Why you suddenly remember childhood trauma

When you experience a traumatic event, your mind perceives great danger and goes into survival mode. When your mind is in survival mode, your senses sharpen, and you enter into this super-learner mode, trying to understand your current situation as much as possible. The mind tries to learn as much as possible about a traumatic …

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Mother-son enmeshment checklist

A close bond between a parent and child is normal and healthy. But there is such a thing as too much closeness, even in the context of a parent-child relationship. Enmeshed or overly close relationships are common in families and lead to a blurring of boundaries between the family members. A child who is enmeshed …

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Mother-daughter enmeshment checklist

Enmeshment occurs in a relationship, when two people are too close to each other for it to be a healthy dynamic. It can happen in any relationship, but it is common in the parent-child dynamic. When two people are in an enmeshed relationship, their boundaries become blurred or non-existent. It’s like the two people are …

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The psychology behind name-calling

Name-calling or labeling is calling someone by degrading and demeaning names. The goal of name-calling is to hurt someone and make them look bad. It can occur in any relationship but is particularly damaging in a romantic relationship. A few incidences of name-calling here and there are forgivable, but if it happens repeatedly, it’s verbal …

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Social anhedonia test: 13 Items

Social anhedonia is a reduced ability or an inability to derive pleasure, happiness, and joy from social interactions. It’s a type of anhedonia, a broader term that implies a failure to derive pleasure from something that is usually pleasurable and enjoyable. Being a social species, humans naturally experience a sense of pleasure and joy when …

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How to deal with extreme emotional pain

Just as we feel physical pain when there’s something wrong with our bodies, we feel emotional pain when there’s something wrong with the non-physical parts of our lives. Pain is a feedback signal telling you that you must pay attention to and solve a problem. Emotional problems, real or perceived, cause emotional pain. Bigger emotional …

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Enmeshment in romantic relationships

In healthy romantic relationships, there’s a balance of closeness and distance. Each partner retains their own identity while also identifying with the relationship to some degree. This interdependence helps partners meet some of their needs themselves, and some are met by their partners. When there’s too much closeness in the relationship, the dynamic becomes unhealthy. …

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High-functioning APD test

Avoidant Personality Disorder (APD) is characterized by avoidant social behaviors. Someone with APD avoids social situations and feels inadequate, anxious, and shy. They’re hypervigilant to social threats and fear rejection, criticism, and shame. A disorder is characterized by dysfunction and distress. In some disordered individuals, however, there’s distress, but there’s no dysfunction. They can even …

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Enmeshment vs codependency: 7 Differences

The terms enmeshment and codependency are often used together and sometimes interchangeably. That’s because the two concepts are closely related. Even though enmeshment and codependency are overlapping concepts, they have subtle but important differences. Enmeshment Enmeshment occurs when two or more people in a relationship setting, like a family, have a single, unified identity, which …

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Scopophobia test

Scopophobia, also called scoptophobia or ophthalmophobia, is an excessive and irrational fear of being seen or stared at. It is derived from the Greek skopia, meaning ‘observation’ and phobos, meaning ‘fear’. Scopophobia is a specific phobia of a specific social situation that may or may not be a part of social anxiety or social phobia. …

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