MOst popular
Maybe you're the one who gets blamed no matter what actually happened, at home, at work, or even with friends. Something goes wrong, and somehow it lands on you. If that sounds familiar, there's a word for what's happening: scapegoat. A scapegoat is a person who's unfairly blamed for problems they didn't cause. Scapegoating shows up most in families, where it's often called being the family scapegoat.
Love bombing can leave you doubting everything you felt. Here's how to recover from love bombing, why it hits so hard, and the steps that help you heal and trust yourself again.
You're walking on eggshells in your own home. Conversations that should be simple turn into something you have to brace yourself for, and the moment you push back on anything, the script flips and somehow you're the bad one. You've started Googling words like "narcissist" and "manipulation" at 11pm because you don't know what to call what's happening, but you know something is wrong. You searched for how to deal with a narcissist, and you landed here. This post walks through what actually counts as narcissistic behavior versus everyday self-centeredness, what to watch for in your own relationship, and 8 specific strategies our therapists at Anchor Therapy use with clients who can't, or aren't ready to, leave the relationship.
The first step to determine your dynamic with someone who you think is a narcissist is to know the difference between someone with narcissistic tendencies and someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Dr. Orna Guralnik, is a New York City-based Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalyst, who rose to fame due to her hit Showtime television show, Couples Therapy. Couples Therapy is a documentary series that follows couples as they try to navigate their troubles and concerns. This unscripted series features real couples from the greater New York City area.
As viewers work through the show’s three seasons, they are taught to view the therapeutic process through a lens of compassion and empathy instead of hastiness. Episode by episode, viewers are immersed into the real world of couples counseling, viewing the progress and occasional backsliding of couples.
When you are in a healthy relationship, it naturally functions well. Of course, like any couple, you may have disagreements from time-to-time or there may be some hard times, but you band together no matter what. You are able to make major life decisions together, discuss problems once they occur, and genuinely enjoy spending time with one another.
On the other hand, you have toxic relationships. In a toxic relationship, the ‘norm’ is feeling drained and unhappy after spending time with your partner. This should be a major red flag that some things need to change.
You may still love your partner, but the relationship does not seem enjoyable. Maybe minor issues turn into full-blown arguments or you always seem to provoke one another. It may even get so severe that you dread spending time with your partner instead of getting excited to see them, like you were in the past.
Continue reading this blog to see if your relationship is toxic, and some guidance on how to navigate a toxic relationship.
Disney has a way of exploring heavier life topics that can help children and the 2021 film Encanto is no exception. Movies like Inside Out and Soul also assist children in exploring heavier aspects of life, such as emotions, trauma, consciousness, and even death. Encanto joins the long list of children’s movies that have a deeper message.
Disney’s Encanto offers a multigenerational story about a grandmother and her family who have been endowed with magical gifts. The Madrigal family lives in a hidden village in Colombia. While each family member does their best to live up to their reputation and help others in the community, the facade slowly begins to crumble figuratively and literally in the house that all three generations share.
Not only do people love this movie because of its catchy soundtrack, including the famous song “We don’t talk about Bruno”, but people also love it because of its exploration of generational trauma.
Do you have a hard time going with the flow? Do you have to follow a schedule or routine at all times? Do you try to control other people in your life? If you are dealing with control issues, it is likely that you feel like you must exert power over your life, relationships, and general environment. In some cases, this exertion of power may extend to the life of other people.
Control can simply be defined as exerting influence or power over the environment, actions, and behaviors of yourself or another person. There are many reasons why you may feel like you need to be in control, such as insecurities or fear of the unpredictable. At times, your need for control may become overwhelming and tiring, causing chaos in your career, relationships, and your overall quality of life.
When you think of a child, you probably imagine a young person who is resilient and fast-moving. These traits may cause you to believe that situations do not leave a lasting impact on children’s emotional health; however, that is not the case. If left unsolved, your emotions that came from a traumatic experience as a child can live in your subconscious mind. This will continue to affect you until you detect, process, and solve it. In order to heal childhood trauma as an adult, you have to learn how to process painful emotions.
A healthy way to respond to childhood trauma occurs right after the trauma has taken place. When the trauma occurs, you recognize that it is an offense to yourself. Afterward, you would feel your emotions and acknowledge the fact that the offense does not dictate anything about you personally. In other words, you do not make a negative meaning out of what occurred. Generally, it is rare for people to react in this manner.
This process is not automatic. Certain emotions, like rage and unhappiness, are difficult to express. On top of that, some cultures may view this outpouring of emotions to be socially unacceptable. Therefore, this causes many people to suppress their emotions. For a kid, this process is even more burdensome. For instance, someone may comment on a child’s weight or a part of their body which can cause a long-lasting inner dialogue to occur in the kid’s head, creating body dysmorphia. While this can happen to adults as well, it may be easier for an adult to push aside outside commentary in comparison to a child.
A lot of our clients find themselves giving away too much of themselves to others to a point that they feel worn out. Especially in this time during the holidays, people feel they need to give everything they can to others. Whether that is lending an ear to friends in need, giving gifts, or going above and beyond for others. If you find yourself doing to this to the point of exhaustion then you may be a people-pleaser. This usually means that you are taking care of others around you before you take care of yourself. Our clients who present as people-pleasers usually find themselves feeling anxious, drained, and overwhelmed.
Most recent
It's Tuesday night, about a week before your period, and a two-line email from your boss has you convinced you're about to lose your job. Your chest feels tight, you keep replaying a conversation from Saturday, and the plans you were excited about last week now feel like too much. Then your period starts, and by Thursday that same email looks completely normal again.
Luteal phase anxiety is anxiety that builds in the week or two before your period and eases once your period starts. It tends to follow the same timing every month, and that timing is what sets it apart from anxiety that sticks around all cycle long. In this post, we'll cover what the luteal phase is, why anxiety before your period happens, how PMS anxiety differs from PMDD, and what helps.
Your mom calls on Sunday and asks why you didn't bring the kids over again. You both know the answer. The last time, she screamed at your four-year-old for spilling juice, the same way she used to scream at you. Now your aunt is texting you about how hurt your mom is, and you're sitting in your car wondering if you're the problem.
If that sounds like your life, there's a name for the role you're in. A cycle breaker is someone who recognizes a harmful pattern that's been passed down in their family, like yelling or going silent for days, and chooses to stop it with them. In this post, we'll cover the signs you might be a cycle breaker and how to keep going when your family pushes back.
You finally bring up the thing that's been bothering you for weeks. Maybe it's the comment your partner made about you in front of his friends, or the way your mom told the whole family something you said in confidence. You stay calm and pick your words carefully. Twenty minutes later, you're the one saying sorry, and you can't quite trace how you got there.
What happened has a name. DARVO is a manipulation pattern where someone you confront about a hurtful behavior denies it, attacks you, and then casts themselves as the person who's been wronged. If you looked up the DARVO meaning after an argument that left your head spinning, this post is for you. We'll walk through what DARVO looks like, why it so often ends with you apologizing, and how to respond when it happens.
It's been fourteen months since your mom died. At work, someone says it's great to have you "back to normal," and you smile because there's no easy way to explain that you cried in the parking lot that morning. The group chat stopped asking how you're doing around month three. Sunday afternoons, when you used to call her, still feel like a hole in the week.
Being stuck in grief means the pain of a loss stays sharp and keeps getting in the way of your life long after the people around you expect it to ease. Part of what makes it so hard is the loneliness that comes with it, the sense that everyone else has picked their lives back up while you're still standing in the same spot. In this post, we'll cover what being stuck in grief looks like, how long grief can last, when it might be prolonged grief disorder, and what helps when you feel left behind.
You're brushing your teeth on Sunday morning when a picture flashes through your mind: last night's party, your hand on someone's shoulder, a laugh that might have been too loud. Did you say something cruel? Did you touch someone who didn't want to be touched? You don't remember doing either, and you can't prove you didn't, so by noon you've replayed the whole night more times than you can count.
False memory OCD is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) where you get stuck on the fear that you did something bad in the past, even though you have no clear memory of doing it. It's a known theme within OCD, and it's treatable. In this post, we'll cover what false memory OCD looks like, why OCD false memories feel so convincing, how it differs from real event OCD, and what helps you stop chasing an answer that never seems to settle.
You hit every deadline this week. You made it to Saturday’s soccer game, answered the late emails, and nobody at work would guess how many nights end with a bottle of wine you meant to stop halfway through. From the outside, life looks fine. So when the thought “Do I drink too much?” shows up, it’s easy to push it aside because you’re handling everything.
If you’ve typed “what is a high functioning alcoholic” into a search bar at 1 a.m., that question deserves a clear answer. A high functioning alcoholic is someone who meets the criteria for alcohol use disorder while still keeping up with work, family, and daily life. That’s why the drinking can stay hidden from the people around you, and often from yourself. Below, we’ll walk through the signs, why this pattern is so easy to miss, what tends to happen over time, and how therapy helps you or someone you love.
You told your mother last week that you can't take calls during work hours. It's 2:15 pm on a Tuesday, and your phone already shows four missed calls and a voicemail saying you've obviously stopped caring about her.
Setting boundaries with a narcissistic parent is deciding which behavior you'll accept and what you'll do when it shows up, whether or not your parent agrees. If you've been searching for how to deal with a narcissistic parent, boundaries are the place to start. This post explains how to set a boundary your parent can't argue away and why the pushback is so predictable. It also covers what to do when the boundary gets ignored.
You're 34, and you manage a team at a job where difficult conversations are an ordinary part of your week. Then you walk into your parents' house for a holiday, and within ten minutes you're standing between your mother and your brother, smoothing over an argument exactly the way you did when you were eleven.
Dysfunctional family roles are the fixed parts each family member plays to keep the household running when something inside it isn't working. If your family was under strain, it probably had several of them. This post explains how those roles develop during childhood and why you and your sibling ended up with different ones. It also covers what it takes to step out of yours now.
The baby finally falls asleep after an hour of rocking. Then a pan clatters in the sink, the baby startles awake, and something in you snaps. You yell louder than you've ever yelled at someone you love, and ten minutes later you're sitting on the bathroom floor wondering who that was.
Postpartum rage is intense, hard-to-control anger that shows up in the months after having a baby, often far bigger than whatever set it off. It's common, and it's treatable. Below, we'll walk through the signs and causes of postpartum rage, and when it's time to talk to someone.
You're standing in front of the closet in the morning, and nothing fits the way it did last month. The jeans won't button, and the one dress that still works is in the wash. A coworker told you yesterday that you've "popped," and you smiled, then thought about it for the rest of the day. You wanted this baby, and you still don't recognize the body in the mirror.
Body image during pregnancy is the way you think and feel about your body as it changes to carry a baby. If those thoughts have turned harsh, you're dealing with something common that rarely gets talked about. This post covers why body image issues during pregnancy show up and how to tell everyday discomfort from something bigger. You'll also find ways to cope that our therapists use with clients.
It's 9:40 on a Tuesday night. You've got a dozen new series sitting in your queue, and you scroll past every one of them to put on an episode you could recite from memory. You already know Luke will pour the coffee, Ross will yell "pivot," Jim will put Dwight's stapler in Jell-O, and Alexis will say "Ew, David." You press play anyway, and your shoulders drop about an inch.
A comfort show is a series you rewatch again and again because it feels familiar and safe. If you've ever wondered why you keep going back, or what your pick says about you, this post is for you. We'll cover why rewatching feels so good and what Gilmore Girls, Friends, The Office, and Schitt's Creek each tend to give you. We'll also look at how to tell when a rewatch has stopped helping.
Claustrophobia, the intense fear of confined or enclosed spaces, affects millions of people worldwide and can trigger panic attacks, anxiety, and even physical symptoms like sweating or rapid heartbeat. Check out our blog “3 Ways to Manage Your Physical Anxiety Symptoms.” But what actually causes this fear to take hold? While every individual’s experience is unique, experts believe claustrophobia often stems from a combination of genetic, psychological, and environmental factors. Some people may be more biologically prone to anxiety disorders, while others might develop the fear after a traumatic event, such as being trapped in a small space or experiencing a frightening situation in childhood.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in eight adults may have this phobia or roughly 12.5% of the adult population in the United States. In many cases, claustrophobia develops early in life and becomes more pronounced over time. The brain's fear response can become overly sensitive, reacting strongly even in mildly enclosed spaces like elevators or crowded rooms. Learned behavior may also play a role- if a person witnesses someone else showing fear in a confined space, they may internalize that response themselves. Ultimately, understanding the root causes of claustrophobia is the first step toward managing it, whether through working with a phobia counselor at Anchor Therapy, exposure techniques, or self-guided strategies to reduce anxiety.
You hit every deadline this week. You made it to Saturday’s soccer game, answered the late emails, and nobody at work would guess how many nights end with a bottle of wine you meant to stop halfway through. From the outside, life looks fine. So when the thought “Do I drink too much?” shows up, it’s easy to push it aside because you’re handling everything.
If you’ve typed “what is a high functioning alcoholic” into a search bar at 1 a.m., that question deserves a clear answer. A high functioning alcoholic is someone who meets the criteria for alcohol use disorder while still keeping up with work, family, and daily life. That’s why the drinking can stay hidden from the people around you, and often from yourself. Below, we’ll walk through the signs, why this pattern is so easy to miss, what tends to happen over time, and how therapy helps you or someone you love.