WHIPLASHED IN RELATIONSHIPS

Growing up with unpredictable caregivers—whether through addiction cycles, mood swings, or emotional flip-flopping 🩴—you developed an incredibly sensitive radar for reading people's true intentions. One day your parent was your best friend—the next day you were walking on eggshells 🥚 around a stranger who looked nothing like them. You learned to scan for the smallest signs of change, becoming a master at predicting disappointment before it arrived. This hypervigilance became your survival superpower, helping you navigate the emotional minefield of never knowing which version of your parent you'd encounter each day.

But this same protective mechanism now creates chronic anxiety in your relationships, making it nearly impossible to trust when things are actually stable. You've learned to always have a Plan B because counting on others being there for you feels inherently dangerous. You find yourself either keeping people at arm's length ✋ or diving in headfirst 🤗—desperately hoping this time will be different, all the while being prepared for the familiar crash. You're scanning your partner for any signs of change so intensely that it creates the very instability you're trying to avoid. Your nervous system is perpetually on alert waiting for the other shoe to drop, even when your partner is just... tired from work 👔😴.