Healing Matters Psychotherapy

11/20/2025

06/11/2025

To those who identify as ‘people pleasers,’ the desire to help and please others is not the problem, it’s abandoning self to do so that is. And self abandonment is not the same as being inconvenienced. It’s ok and a part of healthy relationships to be occasionally inconvenienced to help or please others. So what is self abandonment? Some examples are:
- Behaving in ways that are incongruent with your values.
- Giving more time, energy, money, etc..than you actually have to comfortably give, leaving little if anything for yourself.
- Saying yes when your body is screaming no.
- Prioritizing someone else’s pleasure over your sense of safety.
- Trying to be who you think others want you to be vs who you actually are.

The roots of self abandonment are complex. Often develops as an adaptive survival mechanism necessary for safety in relationship with caregivers.

06/24/2024

The causes of depression are much more complex than the serotonin hypothesis suggests

04/04/2024

We’re not born knowing our needs matter, we learn it through consistent and reliable attunement to our needs from caregivers, enough of the time. It’s possible the part of you that feels unworthy of having needs is the part that holds all the neglect you’ve experienced. That part needs recognition, validation, and compassion. That part needs to hear, over and over and over again, “your needs were not met enough of time but they should have been.”

02/18/2022

There are three main reasons why it's important to understand what needs went unmet during childhood:

1. To understand adult relationship patterns:

Why do we communicate the way we do? Why do we have so much difficulty with physical affection? Why is it hard to accept that we are loved or wanted? Why do we always seem to end up in the same type of relationships? Why does it always seem like we give more than we get?
Why do we feel other people's needs are more important than ours? Why do we have difficulty trusting? Why does it always feel like I'm chasing others? Why does it seem like others don't like me?

2. To acknowledge and validate those wounds:

What happened to me wasn't okay.
No child deserved to go through that.
It wasn't my fault.
It was actually not too much to ask for that as a child.
Yes, in fact I did need _______.
It actually makes sense I have difficulty trusting after ______.
It actually makes sense that I put other people before me when I grew up _______.
It actually makes sense I struggle feeling loved when I always had to earn it.
It actually makes sense I struggle with physical connection since growing up ________.

3. To begin meeting unmet needs in adulthood and heal past wounds:

It is okay to ask for help, I don't have to carry it all.
It is actually pleasant to feel physical closeness.
It is okay for me to meet my partner's needs AND it is okay for me to ask my partner to meet my needs.
It is okay to receive attention.
I can say "no" and still be loved.
I can accept a "no" from others and not feel rejected.
I don't have to change into who others want me to be.
I look for safe people, not change myself so I feel safe with others.
I get to make my own choices now.
It is okay to voice my opinion/ ideas.
I can consider other people's opinions, but they don't matter more than mine.
It is okay to disappoint others.

These are just some examples of how the work is done and why it's important to explore unmet needs. They will, inevitably, show up in relationship dynamics.

02/09/2022

Knowing the difference is crucial. I often see enmeshment being confused for empathy. Enmeshment is often rooted in dysfunctional family systems where boundaries were non-existent.

01/12/2022

“Parentification takes place in a dysfunctional family where the frightened inner child of the wounded parent (who received no [nurturing]) pleads with their own child e.g. age 5, NOT to ‘abandon’ them, never to individuate, never to separate from them (these are unspoken pleas). This set up will be true for most cases of parentification.

It’s a complete role reversal and attachment distortion.

If the scapegoat child is now an adult, the parentification is between the INNER child of the wounded parent pleading with the INNER child of the now grown up [child]. “Never leave me”.

The wounded parent is viewing their child as their parent and pulling on them for the [nurturing] they never received in their own childhood.

The reason this trauma bond is so toxic is because the inner child of the scapegoat will feel compelled to rescue the inner child of their parent because this is connected to safety and ultimately survival = core human needs. To the psyche it’s life or death. “I must fix ‘[my wounded parent] and then [they] can take care of ME”.

It’s important for the family scapegoat (in their adulthood) to learn how to release these intense trauma bonds with the wounded parent. [Step 1 is the AWARENESS that these complex dynamics are at play].

It’s no longer a life or death situation AND the parent is responsible for their own healing.

It’s not possible to ‘save’ our parents.

If you feel a pull to save your parent, (the one who wouldn’t stop bullying you), if you feel guilt for living your separate life, if you feel desolate at the thoughts of one day they won’t be here anymore, if you feel like you're grieving their life for them, these can all be signs of the effects of parentification.

These trauma bonds between parent and child stay in place DECADE AFTER DECADE until resolved - regardless of distance, time or whether the parent is alive or deceased.

How to heal? Grieving the attachment injury & lost childhood, mentoring and unburdening the inner child from the false beliefs and fears of the past. Boldly living our own life as the autonomous adult that we are. This is the BEST thing we can do for ourselves AND our parents.”

12/14/2021

Repost from .sagun
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