Emotionally dependent

Being emotionally dependent:

A close-up on how it evolves and how it has impact on your life

Firstly, it is important to discern if we are dealing with an emotional dependency in order to relieve it. This is the first step to leading an independent and self-contained life. Emotional dependencies occur in any personal relationship, and reputedly they tend to weaken interpersonal bonds. Whenever we have the feeling that a peer does not feed back into the balance of our emotional reservoir, thus we perceive a lack of something, it is probable that there is an emotional dependency at work.

The cause of such a dependency can be a lack of appreciation, attention, respect or any other negative feeling that might occur. As a rule, on assessing the trigger for the emotion, only external factors are considered and others are blamed for someone’s bad condition.

Handy though it seems, it is a bad deal in the long run. By doing so, negative emotions and their causes will never be unravelled and analysed, retrieving the true cause and making it obsolete.

Feelings we had in our childhood when we felt unable to cope or did not command adequate tools for handling the matter, compensating some lack or soothing our pain.

Your own emotional auto-pilot

These strategies often are put to use in everyday life, for most of us, they have become habitual. So, if we a facing a situation that our subconscience associates with incidents from our childhood, the “autopilot” takes over. Memorised patterns of action set in. The reactivated childhood patterns,are connected with an emotional footprint that forces us back into the our childhood’s perspective. And from this point of view we try to find a solution in the present.

Those childhood patterns aren’t fit for an adult environment. So instead of improving the situation, likely things go from bad to worse. Interacting with others results in escalation. Childish behavioural patterns evoke the so-called inner child in our counterpart. 

If to individuals with an inadequate behavioural repertoire meet, neither can the situation be relieved, nor will the conflict be resolved. At the moment, both aren’t ready for rational input.

We are hurt, and as an act of defense, we hurt in return.

Emotional dependency often occurs in a partnership or a professional context. The things, of which we are convinced that our parents neglected providing us with, are the ones we expect from our partners and colleagues.

Because we have grown a sense of lack, we expect others to fill the gap. This is the mechanism which makes us emotionally dependent of others. 

It is crucial to distinguish this sense of lack and to address it with adult means and solutions.

As long as we are entangled with such dependencies, our emotions are dependent on external factors. We have no control over our mental state. As a result, we cede our power to others.

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