Writing

Thoughts

I write about human behaviour as I encounter it: in relationships, in decisions, in the stories we tell ourselves and in the patterns we repeat.

Some pieces begin with psychology. Others begin with a conversation, an observation or a question that stays with me.

They are not instructions. They are attempts to look more closely.

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Laurentiu Zarioiu smiling in a light blue shirt

A seated figure in black and white, with one chair leg supported by a cracked blue block over layered grey planes.

Mind & Brain

What Addiction Is Trying to Regulate

A psychodynamic look at addiction through four vulnerabilities: affect regulation, self-care, relationships and self-esteem.

A person turns away from a green gift while a separate hand holds a transparent image of them offering it.

Relationships

When Forgiveness Becomes Another Demand

Forgiveness can be an act of freedom. When it becomes an obligation, the injured person may find themselves carrying not only the harm, but responsibility for making everyone comfortable with it.

Patterns

The Arrogance of Understanding Everyone

Understanding people can look like maturity. But when every explanation makes less room for your own experience, what happens to you?

Hands framing a gray cube with a red outline

Patterns

The Fantasy We Keep Saving

Sometimes what we are trying to save is not the relationship, but the story we were given at the beginning. A reflection on inconsistency, empathy and the moment reality asks us to update the story.

Patterns

The Pattern in What Never Happens

Some patterns are easiest to miss because they are built not from what keeps happening, but from what repeatedly never gets the chance to happen.

A person giving away a plate while their own place remains empty

Patterns

When We Stop Asking What We Want

Codependency can distort the way we recognise our own needs while also shaping what other people learn to expect from us, often leaving resentment to accumulate around things never openly said.

A hand holds a portrait with the person's wider history visible behind it

Mind & Brain

When Trauma Is Mistaken for Narcissism

The same behaviour can mean very different things depending on when it began, where it appears and what has been happening around it. When that context is missing, a response shaped by trauma can be mistaken for a person’s character.

Hands gather around one person while another open hand is left alone

Mind & Brain

When Empathy Loses Sight of the Victim

Empathy can help us enter another person’s suffering. It can also gather so completely around the person who caused the harm that the victim begins to disappear.

A hand arranges decisions around someone else's central position

Relationships

The Life Organised Around Someone Else

Self-neglect inside a relationship rarely begins with a dramatic sacrifice. More often, it begins with small decisions that make sense on their own, until almost every decision is being made with someone else’s response in mind.

Two people resume coffee across an unrepaired divide

Relationships

When Normality Replaces Repair

Some conflicts end because something has been understood. Others end because ordinary life resumes, and the return to normal is mistaken for repair.

A person's hand and choice remain outside the decision frame

Identity

When We Leave Ourselves Out of the Decision

Compromise is not defined by how much it costs us. The more revealing question is whether our own position was allowed to count before the decision was made.

A person keeps serving while their own seat remains empty

Identity

When Belonging Needs a Job

Sometimes usefulness does more than help other people. It can give us a role, a position and a reliable way to know how we belong.