The surprising similarities between Candy Crush and the way a toxic family system drains your life energy

Since this morning, the annual Ghent Festivities in the beautiful city where I live have come to an end. This ten-day traditional folk festival, celebrated with countless activities throughout the city centre, has grown into an international attraction, drawing visitors from all over the world who come to experience our art, culture, history, culinary delights and the vibrant nightlife for which Ghent has become renowned.

This year, unlike previous years, I had decided that I too would enjoy some of the city's culture, folklore and culinary pleasures, so I deliberately kept my diary relatively light and flexible over the past few days.

Source: King

An innocent little game that consumed my entire day

On 21 July, Belgium's National Day, I thought I would begin my day by reading some spiritual literature on my tablet while relaxing on the sofa. After downloading my e-book into my e-reader, my eye happened to fall on a game in the App Store that I used to play occasionally on my computer years ago and in which I had actually progressed quite far: Candy Crush. At the time, I eventually removed it from my computer because I found myself turning to it far too often as a way of "relaxing" and spending far too much time playing it.

But this time I gave in to the temptation of installing the app on my tablet, and I noticed that, over the years, the game had undergone several enjoyable improvements, while the basic concept had remained exactly the same. I decided I would play for an hour, spend the next hour reading my spiritual book, and then head into town to enjoy some of the atmosphere of the Ghent Festivities.

At 7 p.m. that same evening, I finally had to put my tablet aside because the battery had dropped to just 6%. I had reached level 186—or something close to that—and I had wasted my entire day on it. The one hour of "relaxation" I had promised myself had turned into a full day of busy distraction that had left me with nothing except a mild migraine and the unsettling feeling that I had been completely drained.

The game had consumed my entire day's supply of life energy, and I hadn't even noticed it!

Not long afterwards, the familiar feelings of guilt inevitably appeared.

The game behind the game

Candy Crush had completely drawn me into a colourful world of sweets, game boards and cheerful music, where trophies, bonuses and rewards were waiting around every corner—just enough to make me want to play a few more levels or accept yet another challenge.

When I finally realised that I had fallen into a cleverly designed entertainment trap that had quietly stolen all my precious time, attention and life energy under the disguise of "relaxation", it took me exactly five seconds to delete this energy vampire from my tablet—and from my life.

It suddenly struck me that games like these are designed in such a way that you already need a considerable degree of awareness before you can actually see what is really happening and understand how you are gradually being drawn into the game and kept there.

Rather like a dysfunctional narcissistic family system.

Unfortunately, deleting the app didn't immediately release me from its grip, because when I went to bed that evening, brightly coloured sweets continued to float through my mind for quite some time, while I found myself mentally working out strategies and scenarios for completing the next level with the fewest possible moves and additional boosters.

And then it suddenly hit me.

Why we keep playing even though we know we're losing

The longer I reflected on it, the more I realised that Candy Crush and a dysfunctional family system actually operate according to exactly the same principles. The similarities are, in fact, so striking that I have listed them below.

You are lured in under a false promise.

Candy Crush promises you one hour of relaxation. A dysfunctional family system promises you love, connection, safety and unconditional support, because "it is your family, after all."

You remain invested in it because you expect that, at some point, it will give you what you have always been looking for, while in reality it often costs you far more than it ever gives you in return.

You receive just enough rewards to keep you going.

The game rewards you with extra lives, bonuses and small victories, making you believe that perhaps the next level will finally be the one you succeed in completing.

In a toxic family system, you occasionally receive a kind word, a pat on the back or a compliment. Just enough to make you believe once again that perhaps this time things will be different, and to convince yourself that maybe it is still worth trying one more time.

Both are designed to keep your attention for as long as possible.

A game developer only earns money when you keep playing. A dysfunctional family system can only continue to function when everyone continues to play the role that has been assigned to them.

There is always some tension that needs to be resolved, someone who needs to be "saved", another "crisis" that demands your full attention, or another wave of guilt that you are hit with to make sure you obediently return to your assigned place.

Both survive on your energy.

While you believe that maintaining contact with your dysfunctional family somehow benefits you, in reality you are investing enormous amounts of time, attention and life force into it. By the time you become fully aware of how much precious energy you have poured into it once again, you often find yourself completely exhausted.

You believe that you simply have to try harder.

When you fail to complete a level in Candy Crush, you try a different strategy. You tell yourself that, if only you approach it more intelligently next time, you will eventually succeed. In a toxic family system, you do exactly the same thing.

You become kinder, more patient, more understanding or more helpful because you genuinely believe that you are the one who can make the difference. The possibility that the game—or the system itself—has been designed in such a way that you can never truly win simply does not occur to you.

You are kept trapped by hope.

That tiny glimmer of hope is an incredibly powerful incentive. As long as you keep hoping that you will eventually win, you will continue investing your time, your attention, your emotional energy and your goodwill.

You completely lose yourself.

While all your attention is focused on the game, you forget what you had actually wanted to do with your day. And while all your attention is absorbed by your family system, you gradually forget who you really are, what you want, what you would like to spend your life creating, what truly matters to you, and what you need in order to flourish.

You need an enormous degree of awareness before you can truly see what is happening.

As long as you continue to experience the game merely as a form of relaxation, you will keep playing. As long as you continue to see your dysfunctional family system as an intimate circle of people who genuinely love you and have your best interests at heart, you will keep investing in it, you will keep giving, and you will keep hoping. It is only when you genuinely understand how the system actually works that you suddenly realise that it was never designed to make you happy, strong or independent.

Deleting the App is easy. Freeing yourself is something else entirely.

The advantage of a games app is that, once you realise it is devouring so much of your vital life energy that you no longer have the inspiration, motivation or emotional capacity to create the life you truly long for—or to build warm, safe and nourishing friendships and relationships—you can simply remove it from your computer, your phone or your tablet.

With dysfunctional family systems that continuously drain your life force and constantly appeal to your energy, your goodwill and your loyalty, things are rather more complicated.

If you were raised in such a system, its dynamics do not merely exist around you—they live inside you. They have become embedded in your body, in your nervous system, and in the unconscious survival strategies that shaped your personality from a very early age. The person you have come to believe yourself to be was largely formed as an adaptation to that system.

On top of that, you are deeply entangled with it. You no longer know where you end and where the other members of the system begin.

Of course, you can decide to pull the plug. You can choose to go no contact with family members who consistently undermine your emotional and psychological wellbeing and who continue to drain every ounce of joy, vitality and self-worth from your life.

But even after creating physical distance, the emotional wounds, limiting beliefs, unconscious loyalties and deeply conditioned survival patterns that now live within you still deserve your attention. Walking away from the people is often only the beginning. Healing the relationship that now exists inside yourself is the real work.

The encouraging news is that this work is entirely possible.

And it can begin today.

Breaking free from toxic family patterns: reclaiming your life energy from emotional enmeshment

Breaking free from toxic family patterns is not simply about distancing yourself from certain people. It is about becoming aware of the emotional enmeshment and unconscious roles that have shaped your identity for years.

As long as you continue to step into the old roles that were unconsciously assigned to you within your dysfunctional family system, you remain tied to the very patterns that have been draining your energy. You may still find yourself being available at a moment’s notice for the needs, demands and emotional storms of the system. You may still feel responsible for keeping the peace, preventing conflict, rescuing others or carrying emotions that were never yours to carry in the first place.

For many adult children of narcissistic mothers, this often means remaining emotionally connected to the expectation that their mother’s happiness, stability or wellbeing somehow depends on them. You may have learned from a very young age to monitor her moods, anticipate her needs and adapt yourself accordingly. Choosing yourself can then feel strangely uncomfortable, even selfish, because somewhere deep inside there is still a belief that your loyalty is what keeps you connected and that your freedom might come at the cost of betraying the people you love.

This is the hidden trap of dysfunctional family dynamics: the very strategies that once helped you survive can later prevent you from truly living.

Every time you ignore your own needs because someone else might be disappointed, every time you abandon your boundaries because guilt tells you that you are being selfish, every time you take responsibility for another person’s emotions instead of allowing them to carry their own life, you invest your precious time, attention and life force into maintaining a system that was never designed to help you become fully yourself.

And while you are busy managing the expectations, emotions and responsibilities of others, there is little space left to ask yourself the questions that truly matter: What do I want? What do I need? What kind of life do I want to create? Who am I when I am no longer defined by the role I had to play in order to belong?

Breaking free from a dysfunctional family system does not mean denying your history or rejecting where you come from. It means finally releasing yourself from the roles and responsibilities that were never yours to carry. It means taking back the energy that was consumed by constantly trying to make an unhealthy system work and investing that energy into creating relationships, dreams and a future that genuinely belong to you.

The question is no longer: “How can I keep playing this game in a way that finally allows me to win?” The deeper question becomes: “What would become possible if I stopped playing a game that was never created for my freedom?”

If you recognise yourself in these struggles and feel that you are still caught in invisible patterns, emotional entanglements or old roles that keep you from fully stepping into your own life, consider booking a free discovery call with me. Together, we can explore the dynamics that are keeping you stuck and identify the steps that can help you reclaim your energy, strengthen your boundaries and create a life that is truly yours.

Email me at hello@unlockyourbestself.today to book your free introductory call.