I grew up in a family where there was tremendous dysfunction, chaos and madness.

The intoxicating stew that was there that bonded all of us were intensity, intense demands then completely being ignored and always having my needs, concerns and goals minimized.

If I get myself in a similar situation to that be it work, relationship, friendship, neighbors whatever, I start going into degrees of intensity myself. There is obession, resentment, rage and grief all churned up in there because of course I am triggered to bring up so much from the past.

This familiar pattern was what glued me to the ex A. He was alternatively intensely demanding then completely ignored me for months on end.  He would drop in, make demands then leave with his friends often for days.

Now when I am around those kind of situations I have to work on dialling back and not feeding in.  Of course it is very difficult to do.

I can stumble on them quite innocently and then find myself glued to the place again.

Detachment does help.  Some of these situations are not things I can necessarily leave, or pull myself out from.  Some of them are work related.  Others are related to people I can't actually drop from my life but I can dial back.

I know expectations are everything.  I have very low expectations of people who behave in this fashion but its very hard to set limits around them and to scale back sometimes when I am in full trigger mode is pretty difficult.

I set boundaries these days like a fiend.  I am no longer a people pleaser but the heady mix of intense demands and then being absolutely ignored is a real humdinger for me.

Maresie.