I’m honestly getting a bit frustrated with trying to heal my anxious attachment, and I’m wondering if anyone else feels the same.

I’m generally pretty independent in life, but when it comes to relationships, I can become a completely different person. A small change in someone’s tone or a delayed reply can send me into hours of overthinking. I start analysing conversations, imagining worst-case scenarios, and feeling like I need reassurance or an answer before I can relax.

The frustrating part is that I KNOW what I’m doing. I understand my triggers and why I react this way, but in the moment, it feels almost impossible to stop.

I’ve tried so many things to work on this. Journaling, meditation, reading about attachment styles, learning CBT in therapy, talking things through with ChatGPT, and trying to understand where these patterns come from.

Some of these things help temporarily, but the same patterns keep coming back. I can journal for a whole hour and understand exactly why I’m anxious, yet still feel anxious afterward. I can understand that I’m catastrophising, but that doesn’t necessarily stop me from doing it.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing these things wrong, or if I’m just missing something. I don’t expect healing to happen overnight, but it’s discouraging to put so much effort into understanding myself without feeling like I’m making much progress.

For those of you who have struggled with this:

How was your healing experience? What have you tried that genuinely DIDN’T work for you? What has actually helped you break the anxious spiral? If it worked, any specific tips or step-by-step on how did you do it?

How do I even start. I do 70% of this persons life. They almost can't do anything for herself and I feel bad for her but also frustrated of how much I need to occupy my sister. We have rough history together growing up neglected by our parents plus both quit school early due to mental health problems.

There's context to why the person is the way they are. Early this year she had a bad migraine episode and since then she's been ..not using her eyes.

Apparently focusing her eyes triggers the migraines. I did my research and I do think she does have a type of migraine that's triggered by light. My parents and I tried to encourage her to see the doctors but her reason is that "Doctors don't help" to be fair I can see the reason because I myself had unhelpful doctors throughout my life but at the same time it's the only way? atleast try. Anyway.

So with that given She's been relying on me since then and I'm really tired. She literally does not use her eyes and it made me think "what is her eyes doing?" ???? aren't eyes always focusing to some degree. That's the bit that confuses me. I'm worried she's untraining her eyes which can make the migraines worse. And when I do question the condition, she says " oh..so you don't understand" and when the conversation gets heated it always end in a " I don't care" "No one gives a fuck" and would walk off.

It hurts because I feel like I'm taking care of a person who's not blind and does not see my efforts. I have to read out the movies, talk to her all the time. Read stuff out loud, take her to walks.. even pick up a item and say what it is. Because she can't do anything I have to be with her a lot. It's not that she's completely not capable. I have seen her wash dishes but idk why she can't do anything else.

She does NOTHING. And it's been almost a year. How could someone go through that.

And she tells me that her head is getting better but from what I'm seeing her behaviour doesn't match up. She's more nervous to use her eyes to the point she would crash into things, spill water and I think her neck got bent over time from looking down too much. She really believes it and I don't want to completely dismiss that the situation isn't real but I do believe there's space for improvement. Even just a little.

Like Sometimes I want to push her away. There are times where I cry about it. It's like I'm loosing myself to be the legs of someone else. I wish she can make her own choice to be independant because this relationship is disrupting my life.

It's hard to say no because I will receive very hurtful words like there was this one time were we argued via discord and holy hell it cut me so bad I still feel the hurt from the verbal abuse. I deleted the message so i don't remember everything she said to me but It's the most traumatic experience. Like I was trying to push her off me but she fired " You did this, you did that, you you you, never care about me. I will fucking die" something like that. I was so confused because those words came out of no where to me, I always cared but didn't know how to express it to a person who struggles to read emotions.

Gradually I feel distant to that person, even bitter. I wanna just live my life not thinking about that person. It seems like she controls me, she doesn't know what she is doing is wrong, she thinks it's the standard but when her beliefs are challenged, she will just say she doesn't care and that people always don't care. Speaking of that she tends to nit pick on what other people do, girl! ya don't even LOOK at them, how does she know people judge her? she doesn't give the benefit of the doubt even when it's obvious!

And she is really harsh to my parents which hurts me as well.

There are many times where she says that we will be together and not move out but every-time that's brought up, I feel I want to part ways. Not in a way to completely ditch her (in which she will perceive it as) but rather leave space and boundary.

There's a lot to say but here's the main part. Seriously. Have anyone got a person like this? my situation is specific and I have spoken to some people about it, they have never heard of it before. It drives me nuts and I feel so lonely.

'Feelings and Surrender

Surrendering is a highly personal and spiritual experience.

Surrender is not something we can do in our heads. It is not something we can force or control by willpower. It is something we experience.

Acceptance, or surrender, is not a tidy package. Often, it is a package full of hard feelings – anger, rage, and sadness, followed by release and relief. As we surrender, we experience our frustration and anger at God, at other people, at ourselves, and at life. Then we come to the core of the pain and sadness, the heavy emotional burden inside that must come out before we can feel good. Often, these emotions are connected to healing and release at a deep level.

Surrender sets the wheels in motion. Our fear and anxiety about the future are released when we surrender.

We are protected. We are guided. Good things have been planned. The next step is now being taken. Surrender is the process that allows us to move forward. It is how our Higher Power moves us forward. Trust in the rightness of timing, and the freedom at the other end, as you struggle humanly through this spiritual experience.

I will be open to the process of surrender in my life. I will allow myself all the awkward and potent emotions that must be released.'

By Melodie Beattie

How do I (23F) decide whether to leave my boyfriend (25M) of two years when guilt keeps making me second-guess myself?
I’m considering leaving my boyfriend of two years, whom I’ll call Evan, and moving home to my mom’s. She wants me to come home and end the relationship. Part of me wants to keep trying, but I’m increasingly depressed, exhausted, and lonely. I feel guilty about leaving, and I’m afraid of how I’ll cope afterward.
Evan says he loves me and believes things will get better if we both try. We’ve had good times together, which makes this confusing. But he now wants to move in together, and I’m scared to take that step when things already feel wrong. We currently live separately but spend about five nights a week together, usually at his place.

Some Background
I went into college hoping to find close friends and independence, but I struggled with my mental health and developed a serious binge-drinking problem. My friendships often revolved around partying. I sometimes had blackouts and emotional outbursts that could become aggressive, and I damaged relationships. I would wake up to angry messages, promise it wouldn’t happen again, and eventually repeat the cycle. Often, I would go anywhere from two weeks to two months without drinking between episodes.
I met Evan during my senior year, while this was still happening. We drank together, and there were times when I would cry, he would get angry, and we would end up fighting while drunk. Eventually, it became clear that I couldn’t keep drinking. I’ve spent most of our relationship trying to stay sober, with relapses every few months, sometimes following fights or other stress.
I take responsibility for the ways I’ve hurt him, including hiding my drinking and saying hurtful things while drunk. I don’t blame him for my drinking problem. But I think my guilt has made it difficult to recognize and address problems with his behavior.
When I bring up something he’s done that hurt me or ask for an apology, he often gets angry, brings up my past behavior, and tells me I’m the reason he acted that way. I end up questioning whether I have the right to be upset.

These are some of the things I’m struggling to move past:
He once told me that if I were raped, he wouldn’t believe me and would consider it cheating. He knows I’ve been raped before.
When I was actively trying to stay sober, he refused to stop drinking around me or keep alcohol out of his house because I needed to “learn how to be around alcohol.” At events, he has refused to leave when I felt uncomfortable around the drinking, even after promising beforehand that he would listen if I needed to go.
He gets upset when I make plans with friends, saying he’s worried I’ll drink or make a bad decision. I’ve stopped seeing people much outside of study sessions or coffee dates. Going out at night without him has become a source of conflict.
On Halloween, which was also my friend’s birthday, she asked whether I could go out with her. He yelled at her, called her a whore, and made other degrading comments. They argued for about an hour. He no longer wants me spending time with her.
He has refused to get me flowers, including for special occasions, because I “didn’t deserve it,” citing my drinking. It isn’t about expensive gifts; I would be happy with a cupcake or another small gesture of care.
He rarely wants to go on dates unless they’re things he wants to do. I’ve been asking to go to a particular restaurant throughout our relationship, and it still hasn’t happened.
At a family celebration of an accomplishment of mine, he took offense to a comment from my grandmother and left when I really wanted him there. The day became focused on his reaction. On the way there, he had also insisted on stopping for alcohol, making us late. I wasn’t drinking that day and my entire family is sober.
During a trip to visit my father that was supposed to be about healing and sobriety, he drank throughout the visit. I relapsed during that trip. He had also opposed me going because he was worried I would drink or cheat.

There are also recurring issues:
He makes racist comments and uses the N-word.
He has made misogynistic comments about women being unfit for positions of power, bad drivers, and cheaters.
He frequently makes “jokes” about me cheating, even though I’ve repeatedly told him they make me uncomfortable.
When I talk, he often looks at his phone or seems checked out. When I raise concerns, he sometimes hangs up or says I’m ruining the day, nitpicking, or not giving him peace.
I also feel expected to work around his schedule and preferences, with little flexibility for mine. He sometimes interrupts me or calls when he knows I’m studying.
There are good things, too, and that’s part of why this is hard.
He stops to help people and animals who need it.
He cooks for me and wants to spend his free time with me.
I feel comfortable around him without worrying about how I look or what I’m wearing.
He has stayed through difficult periods with my drinking and says he forgives me.
When I’m deeply depressed, he can be there to talk, although it often feels like I have to reach a breaking point first.
He tells me he loves me, wants a future with me, and wants me to be part of his family.
I love him, and I don’t want to erase those good parts. But when things are good, I tend to minimize everything else. I’m writing this out because I want to look at the relationship honestly instead of continually making excuses.
I know I have my own work to do regardless of whether we stay together. What I can’t sort out is how much my guilt is influencing my decision to stay, and whether this relationship is making it harder for me to get better.
How can I evaluate whether there’s a realistic path forward? And if I decide to leave, how do I navigate the guilt and fear that keep making me second-guess myself?

Changing Inside

"As we greet co-workers or friends, we feel that we are changing inside. We begin to recognize a power inside we had not known before." BRB p. 273

Regularly taking a quiet time helps us to grow up emotionally and spiritually. How we take it depends on our choices. At first, we spend time by ourselves when we need to, letting others do what they will to take care of themselves. If they spend it getting drunk and high, we let them, but we no longer seek that outlet for our pain and suffering, if that was how we previously coped. Later, we see that we actually enjoy spending time alone. We don't fill ourselves up with others just to pass the time and keep us numb. We no longer pretend to be excited when we're not. We seek those we can truly connect with and enjoy. We talk not just about superficial things, but about who we are and what's important to us. People respect us more at work and elsewhere because we don't seek constant approval as we did in our families. We no longer do things we're uncomfortable with just for the sake of fitting in. As we become more genuine, we allow others to find their own paths; instead of labeling them, we now make room for our differences. If some don't like the new us, we have to let them go. We adjust our list of whom we can trust.

On this day I will own my power to be genuine and feel how comfortable it is to focus on being myself.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families World Service 
Organization, Inc.

Page №301

https://adultchildren.org/literature/meditation/?meditaion=MjE2NQ%3D%3D

this is probably going to read more like a journal entry than a typical reddit post, but i’ve posted here throughout my breakup, and i think this is my final update. for the first time in months, i’m feeling something other than anxiety, anger, and confusion. i actually feel peace.

my ex and i were together on and off for almost seven years. seven years of loving someone, believing in their potential, forgiving things i shouldn’t have, and constantly trying to understand behavior that never made sense.

there was always something. unfinished school, another career obsession, another project he swore would change his life, endless cycles of adderall, productivity tracking, sleep schedules, therapy, and promises that things would finally be different. i spent years supporting him and believing in the person he kept promising he would become. somewhere along the way, i completely lost myself.

toward the end, i discovered he’d been cheating on me. but honestly, the cheating wasn’t even the worst part. it was the lying, hiding, and constant manipulation of my reality.

one incident i’ll never forget is what i call the paris incident. while he was practically living at my apartment, he accidentally texted me thinking he was texting the girl he was cheating with, who was in paris at the time. i pieced that together through her instagram. he was texting her just hours before coming over to sleep in my bed. when confronted, he denied everything until i essentially forced the truth out of him.

that was our pattern. i’d discover something, he’d deny it, i’d question myself, and eventually some version of the truth would come out.

when i finally ended things, i tried to handle it like an adult. i arranged for him to collect his belongings while i was at a concert. he had a key, so he could take his things, leave the key, and we wouldn’t have to see each other. that morning, he canceled because he supposedly had to reschedule something.

when he eventually came to get his things, he confessed that he’d been sad about our breakup, so he’d gone and had sex with the girl he cheated on me with.

we eventually had one final conversation, which i recorded because years of gaslighting had genuinely made me question my own memory and reality. i needed proof of what was actually being said.

one of the first things he asked was whether i’d contacted her. whether i’d told her anything. even while ending our seven-year relationship, he seemed more concerned about her opinion of him than anything else.

and here’s the saddest part. i essentially gave him my blessing.

i told him i knew he’d probably end up with her, and that i hoped he’d learn from our relationship and treat her better than he treated me. i wished him happiness. i wanted to leave the situation with some dignity and control over my own ending.

he completely broke down. sobbing, physically throwing up, insisting he could NEVER be with her because she’d ruined something important to him. he denied wanting her over and over. i remember telling him i knew he was lying, but it didn’t matter anymore.

again, i have that entire conversation recorded. i know exactly what he said.

we went no contact, and slowly i started healing. therapy, traveling, spending time with friends, even dating again. i was finally accepting that our relationship was over.

then, about two months later, he broke no contact.

not to apologize or take accountability, but to essentially tell me we should continue not speaking and, completely unprompted, double down on the fact that he was NOT dating that girl.

the same girl i’d already told him he was free to be with.

and that sent me into an absolute spiral. why break no contact to lie about something i hadn’t even asked? why interfere with my healing just to maintain some false narrative?

i fell back into old habits. checking social media, piecing together timelines, looking for proof. i noticed he followed her sister. she started following the soccer team he coached. little connections that kept confirming what my gut already knew.

meanwhile, despite apparently moving on, he was still watching practically every single one of my facebook stories, often immediately. i’d blocked him elsewhere, but kept facebook open because i post stories for my family, including my grandmother. he was still watching as recently as two days ago.

i couldn’t understand why he needed to keep tabs on me while building a relationship with someone else. why lie about her? why reach out to me just to deny it? why continue inserting himself into my life?

and then, finally, she posted an instagram photo dump.

there he was, kissing her forehead.

one picture confirming everything i’d been driving myself insane trying to prove for months.

and the strangest thing happened. i didn’t fall apart.

of course it hurt. seeing someone you loved for seven years with the person they cheated on you with is never going to feel good. but underneath that hurt was this overwhelming sense of relief.

i was right.

i was right about the cheating, the lies, the girl, the denial, the final conversation, and the completely unnecessary message breaking no contact. i wasn’t imagining things. i wasn’t some obsessive, jealous ex who couldn’t accept the breakup. i was someone who had been lied to so consistently that i stopped trusting my own perception of reality.

and i think that’s what people don’t always understand. it wasn’t about wanting him back. i had literally wished them happiness. it was about someone continuing to manipulate my understanding of reality even after our relationship ended.

for months, i thought i needed him to admit the truth before i could move on. but he had every opportunity to be honest, even when there was nothing left to lose, and still chose to lie.

so i finally blocked him. everywhere. including facebook.

no more access to my life, no more watching my stories, no more checking whether he’s watching, no more searching for clues about a relationship that has nothing to do with me anymore.

i’m not pretending i’m suddenly healed. i’m still furious. there are moments when i want to call him and tell him what a horrible person he’s been. moments when i want to tell her everything. moments when i want him to experience even a fraction of the pain he caused me.

but i also know none of that will give me back the years i spent trying to love someone into becoming a better person.

he went from our seven-year relationship to cheating to another relationship, with seemingly always another woman somewhere in between. from what i’ve experienced, he’s never truly learned how to be alone. i spent years waiting for him to finish school, find direction, take accountability, and follow through on the promises he made about changing his life.

and now i genuinely don’t know what he’s doing, what he’s telling her, whether he’s changed, or whether he’ll repeat the same patterns. part of me believes he’ll always be running from himself, but i’m finally realizing that isn’t my problem to solve.

i don’t need him to be miserable for the rest of his life. i don’t need this relationship to fail to validate what happened to me. i don’t need her to discover the same things i did. and i don’t need an apology from someone who had countless opportunities to give me one.

i can still love the person i thought he was and acknowledge how horribly he treated me. i can miss seven years of my life without wanting that life back. i can be angry without letting that anger keep me attached to him.

for the longest time, i confused closure with confession. i thought if he would just admit everything, my brain could finally rest.

but he never did, and i finally got my answer anyway.

so this is my final conclusion. not because i’m magically over him or won’t have difficult days, but because i’m done making it my responsibility to understand him.

i know what happened. i know what i experienced. i know how much i loved him, how hard i tried, and how much of myself i lost in the process. i don’t need to keep proving it.

i’m 28. i have friends, family, a career, places i want to see, people i haven’t met yet, and an entire life ahead of me that deserves more attention than someone who couldn’t even give me an honest goodbye.

i know healing isn’t linear. tomorrow might hurt again. but today, i feel free.

and for the first time in seven years, i’m not waiting for him to do something. not to change, apologize, tell the truth, or come back.

i’m finally choosing myself, and i hope i never lose myself trying to love someone else again.

TLDR: after an almost seven year relationship, my ex cheated, repeatedly lied about the other woman, and even broke no contact months later just to insist he wasn’t dating her. i spent months questioning my reality and searching for proof while he continued watching my social media. she finally posted a picture confirming they’re together. instead of falling apart, i felt relief. i wasn’t crazy, i wasn’t imagining things, and i finally have the confirmation i needed. i’ve blocked him everywhere. i’m still angry and hurting, but for the first time, i feel like i’m actually letting go.

To start : I know these feelings I had for a past friend was beyond a crush, so really it was either love or codependence.

Anyway I’m not really sure what it was, if I had feelings for her, if I was aroace. I don’t really have any emotional trauma or baggage that would explain my fear of abandonment or anything. So I didn’t really think of it as codependence until the friendship was over.

A couple years ago I realised an old crush faded, so I chose a new person to like (Red flag already I know) and I thought about this girl. She had the same hobbies as me and was fairly attractive so I spent months obsessing over her until I believed I had actual feelings for her.

Then after another year we actually became really close. I know how it sounds that I never liked her, but it felt a lot like I did. I’d always drop everything I was doing to tend to her. She got mad at me a lot, I’m autistic small disclaimer, I often did or said things that were clearly not properly thought through that she’d criticise me on. And every time that happened I’d spend multiple hours writing a well thought out apology. Because I just wanted her happy with me. I would always put her needs above mine, ignoring how often she didn’t notice my feelings or how little she prioritised me just so I could stay close with her. The only times I mentioned she did that were times I wasn’t emotionally stable myself (eg. Times I was in a depressive spiral)

I lost her as a friend when she was told that I liked her. And tbh it crushed me, it felt like I lost my purpose.

Idk if it was codependence or if i actually genuinely liked her. I’m leaning towards codependence tho.

Idk she texted me like a bit ago asking to chat again, and idk if i should say yes or no. On the one hand i want to say no because being friends with her was so emotionally draining for me, but i miss her so much, it’s been a year since she dropped me as a friend mind u, i felt needed by her in a way ive never felt needed by anyone else. And i don’t know if that’s love or not.

I just need someone to help. To tell me if this was codependence or not. I want to go into detail about it. And I will likely comment with a whole timeline

In 2022, I met my best friend. We have hung out every single day except a few times when one of us was sick. We both bonded over shared traumas with past friendships but lately the friendship has felt exhausting. When I try and take space, he unintentionally makes me feel guilty because he's going through things right now. I feel like I can't set boundaries or he will just end the friendship and we have a lot involved in the friendship. We have animals together, and he's on my phone plan. I do value the friendship but lately it just feels like it's more stressful than anything else. I've never experienced a friendship like this before and idk what to do or how to handle things without it exploding.

October 16th

'In This Moment, I Am Finally Learning

For years, I thought I intuitively understood what another person was thinking or feeling, and that I was right to assume that how I interpreted their actions and words was exactly what they intended to convey.

What I learnt from experience is that I never know what is going on in another person's life or mind at any given time. When I feel someone is responding or reacting inappropriately, I need to allow them to be who they are at that moment. Not everything is about me. Life has its ups and downs and emotions are triggered by those ebbs and flows. I am finally learning that I am not in control. That's ok; (...).'

To love myself more,

to spend on myself more.

I think that's meaningful.

Because I carry innate self worth.

Months of her telling me she wasn't cheating on me all ended with (you guessed it) her instantly cheating on me the moment I made any choices for my own wellbeing.

It was a constant cycle of her spending too much time and energy on him, ignoring me, then when I am on the verge of a breakdown, soothing me, giving me her full attention, giving me a glimpse of the woman she was for five great years before this man entered our lives. I would feel seen, I would cry, I would be soothed, I would have hope.

And then she'd do it all again.

A few weeks before the relationship ended I finally told her I didn't want to be soothed by the person who was hurting me, I wanted to just live with my hurt and process it with people who I could trust. I don't want attention if it's shaped like this.

A week later I'm packing my bags, and an hour after I'm gone she's sleeping with him. And when she finally decides to let me know that she wants to break up, and that she has been doing this behind my back for two weeks, she starts sending me coping strategies and adding breakup songs to our playlist and then (after a week of denying it was cheating) finally confessed that she cheated on her most precious person who she loves, and how I'm her soulmate and she's so stricken that she hurt me.

And for a few hours it worked. I was telling myself "If she broke up with him now I'd be back."

Today picking up the last of my stuff I asked how she was feeling, if she was talking to her network (Who all hate the man she cheated on me with). She said she talks to them, but she just wishes anyone wanted to celebrate the joy she's feeling. She says that to me.

Yeah that about snapped me out of it.

Today it is easy to say: I deserve better. No more contact. No more caring about a woman who does not care about me in the slightest. No more lovebombs to lure me in just to say or do the cruelest possible thing.

'Being Honest with Ourselves

Our relationship with ourselves is the most important relationship we need to maintain. The quality of that relationship will determine the quality of our other relationships.

When we can tell ourselves how we feel, and accept our feelings, we can tell others.

When we can accept what we want and need, we will be ready to have our wants and needs met.

When we can accept what we think and believe, and accept what’s important to us, we can relay this to others.

When we learn to take ourselves seriously, others will too.

When we learn to chuckle at ourselves, we will be ready to laugh with others.

When we have learned to trust ourselves, we will be trustworthy and ready to trust.

When we can be grateful for who we are, we will have achieved self-love.'

By Melodie Beattie

I painted this about looking for love in all the wrong places — success, food, dopamine addiction, and erasing myself in relationships so I would be more easy to love.

I wonder how many of us can relate to that feeling.

Self-Love

"I lived my life in an endless cycle of harmful relationships, lost jobs, and lost friends. I could never be a friend, actually. I stopped getting into relationships to stop the pain. I had no choice. I was compulsive and getting more out of control with each passing year." BRB p. 141

It's amazing how we can be unaware that we're harming ourselves. We choose the wrong people, places and things to make us happy for the wrong reasons. Sometimes we know we're allowing people to use us so we can use them. We use people as Band-Aids to cover our unhealed wounds until we notice we still hurt and the Band-Aids can't help us. Our sponsors suggest that we work on loving ourselves. But how?

We read ACA literature, give ourselves affirmations and journal. We look at our past, deal with our hurts, forgive ourselves and others. We do the work. And one day we notice that it's happening. We've started to love ourselves and even like ourselves. We stop using Band-Aids and now have authentic friends who love us as we are, while we continue the journey of recovery. The greatest gift is that we learn to be a friend to ourselves.

On this day I will do the work. The journey to self-love is not an easy one, but the payoff is priceless.

Copyright © 2013 by Adult Children of Alcoholics® & Dysfunctional Families World Service 
Organization, Inc.

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I got some realizations and intuitions about people-pleasing and social anxiety, so I want to share with you. You can add your own opinions, counterarguments, etc.

First of all, I will talk about people-pleasing. Why does anyone people-please? From my analysis and observations, it's for following reasons.

1) Exploded outside self

This is, I think, one of the schools of thought or common concepts where, when the sense of self gets abused in childhood, given the trauma and abuse, the person explodes in two manners:

A. The inside manner, where the person becomes a self-centered, selfish, narcissistic type at a certain factor

B. The outside manner where the person focused on others' well-being: the actual people pleaser, who does people-pleasing and does not have boundaries, got attracted to a narcissist and got trauma-bonded.

The personality which explodes their sense of self outside: they do the people-pleasing, and they are the actual people pleaser. They often operate under covert contracts: "I will sacrifice my needs and anticipate your every whim, and in exchange, you must never abandon me, criticize me, or make me feel unsafe."

2) To hide the EGO

You might think it's a bit of a blurry point, like people please to hide the ego. Let me explain. Here, I am talking about just people-pleasing and not the people pleaser. If any personality type, like a narcissist or a very self-centered personality type, wants to fit in society, they generally have a very large amount of ego. What they do is they people-please, and they behave like they have very low self-esteem in front of others to fit in society until they have the power.

Because they will directly show the ego, they will be left out. They will get stuck in the eyes of other people, and people will directly put boundaries on their face. Because they have their own sense of self-respect and, actually, they are normal people

This is meant for my parents (dad is dead, mom alive but uncapable of understanding it). I hope this helps someone...

Every person who crossed my path, from the days of childhood to the present, stands exposed now.

I see you. I see your criminal negligence in choosing parenthood while drowning in your own misery of damage. You impressed your dysfunction into me like a brand, layer by layer, manufacturing the very wounds you claimed to protect against. All of this being done until I couldn't tell where the conditioning ended and I began.

I can see right now the blueprint of the prison I've lived in my whole life.

What you called “guidance” was neglect. What you called “normal” was dysfunction. What you called "family" was a factory of trauma. You didn’t raise me, you imprinted me with every wound you never had the courage to heal yourself. You created this. You built a monster with your negligence and inability to act, this cowardice, the refusal to heal before you harmed.

And now, with precision searing through all of the fog, all of the self-deception that kept me compliant, kept me confused, kept me orbiting your damage as if it were gravity itself only to keep drawing me back closer, and all of the protective narratives I built to survive you, I have chosen to no longer carry your legacy. You built this version of me. You engineered it through your negligent ignorance and your refusal to grow.

That responsibility is now yours to carry, not as punishment, but as truth. And one day, when you're ready, when you can finally stand alone before your own reflection and if you are ever so lucky, you will see it. You will know it’s presence because you can taste, you can smell, the pain. And only then, you will see what it has cost me to break free, to dismantle every lie, to become myself.

I can see on my own now that I was conditioned to believe that every defense I raised, every story I told myself about resilience and strength, was just another layer of the same architecture, built to keep me functional within the system you designed, never free of it.

The endless forgiveness, all of the compassion, every ounce of unwavering acceptance that I manufactured for your failures, was only the conditioning speaking for me while covering the voice of the real man I am. It was yet another invisible wire keeping me compliant to keep me from naming you as the architect of my suffering. You were never protectors. You were never guides. You were the endless supply of fuel for the force of destruction that has become. It is now that I stand and choose, free from your influence, to name you clearly. You were the architects of pain I will no longer carry forward.

This is not an ending. It is the first true beginning.

I am to outgrow you. I am to overcome what was done not by forgiving but accepting. Not by pretending the damage is not real, but by refusing to let your failures define my future.

I am not the sum of your wounds. I am not the product of your negligence. I am the one who has broken free from the architecture you built, who is dismantling every pattern you embedded, who will rebuild from a foundation of my own choosing.

I am without your conditioning. I can now become who I was meant to be before you got to me.

Not from only you, but from every version of myself I built to survive you. From the child who learned to carry shame as a battle scar and to wear it as a medal. From the boy who mistook silence for strength and compliance for love. And from the man who confused survival with living, who built walls so high I called them home and would seek refuge within.

And that should be only to terrify me as all my life, your voice was the only compassion I thought I knew, even when it led me in circles, even when it was only to have kept me compliant. Without it, I should be uncharted. I should be in the raw. I am supposed to have been exposed.

And yet still, I would rather be shattered into a thousand unrecognizable pieces and only to taste the air of freedom once than remain whole and suffocating in a prison of codependent compromise

I can now become who I was meant to be before you got to me.

Before the first wound disguised as wisdom. Before I learned that to be loved, I had to vanish. Before I became so fluent in erasure that I mistook my own absence for peace.

And all of that, standing here as if a child scared by the thunder having the feeling of uncertainty as a boy washing over, I am choosing myself anyway. To become that person that survived beneath all the conditioning. I am certain that I will not recognize him if we ever met.

And this is the bravest thing any person in this life can do. You chose not to. The time has come for you to own the pain. I release you.

I'm a metalhead(28m), and Ive always been into metalheads/goth girls and lately everytime i see one on social media that i find attractive i immediately want to text her.

Right now I'm going through that. There's this girl i added on Facebook and followed on Ig and she is always liking some of my stuff on Facebook and for the first time i talked to her through ig and she replied. We only had a small talk but i wanted to keep talking and i wanted to tell her that i want to meet her but i feel its impulsive and maybe intense and creepy.

I wish i wasn't this way, but sometimes idk how to talk to women.

Epictetus opens his handbook with one distinction he returns to constantly: some things are within our power, and some things never were. What's ours, he says, is our own judgment, our own choices, our own actions. What's never been ours, no matter how badly we want it, is other people, their opinions of us, whether they stay, whether they approve, whether they finally give us the reassurance we're waiting for. That distinction sounds almost too simple to matter, but it quietly explains a lot of what makes codependent patterns so exhausting. The checking for a reply. The replaying of a conversation to see if you said the right thing. The relief when someone seems okay with you again, followed almost immediately by the next search for a sign that they're not. None of that is really about the other person. It's an attempt to control something that was never available to control in the first place, their inner state, through actions that were always only available to you, your own. This isn't a call to stop caring about people, Epictetus wasn't arguing for that either. It's closer to noticing where your actual authority ends. You can be honest, consistent, and kind. You cannot make someone feel safe, stay regulated, or choose you. Once that line gets clearer, a strange thing tends to happen, the exhausting monitoring starts to lose its grip, not because you care less, but because you've stopped trying to operate machinery that was never yours to run. If this sounds familiar, I'm curious where you first noticed that line for yourself, was there a specific moment you realized you'd been trying to manage someone else's reaction rather than your own actions?

I am in a 3 year marriage where things don't seem to improve and some new challenge keeps fracturing my emotional connection and faith in my marital bond.

Most of the challenges stem from my husband being a stickler and a competitive person about the small stuff and the fundamental stuff.

This has led to me gradually lose agency over my life and my identity - all things in every aspect of my life that made me what I am I have mostly lost or suppressed or not been able to invest in further.

My question is what is it in my personality or mindset that I keep trying and trying while also standing up for myself in this relationship. Why do I have to completely be broken apart and have my pain be validated by those who have seen the struggle to allow myself to start acting in my interest. Why am I struggling to do right by myself even when I know that's the way to go. Despite all this, my brain wants to sequentially solve stuff - first solve marriage, then resurrect life lost in the last 3 years.

Tldr: why am I struggling to focus on myself in a rough marriage and hyper focusing on solving the marriage first?

Wanted to see if anyone feels the same. I read a lot of posts on this sub about attachments to partners and how to deal with that, but my problem is that im kind of okay without a partner.

I'm able to be in a relationship without getting detrimentally attached. I'm okay with being single. My problem is that I literally hate being alone. I can go out and have a great night with friends. It can be 2am and I'm exhausted. But the sadness and despair creeps in the second I lay my head down in my bed by myself.

Doing anything by myself or for myself just sucks. I have no interest in it. I'm bored and sad. I dont like doing hobbies alone. Watching TV is slightly worse alone. I just like being with people.

Idk. I dont think that I hate myself. I think im pretty fun when im socializing. I think im pretty. I just only get satisfaction when im with someone else that I like.

This sucks because people get annoyed when you reach out too much. They think you have no friends. They start to think you're obsessed with them. Thats not the case, I just ALWAYS have to be with or on the phone with someone to not feel sad.

Anyone dealt with this? Anything that helped?

I saw an old post from a few years ago with a link to a discord server, but the link is old now and no longer works. I'm just looking desperately for support.

Here goes nothin.

I ended a 2.5 year trauma bond for the third time 7 months ago. And I’m tired of feeling like I’m dying and/or like I want to die. 

I’m going to be completely vulnerable and dump everything, unfiltered. I don’t care anymore.

I am not doing any better than I was months ago. If anything, I seem to be doing worse.

He was the hottest person I’d ever dated. He has this incredible jawline with blue eyes and shoulder length hair and giant biceps with tattoos, 6’2. I’m 5’0 and had always dated shrimpy dudes, I’d never been attracted to that physique, and now I feel like I’ll never find anyone else sexy. He played guitar and sang. We had the best sex I’d ever had. He was the first person who ever really saw me for the sweet, beautiful person I am. He fucking got me. We were best friends. He made me laugh so much, and we would riff on jokes together, and had a whole lexicon of inside jokes. I have never connected with someone more deeply.

And fuck, all the little things. He had giant Squishmallows in his room, and we would wear kigarumis together, and I would sit on his lap, and we had this sexy Daddy/baby dynamic that I never thought I’d be into, but it worked for us. Christ, it was so hot. He was so hot, and he thought I was hot, which no hot guy ever had thought about me. We did psychedelics and other drugs together and they were the most fun and transcendent experiences I’ve ever had in my life. He was fucking incredible. Wise. Insightful. We had all kinds of revelations about our traumas. We would figure out all our relationship shit, only to have him go back to the way he was. Because he was a deeply traumatized, dysregulated person.

He had a lot of childhood trauma (or so he said). He would have night terrors and his parents would either yell at him or ignore him and have sex instead. His dad bullied him. His mom was extremely enmeshed, being emotionally vulnerable with him when she was having marital problems. She kept him from having a girlfriend in high school. He bought her flowers for Mother’s Day when his dad didn’t. Helicopter parenting and enmeshment. It seems it was as a result of his trauma that he became narcissistic. Because he refused to ever apologize for hurting me, and would DARVO. He was bad with money and I ended up lending him $600. He would agree to split something with me and then I would have to pester him to get him to pay me back. Millions of shitty little things like this. But oh, all the good parts. 

All the fucking good parts.

I never had orgasms before I met him. And sex was a dance for him. He knew how to chase my orgasms and make them go on and on and get stronger and stronger. Fantastic oral. Just a sex wizard. 

The inside jokes. Our mutual love of standup comedy. Getting stoned and playing video games. 

But then, how he never seemed to want to go anywhere, and I was always the one putting in all the energy into adventures. And oh god, he had to juggle: nicotine, Rockstar energy drinks, weed gummies, and Adderall. Every. Single. Day. And has IBS and GERD.

Every 20 minutes, he required something. A cigarette. An edible. More Rockstar (3 a day). Like his mommy I reminded him to take his GERD meds, or ask if he needed to redose his Adderall, or if I could get him some Pepto Bismol. I had to monitor his needs. 

Because I just wanted him to feel good enough to be nice to me.

That, if I took care of him, he would one day take care of me.

One time we went out for my birthday (which, of course, I planned), and his stomach was bothering him (like usual) so he ordered an herbal tea. It was one of those expensive Smith’s brand tea bags, they’re like $2/piece at the store. And it helped his stomach feel better. So I actually took it upon myself to look up the herbs in the tea ingredients, order each one in bulk, and try to recreate the tea at a more affordable cost (while actually spending $100 on the herbs). I even tried to make a peppermint tincture for him (didn’t turn out well).

He couldn’t take care of himself. He was chronically dysregulated, had insomnia, ADHD, and self-diagnosed autism. He moved back in with his parents 5 years ago. He lives with them and his two children, 18 and 9 years old (whom he basically abandoned completely when he met me, even though I kept encouraging him to spend time with them).

There’s so, so much more. The jealousy and insecurity. Walking on eggshells, afraid of triggering him all the time. Trying so hard to please him and make him happy. Me feeling excited about an event we were going to, only for him to show up in a bad mood nearly every single time, stealing my joy and ruining the night.

This has been the worst fucking thing that has ever happened to me. And I’m tired of riding the waves of pain. I feel like he went into my brain and fucked up all my wiring. I have no idea how I'm supposed to heal. My derealization has gotten so much worse. So my brain is rationalizing reaching out to him and maybe trying again. Fuck.