Blessings to Pisces

Author: Dr. Ceci Leung Clinical Psychologist

Relationships are always wonderful when they begin. But if things unhappily turn sour, reaching a point where your mental health is affected, sometimes it's no longer about saving the relationship—it's about learning how to let go. Some people, seeing the red flags, will cut ties and distance themselves swiftly. Others find it much harder to let go, particularly Scorpios and Pisceans. If you tell them to leave a painful relationship or pull back emotionally, a Scorpio will agree with you—and then fail to do it. A Pisces, on the other hand, will simply refuse to agree. Regardless of age, even when a relationship has completely rotted, they find it excruciatingly hard to sever the connection.

I once met a girl whose mother had disliked her since childhood. Whenever her mother criticized her without cause, the girl couldn't help but fight back and argue. Yet every retaliation only left her feeling more resentful and deeply entangled. Over more than a decade, she had never once succeeded in winning an argument against her mother. Slowly, the girl realized that every time she responded, she was stepping into a mud-wrestling match—win or lose, she ended up covered in mud. The more effective response wasn't about making her mother understand her, but about building a stable core self, creating distance, and minimizing the impact of her mother's words. Ideally, she would reach a point where she could simply laugh off the misunderstandings. Response techniques can be learned—walking away, nodding along, or replying with humor—but reining in one's emotions is hard. Even though she knew talking back would only bring more harm, staying quiet and refusing to engage felt like losing the connection altogether, an emotional toll she couldn't bear. She also admitted that while she was usually quite decisive, she utterly despised the side of herself that dragged things out emotionally. I looked at her birth chart: her Gemini Sun formed a 90-degree square aspect with her Pisces Moon. The crisp decisiveness of Gemini was at war with the emotional clinginess of Pisces—no wonder one "self" despised the other.

A deep longing for relationships and connection gives Pisces a strong sense of empathy. However, a Piscean's devotion to relationships often reaches the point of self-sacrifice and martyrdom. Many times, even when they know a relationship is toxic, they endure, rationalize, and keep giving—possessing a tolerance for "toxic partners" far higher than average. I've seen many Piscean friends who clearly see right through a toxic partner's mask, being drained of their mental health daily, yet refusing to cut off the relationship and cut their losses. They either cling to the hope that the person will miraculously wake up and change one day, or they endlessly nag and vent while holding onto unrealistic expectations.

What's more, once a Pisces' urge to form a connection kicks in, all rationality vanishes, and they completely dissolve their own boundaries.

A Piscean girl once told me that seeing her friends in relationships made her envious, so she confessed to a senior schoolmate she barely knew, asking if he would be her boyfriend. The senior refused her outright, leaving her heartbroken. Hearing this made me break out in a cold sweat. Girl, why are you pouring yourself out like wastewater, begging someone else to accept you? Even imported water comes with a price tag! Besides, you don't even know him—what if he were a bad person who agreed to be your boyfriend just to take advantage of you?

Pisces is a fascinating zodiac sign. If Piscean children view their mother as an extension of themselves, they will demand that she fulfill their every need and even try to control her behavior, appearing extremely self-centered. On the flip side, Pisceans can drown their own needs out of a desperate desire for connection, appearing entirely selfless. Amidst these blurred lines between "me" and "you," Pisces is always the active agent dissolving boundaries. That is precisely why establishing boundaries is a lifelong lesson for many Pisceans.

Perhaps boundaries are what allow us to see clearly that even the closest person is not "me"—they have the right not to follow our ideas or live up to our expectations. Outside those boundaries, with the filters removed, we can finally see the other person's true face—as well as our own projections.

While imagination is lush, reality is stark. If I were a Pisces, I wouldn't want to wake up either.

Here's wishing all our Piscean friends clarity in life, without ever losing your sense of romance.