You do not want to react the way you do. You know, even in the middle of it, that your response is bigger than the situation seems to warrant. And yet you cannot stop it. The wave comes and it takes you with it — and afterward, the shame is almost worse than the emotion itself.

You say yes when you mean no. You apologize for things that are not your fault. You monitor the emotional temperature of every room you walk into and adjust yourself accordingly. You are exhausted by the effort of managing everyone else's feelings — and you are not entirely sure when you stopped being able to access your own.

There is a particular kind of pain that comes without a story. You did not grow up in a home with obvious abuse. Your parents were not cruel. They provided for you materially. And yet — something was missing.

When most people think of a narcissist, they picture someone loud. Domineering. The person who takes up all the air in the room, talks over everyone, and has an obvious, almost cartoonish sense of self-importance.

I hear it all the time. "I know I should leave. I know this isn't healthy. Why can't I just walk away?"

You might look at your life and think, "I shouldn't feel this way. Other people have it so much worse. Why does everything feel so hard?"

There is a pervasive idea in self-help culture that you must "do the work" and perfectly love yourself before you are ready for a relationship. We are told that if we just meditate enough, journal enough, and heal our attachment style in isolation, we will finally be rewarded with the secure connection we crave.

The emotional whiplash is exhausting. One moment you feel okay, and the next, you are overtaken by a wave of emotion so fast and so big you cannot keep up. You might struggle with a painful, persistent uncertainty about who you actually are.