find peace or the emptiness will fill.
Not everyone experiences emptiness—especially those who overthink. For many, the drive isn’t to fill a hole, but to find a ceasefire. The mental noise will finally stop, and we will be allowed to rest. Both are looking for an external solution to an internal state of being.
If we have disquiet inside, the perfect future eventually becomes just another thing to overthink or doubt. The partner, the house, or the career becomes a new set of data to analyze for flaws. The nervous system hasn’t changed; only the scenery has. Seeking is a symptom of a lack of integration, not a solution to it.
How Overthinking Shows Up
The overthinker doesn’t just analyze the past; it treats the present like a crime scene.
- Prediction: We analyze and try to predict other people, their behavior, and motives. We evaluate our partner’s tone to prevent future pain. We’re not experiencing the person; we’re analyzing them to see if there’s a threat. We can develop obsessions about the person or the relationship.
- The Divided Self: We become split between the person “living” and the “observer” judging. We over-analyze our choices as we make them: “Why did I say that? Is my trauma showing?” It’s not just our past behavior we question. When our inner structure is weakened by shame, making a choice feels like a high-stakes gamble. We over-analyze because we don’t trust ourselves to survive a wrong move. We tell ourselves the perfect choice will protect us from self-criticism, but in reality, the seeking is just a way to delay the vulnerability of actually living.
- Fathoming the Unfathomable: We obsess over other people’s behavior to gain control. But people—especially family—are often mysteries to themselves. We’re trying to solve a puzzle with pieces the other person doesn’t even know they lost. We treat “not knowing” as a problem to be solved rather than a natural state of life. This causes endless analysis and anxiety, which causes its own cognitive distortions. We would rather have a painful answer than no answer at all, so we keep digging, exhausting ourselves in a search for a certainty that doesn’t exist.
Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Rilke
In Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke offers a line that many people feel before they fully understand:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves… Do not now seek the answers… live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
This is the tension: part of us wants closure; another part needs to stay in an unfolding process. “Living the questions” doesn’t mean staying stuck in analysis. It means allowing them to exist while we continue living. Instead of “Was I abused?” becoming a problem to solve, it becomes a question we carry—one that shapes how us love and forgive ourselves. We let clarity arrive rather than forcing it.
Integration: The End of Seeking
Lack of integration: When we aren’t integrated, we are split between the part that feels pain and the part that tries to “fix” it. The “seeking” is the friction between those two. Integration is the moment the seeking stops. Lack of Integration is having disparate memories and feelings—clips left on the cutting room floor—that keep us in a constant state of alarm. Because they haven’t been “put in their place,” our brain feels like they are still happening or could happen again. This triggers the seeking—the obsessive need to find out why to make sure those scary files stay locked away.
Integration: Integration is “the final cut.” When we integrate, we say: “This happened. It was painful, and I don’t fully understand why the other actors did what they did, but it belongs in the story.” The moment that scene is edited into the timeline, the hidden cause disappears. We don’t need a reason for every hole in the plot anymore; we just accept that they’re part of the script.
How to Integrate
Integration through Contradiction
Coming to terms with not knowing isn’t about finding a reason. It’s about learning to hold contradictions:
- I loved them, and they failed me.
- I am a good person, and I’ve made choices I don’t understand.
- I am safe now, even though the “why” is still missing.
Integration Through Action
Psychic resolution doesn’t happen in a library or a 3:00 AM Google search. It happens through:
- Action: Think “Analysis is paralysis.” Physical movement helps reset our nervous system stuck in a trauma loop. Simple actions like taking a walk or working with our hands through gardening or creating—we give our body “biological proof” that we’re grounded in the present, not trapped in the past.
- Self-Comforting: Developing the capacities to regulate our emotions and self-sooth are essential elements of building an internal structure that may not be fully developed due to dysfunctional parenting. Self-parenting enables us to interrupt continual questioning, “Why do I feel this?” and say, “I feel scared, and I’m going to sit with myself until it passes.” Self-soothing allows us to shift from investigator to caregiver.
- Acceptance over Understanding: We may never fully understand why things happened. Acceptance is acknowledging reality, so we stop trying to rewrite it in our head.
- The Transcendent Function: Carl Jung observed that our deepest conflicts are rarely “solved;” instead, they are gradually outgrown. When we are trapped between two opposites—”I must know why” and “I may never know”—the intellect eventually reaches its limit.
This resembles meditating on a Zen koan: Sitting with an impossible question until the mind exhausts itself and finally surrenders its demand for resolution. Out of that surrender, a third possibility can emerge—not a logical answer, but a larger wholeness that holds both truths at once. Jung called this the Transcendent Function.
Instead of forcing the conflict to resolve, stay present long enough for something new to arise. The seeking softens. Integration begins. We realize we do not have to build the bridge; we only have to stop tearing it down with endless analysis.
Trusting the Process
Integration is quiet. It is essentially the process of “coming home” to ourselves. Once we’re home, we stop looking for the door. The things that don’t make sense about our family don’t necessarily get solved; they just become part of the furniture. They’re there, but we’re not tripping over them anymore.
This is why happier people “don’t care”—not because they found the answers, but because the urgency has vanished. When we’re connected to ourselves, we stop asking “Why did this happen?” and start asking “What do I want for lunch?”
The Beauty of the Unfinished Story
As we trust more and more in living our lives today, we gradually walk into the answers.
I wrote in a poem many years ago, long before I understood the weight of the journey that began in childhood by trying to make sense of my dreams:
I looked for signs, but saw only darkness.
I had no compass for direction.
I’d sail, and drift, and sink again,
But winds of love were my protection.
* * *
I found a love within my heart,
And peace I’d never known.
After searching everywhere,
I learned my “Self” was always home.
From “My Ship Comes Home,” published in
Unfettered Soul, Poems and Contemplations on Recovery
© 2026 Darlene Lancer
Daughters of Narcissistic Fathers
Daughters of narcissistic fathers suffer long-term effects to their self-worth and romantic relationships. The father’s emotional needs, self-image, and interpersonal style shape the emotional climate of the household. Within this environment, the daughter adapts in ways that ensure connection and reduce conflict—even when that attachment is inconsistent, conditional, or confusing.
The impact of the father’s illness depends on several factors:
- The type and severity of narcissism
- The daughter’s personality (e.g., accommodating, independent, or rebellious)
- The daughter’s place in the family
- The mother’s ego strength and role
- The parents’ relationship
Narcissism can appear in different forms: grandiose, covert (vulnerable), or less frequently, malignant. Similar to the experience of daughters of narcissistic mothers, a narcissistic father may be uninvolved and distant and/or charming, controlling, critical, withdrawn, or emotionally needy.
Identifying Abusive and Coercive Control and What to Do
In relationships, control varies from mild to abusive to coercive control. When it’s mild, it can be helpful or annoying. When it’s abusive or coercive, it can be damaging. Control varies in pattern, frequency, severity, motive, and impact. Understanding these distinctions helps you recognize what you’re dealing with—and how to respond.
Control is not always obvious—it can develop gradually and be mistaken for care or concern. Similar behaviors can have very different meanings depending on their pattern and impact over time. The key is whether you feel free and respected, or inhibited and diminished.Continue reading
How Codependency Distorts Love and Sexuality
Love and sexuality can become distorted growing up in a codependent household. Very often, relational trauma quietly shapes children’s self-image and their adult relationships, including sex. They may experience chronic misattunement, emotional neglect or enmeshment, shame, and violated or blurred boundaries. A child’s emerging sexuality may be over-stimulated, tightly controlled, moralized, or subtly exploited.
In that atmosphere, children can feel unseen or loved for their compliance or performance, not for their true self, which they hide to feel safe and connected to their parents. So, too, sexuality may not develop naturally as embodied self-expression. It may become an arena for rebellion, validation, power, or proof of love and desirability—especially in cases of emotional abandonment where a secure attachment is missing.
Instead of feeling like a normal aspect of being human, sexuality becomes loaded with meaning. It can be associated with power or obligation, and is influenced by shame, guilt, confusion, secrecy, or coercion, and hunger for love.
When a child’s emotional needs aren’t consistently met, the nervous system learns to equate connection with anxiety. If love feels unstable, sex can become a substitute for emotional intimacy or used as a means to confirm lovability. If boundaries are violated, sex may feel fused with danger or control. If a child is enmeshed with a parent, their autonomy and desire may feel suspect.
In some cases, attachment wounds can lead to compulsive sexual behavior, where sex functions as a mood regulator, a distraction from emptiness, or proof of worth. In other cases, it leads to sexual shutdown—sometimes called sexual anorexia—where avoidance feels safer than risk. Both patterns are attempts to manage unresolved trauma.
Distortion of Desire
The underlying issue is not sexuality itself. It is the meanings attached to it. Our attitudes and beliefs about our sexuality are shaped by our culture, family, religion, and experiences. If we’ve been abused, we may numb sexual desire or dissociate physical and emotional feelings during sex. In some families, children absorb rigid beliefs about gender and emotion—for example, that men are driven mainly by desire, while women are expected to be defined by love or emotional connection. These men may compartmentalize love and sex and/or sexualize love and intimacy, or play games with mates, objectify them, and only see them as sexual objects to use. Women may lack a category to label desire. When she’s physically attracted, she assumes it must be love, because “good” women don’t just want. Lust and love fuse, and she may feel disappointed, used, and exploited by men who desire her but don’t love her. She may work hard to prove she can have sex without love, but underneath, her learned beliefs remain.
Control
Control is a symptom of codependency that also invades the bedroom. Children whose needs and feelings aren’t respected don’t feel safe or learn mutuality. They learn to manage others and themselves. Sex becomes transactional. Love is strategic. Intimacy is leverage. Rather than verbalizing both conscious and unconscious fears and needs, control can be exercised to protect us from anticipated abuse, engulfment, or abandonment. We may control through pursuit or seduction to secure attachment, through withdrawal or withholding to regain control and safety, or through accommodation where performance replaces boundaries and authenticity to prevent abandonment. All revolves around managing safety and attachment anxiety.
Dependency vs Autonomy
In codependent relationships, sex and love are tied to autonomy in complicated ways. If I open my heart during sex, will I lose my power and independence? If I feel pleasure, am I being used? If I need someone, am I weak? If I withhold, am I powerful? If I seduce, am I manipulating? Fear of dependency and/or abandonment further complicate matters. Opening fully during sex can feel like surrender. Surrender can feel like the loss of self-agency, increasing insecurity and fear of abandonment. The body may shut down not because it doesn’t want intimacy, but because it anticipates loss. This is especially true if earlier love was accompanied by betrayal or humiliation.
Attachment style sits right in the middle of these distortions. Most codependents have insecure attachment styles, anxious or avoidant. In both cases, sex is no longer just about pleasure or mutual connection; it is about regulating unconscious fears. They may swing between clinging and distancing.
Anxious attachment can eroticize insecurity and longing. The unpredictability of a partner may heighten arousal because it mirrors parental emotional inconsistency. Pursuers may people-please or use sex to feel chosen, then feel resentful or be uncomfortable with the vulnerability it creates. They may crave closeness, yet they deny their autonomy needs unconsciously and fear losing agency. Those are carried by the distancer in their dance of intimacy.
Conversely, distancers with an avoidant attachment style display tendencies in the opposite direction. They may split sex from emotional closeness, making physical intimacy feel safer than vulnerability. Withholding either one may become a way to reclaim power or protect the self. Too much closeness feels engulfing. Love feels like a threat to agency. Thus, avoiding sex and emotional depth feels safer. The pursuer carries their unconscious need for love and connection. A long-distance relationship can feel safer because it titrates the anxiety of closeness and intimacy. It also builds excitement. However, here the aliveness comes from the distance, unavailability, and longing, not from the self or intimacy.
Longing, unpredictability, and emotional distance create activation in the nervous system. That activation feeds fantasy. Codependents often mistake anxiety for chemistry and excitement, because it’s reminiscent of a parental relationship. In reality, it signals a lack of safety. When a partner becomes steady and committed, the urgency drops. The body, accustomed to arousal through anxiety, may interpret calm as a lack of desire.
Shame and Guilt
Shame and low self-esteem sit at the core of codependency and many of these distortions. They also breed guilt and directly impact our sexual self-esteem and ability to enjoy sex. Desire and pleasure may trigger guilt or shame, especially if they were criticized, moralized, or shamed in childhood. The body may have been trained to associate arousal with wrongdoing. Attraction and lust can be confused with love. When we believe, often unconsciously, that we’re not inherently lovable, sex can become currency. We won’t assert our sexual needs and boundaries, but offer sex to earn affection or withhold it to preserve respect or avoid exposure. Either way, our worth is externalized and conditional.
When a child’s appearance or body is openly admired, objectification can fuse their worth with physical desirability. Reactions to their outer appearance, not for their true self, confirm or diminish their value. They may struggle to know or value themselves apart from how others respond to them. They may learn to use flirtation as a relational language, because it reliably elicits mirroring they may not have received emotionally. Their appearance becomes their primary source of power and esteem. Aging, illness, disability, or rejection can threaten the foundation of worth.
Conversely, a child who is criticized, shamed, ignored, or violated often internalizes the message that they or their physical self is wrong, insufficient, or unattractive. Desire may feel humiliating. Visibility may feel unsafe. They may hide, dissociate from their bodies, or avoid sex altogether. Alternatively, they may pursue sexual validation compulsively in an attempt to overwrite early shame. Whether admired or shamed—and sometimes a child experiences both—the body often becomes a battleground rather than a home. Healthy sexuality requires reclaiming the body not as performance or liability, but as an integrated, worthy part of the self.
When desire is labeled sinful, impure, or dangerous, a young person can internalize the belief that their natural impulses are evidence of moral failure. People who grow up with non-normative sexual preferences may feel doubly condemned—by family, culture, or faith. The result is often a split between public identity and private desire, with secrecy, self-surveillance, and chronic guilt shaping adult intimacy.
When children are used to satisfy an adult’s unmet emotional or relational needs in cases of molestation or emotional incest, boundaries blur. Their developing sexuality becomes entangled with loyalty, competition, or unconscious alliance. They may feel special, chosen, or overly responsible for their parent’s emotional well-being. As adults, intimacy can activate comparisons and projections of their parent onto their mate. Their own desire may feel forbidden. Sexual pleasure may have an undertone of disloyalty or shame if they unconsciously believe that they’re betraying their parent or violating a hidden taboo. If they enjoy sex, are they guilty or bad? If they don’t enjoy it, are they broken? Until these early boundary violations are healed, adult sexuality can remain burdened by emotions that do not truly belong to the present relationship.
Anger and Resentment
Anger and resentment are common emotions among codependents. Shame, abuse, domination, and accommodation breed resentment, anger, and rage. Rage is a normal response to feeling violated, humiliated, helpless, or dominated. Anger and resentment result when we don’t set boundaries, when our feelings and needs are ignored. When our fantasies and hopes haven’t materialized, or our expectations aren’t met, we feel used, abandoned, or disappointed, leading to anger and resentment. Before recovery, we may experience repetitive, painful relationships. This cycle of abandonment can cause depression, isolation, and hopelessness.
Healing
In a healthy developmental environment, sex evolves alongside emotional intimacy, self-worth, and clear boundaries. Physical intimacy becomes an expression of connection, not a strategy to secure it. Sex deepens love rather than compensating for its absence. Love can make sex safer rather than duller.
Healing requires separating sex from survival. It involves recognizing how early misattunement shaped desire, how shame lives in the body, and how control emerged as a strategy for safety. As relational trauma heals, anxiety-driven desire loses its charge and strategic sexuality loses its function. Safety, love, and sex integrate, allowing desire without fear of engulfment, abandonment, or domination. It means experiencing pleasure without losing agency, tolerating healthy interdependence without becoming codependent, and recognizing that needing another doesn’t erase the self.
When self-esteem strengthens and attachment wounds are addressed, shame retreats and control normalizes. Autonomy and connection aren’t mutually exclusive. Rather than retreating from connection, boundaries and agency are reclaimed so that vulnerability no longer feels threatening. It still carries risk, but risk no longer equals doom, because you know you can stand on your own. This is the shift from management to mutuality. Love and sex no longer compete, but coexist. The old scripts no longer fit, but until new ones are embodied, it can feel like a dampened libido, confusion, or ambivalence. In truth, it is recalibration, so that shared aliveness can emerge in a safe environment. And that shift—from survival to mutual participation—is the real healing.
To learn more about shame and sexual self-esteem, read Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You. You can also watch my Youtube on toxic shame.
© Darlene Lancer 2026
Breaking Triangles That Hurt Us and Harm Our Children
An unstable relationship is like a two-legged table. It can’t stand on its own, but a three-legged table is more stable. So, when a relationship is unstable, the couple often uses another person to reduce anxiety and regulate conflict, intimacy, or emotional distance.
Often, children, who are the most vulnerable, are used to stabilize the problems in the relationship. The child is the warning sign, and often the one who pays the price for a system that didn’t know how to heal itself. This is triangulation. Continue reading
When a Parent Can’t Be Trusted
When we stop trusting and relying on a parent emotionally at a young age, our self-trust is damaged. Parents and their children are wired to love each other. However, when a parent can’t bond with us, breaks our trust, betrays, repeatedly disappoints, or abuses us, or simply doesn’t live up to our ideals, we may correctly perceive them as unsafe, incompetent, or untrustworthy.
To avoid our hurt or disappointment and stay true to ourselves, we may reject, dislike, or even hate them. Still, we wish that they would change. We may idealize our hope and hunger that they will become the mother or father we need.Continue reading
What Is Generational Trauma – Mother Wounds
Generational trauma is a form of trauma passed down to subsequent generations through environmental factors such as psychological transference and attachment behavior according to attachment theory. The psychological impact of a traumatic event, such as historical mistreatment, cultural dislocation, physical or emotional abuse, a natural disaster, or poverty, is passed down from one generation to the next, where individuals who did not directly experience the trauma still exhibit symptoms of it due to the experiences of their ancestors or parents.
In essence, the effects of trauma ripple through a family lineage, impacting subsequent generations even if they weren’t present during the original traumatic event.
Parental communication about the event and the family dynamics and functioning appear to be particularly important in trauma transmission, which can be passed on through learned behaviors and coping mechanisms.