The essential component of treatment for co-dependency focuses on becoming introspective, and “getting one’s own life.” Co-dependent maneuvers allow people to avoid focusing on themselves and developing healthy narcissism. They are very busy doing good works and taking care of others. However, they invariably build up a reservoir of resentment, rage, pain, and envy. Then they are often adept at painting themselves as the victim.
The Director of Administration for a boutique investment firm I treated is a perfect example. For years she spent all of her extra hard earned money treating her aging and ailing mother to lavish, exotic, high end vacations.
At the juncture in which she entered treatment she was essentially broke, and unable to afford the down payment for a Manhattan apartment.
Co-dependency has heavy threads of martyrdom woven into the fabric of the personality structure.
If emotional balance can be achieved, it will go a long way to enabling you to compartmentalize your work and personal life and help you ride the market’s lethal waves. It is crucial that you acknowledge and always bear in mind that the financial markets are organic, and therefor stormy and mercurial.
The very best FPs internalize this concept, which liberates them to be not only successful but also happy even when the market drops ominously. These individuals make money going long or short; they hedge their bets and build a wall of security that protects their self-regard and most vulnerable emotions. They formulate a very tight, well insulated Gyroscope.
This is not to say they never need professional help: it is common and absolutely acceptable, even admirable, when they seek advice because their panic and anxiety has reached the breaking point.
At the breaking point, which is nothing to be ashamed of, you owe it to yourself and the people you love and who love you to seek the advice of a mental health professional (social worker, psychologist, or psychiatrist), who have some experience in the psychology of money, and who can help you to put your current predicament into perspective.