22. Navigating mental health when in unhealthy relationships

Episode 22 Welcome to the Healing Pod!  In this episode, we talk about navigating the holidays when managing less than healthy personalities in our partners, including dropping the ever fun label of narcissistic personality disorder and the trap of trauma bonding (which is closer in movie lingo to Beauty and the Beast than it is Speed). Not everyone is a narcissist, but someone doesn’t have to be a narcissist in order not to be healthy for you. A big thing, and I don’t like how I worded it in here at all and wish I could restate some parts, is finding your own agency and your own strength to decide who you want to be in relationships. If a relationship is changing who you are to someone you don’t like being, it is not a relationship you should stay in. If you are able to be a person you love being when doing your own thing, but when in interaction with your partner you are somehow made smaller, or made meaner, or made anything that is not you, what is going on in that interaction and what needs to shift.  The biggest thing is not mistaking unhealthy interactions for signs that you are not working hard enough at it, and not thinking something has to have a shiny impressive label for you to be able to say “no thank you” and set whatever boundaries of whatever strength you need.  Also while there are several historical and current attempts to control weather, the results indicate that they’re just not that good at it….which is not surprising. (Somehow we were amazing at totally creating monsoons in Vietnam while fighting there, but not so amazing at preventing drought conditions here in the states). Several more recent attempts include attempting to find ways to cool the ocean in order to decrease the frequency of strong storms…… So now that I’ve alienated even more listeners.. There are a few glitchy moments in the episode that edits may or may not correct all of. I did what I could but frankly…it’s only a few days until Christmas and my kitchen and living room just got flooded so had their flooring ripped out and are unusable, along with the rest of my main floor as it is holding everything from those spaces, so…..yeah, this is as good as it gets.  As always, thank you to the wonderful Miki Anderson for our intro and outtro music. She can be found under Pax Minerva on Apple Music and is all around a wonderful human being.  Come join us and chat, complain, or send in what mental health you would like to hear us ramble about!  Find us on Facebook, TikTok, and instagram at The Healing Pod  We are online at https://www.PeasInTheHealingPod.com   You can email us any questions, suggestions, comments, or memes at [email protected]   If you want to hunt down the bits and bobbles that have been cut out of our episode, join us for another live recording, or just to buy us a cup of coffee, come join us at https://www.patreon.com/TheHealingPod