“Rocío Carrasco could take years to recover from the disorder she suffers from post-traumatic stress”

The documentary series on Rocío Carrasco has opened the doors to speak openly about toxic relationships and their impact on the psychology of those who suffer them. Pilar Guerra, an expert clinical psychologist in addiction and emotional detoxification, receives LA RAZÓN to analyze how these relationships work and offer the necessary tools to face these complex situations. He also makes an X-ray of the psyche of Rocío Jurado’s daughter, who he says is still in the recovery phase.

Could it be said that the relationship that Rocío Carrasco had with Antonio David was based on an emotional dependence?

According to the statements that have been released, it does seem that there has been a relationship based on emotional dependence. Since the focus has been on staying next to the other believing that he felt complete as a person. From the statements that I have heard, it has one more degree, higher than emotional dependence and it is emotional addiction because it seems that looking at the time and the way in which they have been related it is as if this person had had an addiction to dependence of the couple, regardless of whether the relationship was healthy or not.

Was Rocío involved in a toxic relationship? When were you aware of it?

Toxic is everything that is far from both physical and psychological health. In this case, this person has expressed that from the beginning their relationship was one of inequality, lack of complicity and lack of empathy. The statements that she has made go along the lines of having been blocked so as not to have been able to establish minimum limits that would preserve her individuality and independence as a person and that would lead her to protect herself.

What is the difference between intoxication and emotional addiction? How to realize that one is involved in one of them?

Emotional dependence, in general, is an intense affective addiction, that is, an addiction towards the world of affections that one person feels towards another in the situation of couples, friends, family and also in the workplace. Emotional dependence is a need to have, to be, to control and obsessively couple to a person. It is a chronic disease since relief is sought through the “consumption” of people. The love addict is a person with a love and behavior disorder since the relationship becomes a source of anguish, frustration and pain instead of being something pleasant.

Emotional intoxication, on the other hand, is an emotional addiction taken to the extreme. It is the ultimate consequence of having consumed the affections in an extreme way in relationships until we get “high” with it. After taking drugs with it, we reach intense, overflowing and extreme levels of depersonalization, of total absence of self-esteem and self-knowledge, of doubts and of terror of being abandoned. In short, it is a kind of “prostitution to the other”, since our own needs and desires are postponed in front of those of others.

Is it a psychological deviation of perception and management of romantic relationships?

Yes, emotional addiction is a distortion of perception, in the way we relate to love. It is “the anorexia” of relationships, since it is a perceptual deviation similar to dysmorphophobia, which is having altered the perception of the shape of the body, an alteration of the body image that anorexics have.

Rocío’s relationship with Antonio David lasted a short time, just over three years. How is it possible that the aftermath of that relationship last so long?

Generally, after this type of relationship, as she has described it, the person considered a victim enters a picture of post-traumatic stress disorder, giving herself psychological damage that becomes sequelae that remain for years. People who have been subjected to this situation of stress, fear and mistrust for so many years, can produce an undermining of self-esteem that leads to emotional blocks and these to mental or intellectual blocks. The situations of relationships of this type based on the toxicity of the couple relationship, transcend the relationship in more contexts, with children, friends, family … so recovery is more difficult when there has been a breakdown of very strong ties. important.

When does a healthy dependency become toxic?

There are no healthy dependencies. There are relationships or bonds that can be healthy and that unfortunately sometimes turn into dependencies and toxicity. There is toxicity when the person stops feeling free and their life depends totally on the other’s. When the other is prioritized and when most of the thoughts, emotions and behaviors are directed to that “other”, thus contaminating the independence and individuality of the person, their day to day becomes a golden cage. Love is sick. Identity as individuals is lost.

Who suffers more from this disease: men or women? Why?

The percentage of women with emotional dependence is higher. Recent statistical studies assure that 49.3% of the people interviewed declared themselves emotional dependents, of this percentage 8.6% declare they suffer from emotional intoxication, which is a form of severe and serious emotional dependence. Of this 49.3% declared declared emotional dependents, 74.8% are women, compared to 25.2% of men.

Why there are more women than men has to do with social roles. The man began to establish himself in our society because they were the ones who had to be away from home to support the family, and the woman was in charge of being at home. These roles have already marked the differences between men and women in an anthropological way, since the overprotection of women was highlighted, which led them to learn that they have to choose whether or not dependence on men and almost be forced to interpret this relationship as unequal.

What are the limits that can be reached if one suffers from this poisoning?

The most intense that divorce or separation breakups can be are extreme depression or even suicide. The emotional dependent after the breakup becomes a great sufferer as a result of this catastrophe, loneliness and inability to adapt to the new situation can even cause the meaning of life, identity as a person to be lost.

This often leads to extreme emotional expressions, such as major depression, suicide attempts, the idea of ​​not wanting to live, autolysis (self-harm behaviors), the initiation of other drugs (alcohol, drugs, food) with the In order to forget about self-care. They begin to get into what psychologists call the “death drive” which is a tendency to be more on the side of death than of life. There are often cases of abandonment of work, friends, family. On some occasions they come to make a psychiatric personality picture, among which borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder stand out.

How do you rate Rocío Carrasco’s public exposure about her personal problems? Are they part of your therapy?

That a person has been able to speak after so long is very important for their positioning, to take ground, to take a presence since in these cases all reference as a person is usually lost. My advice is to continue in this line. It gives me the feeling that she has done a personal, psychological work (in fact, she has said it). And I would advise you to tell what happened through the objective description of the events as you are doing it, separating it a lot from the emotion. And if she does, it is a contained emotion (not repressed), from my point of view, the result of good psychological work and introspection that she has done.

His statements are assuming a paradigm shift in society so that we finally learn to be able to declare ourselves victims of concrete acts of “no good deal.” My suggestion is that, with these statements, with the objective burden that she is doing, she is teaching society that it is unfeasible to continue re-victimizing the victims as has been done until now. Rocío has broken the canons of “bought silence” in society.