Have you ever thought that you might be an emotionally dependent person? Besides that, do you really know the meaning of this term and its “symptoms”? And if you suffer from emotional dependency, how can you deal with it? Is there anything you can do?
Let’s find the answers to all of your questions about this topic, getting to know what truly means to be someone like that and how to deal with it.
What Is Emotional Dependency?
For you to know if you’re an emotionally dependent person, at first we need to get along with the meanings of this term. It doesn’t necessarily have something to do with romantic relationships. It can happen in a familiar situation or even in a friendship, where you feel that this connection is crucial for your life as if you can’t live without it. Emotional dependency makes you think that your happiness depends on someone other than yourself, making you develop a fear of this person leaving because it would mean that your happiness was stolen by them, and you won’t get it back.
According to Thaina Filla Brotto, a psychologist post-graduated in behavior therapy, this kind of feeling usually comes with emotional baggage, like some narcissistic or depressive trace of your parents that made you feel alone. Or the opposite, some overprotective acts that made you fear doing anything by yourself. There are a lot of situations that could happen in your childhood that left you with a huge fear of being alone, or some traumatic situation that reflects in your adult life. (Check out Thaina’s post about emotional dependency)
Emotional dependency can happen in more than one relationship at the same time. Some people have this feeling in all of their relationships, while other people feel it in only a few, like in a best friend relationship or a romantic one. Normally this feeling is triggered by some past event in your life, but there are some cases where this feeling is developed during the relationship. It happens when the partner is an emotionally abusive person, they will make you believe that you’re only happy because of them, developing new traumas and fears that you never had before in your life.
How Can I Know If I Am An Emotionally Dependent Person?
Now that you already know what is this emotional dependency that we’re talking about, get to know 10 of its “symptoms”, and see if you relate to it.
Remember that this is a blog article, you shouldn’t diagnose yourself, if you think you’re emotionally dependent on someone or something, you should see a therapist to make sure you can get rid of this kind of feeling :)
- Feeling like you need others’ approval in the little things you do, like posting a picture, or going out with an outfit that you like.
- Needing someone else to validate your feelings and wishes, because you don’t trust yourself.
- Having a fear of being rejected. This makes you do things that you don’t want to, or ignore your placements, just to be approved by the people around you.
- You don’t believe that you can be truly loved by someone, because you don’t think you deserve it.
- Can’t see yourself living or doing things alone, just this kind of thought makes you anxious and fearful.
- Being excessively jealous, because you fear being abandoned or replaced by someone else.
- You’re not able to make a life plan or a life goal without involving someone else in it with you.
- Your necessities are put aside to always do the best for others.
- For you, the more friends you have, the better it is. You think like that because having a lot of friends makes you feel important, no matter how many real friendships you have.
- Having trouble establishing limits in your relationship. That makes it easier for people to abuse your goodwill.
Can I Get Rid Of These Feelings? How?
After reading this article, you don’t need to panic. If you think you might have these symptoms above, or someone close to you has them, here are some tips that can make you feel better.
First of all, look out for a therapist. Even though emotional dependency is not considered a mental illness, it can lead you to anxiety or another mental health issue that you need to take care of. If you really can’t reach out to a therapist right now, try doing little things by yourself. Go to a movie alone, do something that you like, buy yourself some gifts, and treat yourself the way you want people to treat you. Besides that, try to acknowledge your feelings better, and understand why you are thinking that you aren’t in love, or why being alone is so scary for you. Knowing yourself better helps you to get out of dependency situations, you also need to know your qualities for more self-love and self-care.
Nothing of this is easy to do, it is a long process of self-knowledge, but if you try a little every day, you slowly will get rid of emotional dependency.
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The article above was edited by Giovana Lins Barbosa.
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