When your parent drew you into their chaotic emotional world, your developing mind blurred the lines between where they ended and you began 🤷‍♀️. You learned to anticipate their moods, manage their feelings, and sacrifice your own needs to keep them regulated. But this rewired something fundamental at your very core: your nervous system learned that it was *part of another*, that to be loved and protected meant having "two hearts beating as one". Instead of developing as a separate and well-differentiated individual who is respected and cared for by another, your nervous system became part of an `undifferentiated parent-child emotional system`. As a result, you became *incredibly empathetic, emotionally intelligent, attuned to others, and deeply romantic.* Your ability to read people and provide comfort is genuinely remarkable 💪. But this `emotional fusion` with your parent came at the cost of losing part of your identity and creating *profound confusion* about who you are without your *other half*. This was one of the earliest and most foundational wounds a person can experience—it literally rewired your capacity for love connection at the most basic level 🧠.<br><br>Now as an adult, you swing between two extremes: either you completely merge with your partner, losing yourself in their needs and emotions, or you build your walls sky high because true intimacy feels suffocating 🧱. With some partners you desperately chase after their attention—with others you turn distant—shutting yourself down emotionally. At times *you attract narcissists* who feel familiar to you from your childhood 💔. At other times, you swing in the opposite direction and begin acting like a narcissist yourself—as an ill-judged attempt to establish some boundaries in your life. Love feels like either total surrender 🤗 or complete control ✊, because from very early on you were never modeled what healthy boundaries between parent and child actually looks like.

When healthy boundaries feel impossible

## Signs you might relate to this dating style:
> - You feel anxious when your partner seems fine without you
> 
> - You take on other people's feelings like they're your own
> 
> - You forget what you like when you're not focused on someone else
> 
> - You feel most loved when people need your help
> 
> - You get scared when someone wants time alone
> 
> - You keep finding people who need looking after
> 
> - You disappear in serious relationships
> 
> - You feel bad for wanting things from others

## How it started:
> - You had to take care of a parent's feelings when you were young
> 
> - People only praised you when you helped them feel better
> 
> - There was no line between your feelings and your parent's feelings
> 
> - You learned love means becoming one with someone else
> 
> - No one asked what you needed when your parent was upset

## You attract:
> - **The Drain**: Takes all your care but isn't there for you
> 
> - **The Echo**: Copies you so much you both get lost
> 
> - **The Trouble Magnet**: Always has problems you need to solve
> 
> - **The Slippery One**: Your help never comes back to you

## Who you're drawn to:
> - **The Wall**: Their distance makes you try harder to connect
> 
> - **The Disappearing Act**: Shows interest sometimes, then pulls away
> 
> - **The Smooth Talker**: Says all the right things but takes more than they give
> 
> - **The Broken Wing**: Needs saving but can't give you what you need

## Core pattern:
> - You pick people who need your help so you don't have to face your own needs

## What healthy attraction looks like:
> - Partners who like your care but can take care of themselves
> 
> - Relationships where you can be close but still be yourself
> 
> - Fights that don't mean you have to give up what you want
> 
> - Time apart that feels normal, not scary

Tools & Learning

😶‍🌫️ Lost in Boundaries: When healthy boundaries feel impossible

Community Posts