Are You Codependent?

Are you codependent? If so, there are probably some things you have a tough time accepting about human nature and relationships. On the other hand, perhaps you’re not sure what codependent means, in which case, let’s begin with some basics.

Codependents need to be needed. They believe making oneself invaluable to another is the pathway to love. It isn’t. It’s the pathway to becoming a doormat, to being taken advantage of and to becoming a target of abuse. When someone loves you and you love them, you want to be with each other (interdependence). You don’t need to be with each other (dependence). The former is a mutual coming together. The latter is tinged with urgency and desperation.

Codependents may have difficulty being alone, feel unworthy of being loved and a fear of abandonment. A codependent will often sacrifice his or her needs and well-being to take care of others. However, they usually have a hard time asking others for help and support in return. READ MORE.

Want to Say Goodbye to Crazy? Buy it HERE.

Counseling, Consulting and Coaching with Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD provides services to help individuals work through their relationship issues via telephone or Skype, particularly men and women who trying to break free of an abusive relationship, cope with the stress of an abusive relationship or heal from an abusive relationship. She combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Schedule a Session page for professional inquiries.

Relationship Boundaries, Part 2

Do you have a pattern of dysfunctional and toxic relationships? Don’t despair. If you’re codependent and not personality disordered (e.g., narcissistic, borderline, histrionic, sociopathic or psychopathic) you can break this pattern. It probably won’t be as easy or fast as you’d like, but it can be done. Change, even when it’s desired, is often painful and difficult. That’s why it’s called growing pains.

Basic Relationship Boundaries, Part 1 discusses the importance of reciprocal relationships, personal boundaries and not enabling other people’s abusive behavior. Before you can have a healthy relationship, it’s helpful to understand how and why you’ve gotten yourself into trouble in past and present relationships.

Most people who have unhealthy relationship patterns can trace it back to their childhoods. If your parents didn’t teach you to take care of yourself and have healthy boundaries, which is true of many codependents, then you need to begin with the basics. Again, don’t beat up on yourself. How are you supposed to know how to do something if no one ever taught you? Or, worse yet, taught you to ignore your own needs and well-being in order to take care of them instead? How are you supposed to know what a functional relationship is when your parents modeled toxic and dysfunctional relationships?

If you were expected to take care of your mother’s and father’s emotional and physical needs as a child it was a role reversal. It’s called parentification and is a form of child abuse. Adults are supposed to take care of their kids, not the other way round. If you’re codependent, you basically have to learn how to care for and love yourself as an adult in the ways your parents did not and could not when you were a child. READ MORE.

Want to Say Goodbye to Crazy? Buy it HERE.

Counseling, Consulting and Coaching with Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD provides services to help individuals work through their relationship issues via telephone or Skype, particularly men and women who trying to break free of an abusive relationship, cope with the stress of an abusive relationship or heal from an abusive relationship. She combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Schedule a Session page for professional inquiries.

Relationship Boundaries, Part 1

So many of the men and women I work with become hyper-focused on being able to detect personality disorder warning signs or red flags after being in a relationship with an abusive narcissist, borderline or psychopath once they’re ready to begin dating again. This is perfectly natural and normal at this stage of the healing process. After you’ve been burned that badly, of course you don’t want to go through that kind of soul sucking, gut wrenching, heart breaking mindfuckery ever again.

It makes perfect sense that you’ll be especially sensitive to any indication of Crazy in a potential date or mate. Like after getting sick from bad shellfish, you want to be certain the next plate of oysters isn’t poisonous. While being able to identify bullies, selfish jerks, the emotionally immature, emotional vampires, the pathologically entitled — however you refer to these individuals — is important, it’s only half the equation.

At the risk of sounding like a broken MP3 file, you have to have boundaries.

Even if you miss a red flag or two, boundaries are your ultimate protection against narcissistic, borderline, histrionic and psychopathic men and women. Boundaries are your garlic necklace, wolf bane and crucifix. They’re your invisible fence. And remember, “Good fences make good neighbors” (Robert Frost, Mending Wall). READ MORE

Want to Say Goodbye to Crazy? Buy it HERE.

Counseling, Consulting and Coaching with Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD provides individual services to help individuals work through their relationship issues via telephone or Skype, particularly men and women who trying to break free of an abusive relationship, cope with the stress of an abusive relationship or heal from an abusive relationship. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Schedule a Session page for professional inquiries.

Going Mental with Dr Tara Palmatier and Paul Elam: Abusive Women, Smart Men, Bad Choices

Whatever your feelings about relationships, there is no doubt that men’s lives with women can be both crazy and comical — sometimes both at the same time, sometimes not.

For a thousand arguable reasons, it is our relationship lives where logic often goes out the window and all things limbic have a way of taking over. That is true for both sexes, and it can have not only a profound impact on mental health, but on the lives of the people involved.

The world spends a nauseating amount of time obsessing on women’s experience in this area. But, at the risk of sounding cliché, what about the men?

While more people are becoming aware of men’s issues, they still suffer neglect.

Responding to that deficit is the aim of a new live Google Hangout with Dr. Tara Palmatier and Paul Elam, “Going Mental,” a program about how men experience modern relationships, good, bad or indifferent. The show debuts today, Wednesday, March 19 at 1 PM Pacific, 3 Central and 4 Eastern Time on Shrink4Men and on AVoiceforMen.

The first program will include a brief discussion about the show, followed by a discussion between Paul and Dr. T on the reasons so many men make themselves unnecessarily vulnerable, emotionally and legally, to women; the failure of many men to establish and hold fast to limits with what they will tolerate, and why all of this happens.

We are also going to focus on what can be done about it.

Please feel free to join us as we explore the side of men that most people know about but few discuss. You can watch the show live in the viewer below or at a later time that is more convenient for you.

For those who like to download podcasts to listen to on your commutes or at the gym, you will be able to do so on the Live365 AVoiceforMen Channel.

To watch the podcast, please follow this link and scroll down to the viewer:

Going Mental Podcast 01

Shrink4Men Counseling, Coaching and Consulting Services

Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD provides confidential, fee-for-service, counseling, consultation and coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.

Man-Woman-Truth Radio: Emotional Incest and Parentification

A women divorces after many years of marriage. Realizing she is now without another adult in the home, she turns to her 12 year old son and says, “You are all I have now.”

In another scenario, a father prepares to go on a business trip. Just before hopping a cab to the airport, he looks at his 7 year old boy and says, “You’re the man of the house while I am away. Take care of your mother.”

In still another home, 15 year old boy’s mother spends a lot of time telling him she is unhappy with his father; that she is always lonely and left to care for everything on her own. She is so thankful for her son, her “secret confidant.” He feels important does what he can to make her feel better. He also learns to hate his father.

“Parentification” and emotional incest is a common theme in many dysfunctional homes. It often begins when a mother, who is supposed to be the caretaker of her child, reverses the roles and makes the child responsible for her emotional needs. It is a subtle and often overlooked form of child abuse.

Tonight, at 8:00 pm Central Time, please join Dr. Tara Palmatier and co-host Paul Elam for a special episode of Man, Woman, Truth Radio where they will address this subject in a general discussion that uses real life reports of emotional incest.

Shrink4Men Coaching and Consulting Services:

Dr Tara J. Palmatier provides confidential, fee-for-service, consultation/coaching services to help both men and women work through their relationship issues via telephone and/or Skype chat. Her practice combines practical advice, support, reality testing and goal-oriented outcomes. Please visit the Shrink4Men Services page for professional inquiries.

The call in number is 310-388-9709.

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