People pleasers have good intentions when they take on the burden of trying to make someone feel better. We truly just want to help and to offer our own wellbeing and happiness as a resource. After all, wouldn’t the world be a better place if we could keep people from getting depressed in the first place? But not only is this endless output exhausting for the one doing all the work, it also limits the other person from developing the skills to cultivate their own emotional health. Happiness takes effort and action, and if we believe it is our job to make the other person happy, and we take too much responsibility for their wellbeing, we may actually be leaving them in worse shape.

All I ever wanted was to make my ex-husband feel better. And at one point in the early days of our relationship, I was the only one who could. When he was down (which was often), I could cheer him up. When he was angry (also often), I could calm him down. When he thought life was pointless (again, often), I could inspire him and offer a glimmer of hope. Each time I was able to do this for him, I got a little dopamine hit, a little buzz of pleasure in my brain that told me I was valued, needed, and fulfilling my purpose.

What I didn’t recognize at the time was that my enjoyment of the buzz would become an addiction, and that both of us would get hooked into a cycle of enabling and depression that could not end until the helping stopped. He couldn’t heal until I stopped trying to heal for him.

Dr. Cindy navigates a difficult personal journey as her abusive ex prepares to move out of state and leave her alone with their daughter. She shares practical skills for meeting crisis and upheaval with self-compassion and how she is trying to parent as gracefully as possible through this toxic transition.

“He is not leaving quietly. This week, he has managed to hook me by yanking our daughter’s heart around, discussing his departure plans, rehashing old conflicts and blaming me for his failure to make ends meet here, and promising that he’ll never leave her all in the same breath. She came back from her last visit with him angry and claiming to be “depressed,” and as a result, I’ve spiraled into my own habitual patterns of over-eating, ruminative thinking, and sleeplessness. Because he is a time thief, he is dragging out the long goodbye, spreading the heartache over months, keeping me prisoner, rather than just ripping off the bandaid the way I wish he would. Please, just go away and leave us alone.

The pressure on me to make difficult decisions and keep myself calm, cool, and collected is a lot. So, I am doubling down on my mindfulness meditation practice this week, busting out field tested therapeutic and teaching tools from the vault, and doing everything I can to stay compassionate and kind, and to do the right thing, even when it’s also the hardest thing and it scares the hell out of me.

So, in this week’s episode I took the opportunity to share the story of how I am leaning hard into my practice as all this is unfolding in my nervous system, and shining the light of awareness on what is arising, as a radical act of compassion. This allows me to then bring a spirit of curiosity and care to my experience, and to ask myself “how can I best care for myself, given what is here?” In applying the skills that I learned over many years of offering therapeutic coaching and teaching Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, I am finding my way and doing the best I can to be a light in the darkness for my daughter and for myself.”

Have you ever gone back to a romantic relationship or friendship that you know isn’t healthy for you? How can we help survivors break free from trauma bonds with their abusers, acknowledge the reality of the abusive behaviors that can keep them trapped, and survive the withdrawal period long enough to get to safety?

Trauma bonding is a phenomenon where people who are being abused become empathetic towards and emotionally enmeshed with their abuser, and this can keep people locked into abusive relationships, feeling like they cannot leave because they “love” this person. This episode discusses the neural processes in our brain that keep us locked into toxic relationships, and offers practices and interventions from neuroscience to support breaking the cycle of addiction to unhealthy relationships, just like we can work with any other destructive habit we wish to change.