Pisces has a reputation of being emotional, dependant, addictive, escapist, indecisive, drifting, lazy, depressive, blame shifting, manipulative and fickle. We are also told that we tend to have a victim mentality, are confused, delusional, overly sympathetic and self destructive. We have no boundaries, no structure and can be self indulgent. We let the same people kick us again and again, we trust too easily, we believe too easily.

Yep, we are all those things, but we are also a little bit of every other sign in the zodiac. At best we can be mystical, visionary, intuitive, healing and irresistible…but at our worst, we are definitely all of the above, but usually we are somewhere in the middle.

I am allowed to say this because with Mercury, Ascendant, Sun and Moon all in Pisces, I am an extreme Pisces. I have a lot of water in my chart & other aspects which link Jupiter & Neptune into everything… I know both sides of the fish very well. At different times and for different reasons I have done bad fish. But what the world sees as the Pisces shadow I don’t always necessarily agree with. I don’t think the emotionalism is a weakness, I don’t think dreaming is a bad thing. It means we care deeply and intensely, we have visions of things as they can be… and we truly believe that there are no limits to what is possible.

Pisces is arguably the most vulnerable of all signs. Whilst all 3 water signs are motivated solely by their emotions, both Cancer and Scorpio have a hard outer shell that shields their emotions from the world. Both will question before trusting and analyse the data before exposing themselves. Pisces can’t do any of this. Instead we put on whatever mask is required. We have an innate ability to be whoever we need to be to appear to be part of whatever reality we need to be in while we live in our own version of it. Trust me, this does make sense. We can’t afford to let the world see who we really are or what we are feeling. Others can say things that hurt us deeply, but we can laugh it off… on the outside.

Pisces is not as interested in worldly matters and material success as the real world dictates. I recall a recent conversation with a close friend where I told him that I like to live in a world where nothing bad happens to good people, where I can feel free to trust that others will treat me in the way that I treat them. Bluer sky, a brighter day. That is simply a naive Piscean illusion. Bad things happen to good people, people we trust stab us in the back. People we try to help will take us for granted.

We are influenced by both the expansionary positivism of our traditional ruler, Jupiter and the illusive glamour of Neptune. Whilst Pisces has a definite tendency to pessimism and lethargy this is reflective of the relative strength of Jupiter in the chart. A prominent Jupiter will provide optimism and faith… but also a tendency to self indulgence. Neptune gives us an amazing imagination and intuition and ability to care for others at the expense of ourselves…but also a tendency to self sacrifice. This is the world of the fish- 2 extremes: reality/illusion, empathy/ self sacrifice, waves of success/ dark depths of despair.

Pisces needs to belong to someone. Love, romance, affection, sex- it is all one and the same to us. We don’t do black and white, we need colour, we need to be shown that we are loved and in response we will love you like you have never been loved before. Unfortunately, this often means that we don’t notice (at first) when you treat us badly or ignore us or exploit us.

Pisces is loyal and devoted, but can drift into an alternative relationship if they feel that their needs are not being met. This is often not a deliberate decision, but rather something that just happens. In fact, Pisces is able to be in love with more than one person at one time- without knowing why, but loving both deeply and completely for different reasons. This isn’t to say that Pisces is fickle or unfaithful- it isn’t that simple, or that complex- but one thing which Pisces can do well is compartmentalise romance and love. Another thing we do is escape when we need to!

The ideal partner for Pisces will allow us to dream, allow us to feel, give us the level of security we need to feel good about ourselves, yet provide us with enough support to engage with the real world. The cruellest thing anyone can do to Pisces is to take away her dreams and tell her that she can’t feel.

In the right environment, Pisces can work miracles. Without boundaries, the sky really is the limit. If Pisces can learn to trust herself, value herself and listen to her intuition, dreams really can come true.