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July 19, 2026 fucked up modern love essays

Your Therapist Calls You Codependent

Jade McGregor

Your Therapist Calls You Codependent photo

Your therapist’s Psychology Today profile says they specialize in BPD, PTSD, and dissociation. They’ve never heard of splitting. It takes two, they tell you. There’s always something you could be doing differently. Are there cell phones in the walls, your ex asks. On your way home, the strobing lights of the police cruiser blocking your driveway are visible from nine doors down. There’s a squirrel in my mouth, your ex says. The officers and psychiatric nurse make you stand outside the house. You call your best friend in counselling school about the recent bipolar diagnosis. Why is this so upsetting to you, she asks. Loving Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder instructs you to maintain boundaries and warns about rewarding suicide attempts. I want to sleep sleep sleep, says your ex. Why are you here, the principal of your school asks on the first day after winter break, the morning after your ex calls you from the Shoppers Drug Mart parking lot to tell you she took all three months of her antidepressant, antipsychotic, anti-anxiety, and blood pressure pills. Where should I be, you say, drawing the whiteboard eraser across your own writing. Someone has to teach these kids.

Jade McGregor (they/them) is a queer, non-binary writer and educator from British Columbia, Canada. Their work appears or is forthcoming in PRISM International, Queen’s Quarterly, Plenitude Magazine, Heavy Feather Review, Bending Genres, JMWW, BULL, and other journals, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. More at jademcgregor.com.


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