Dear Lea:

You are welcome. Getting to understanding him more and more.. “he has a very big desire to please someone and his way to do it is to almost ‘erase’ his own needs, his own personality”- he is trying to erase his own gender as well, “dressed with feminine clothes”, applying makeup, etc.

“I was wondering if the fact that he still lives at his parents’ home plays a role and if maybe he leaves the family’s house, he will feel more free and therefore start to feel less stuck to the norms?”- I don’t think it is possible for him to be free while he is still living with his parents. On the other hand, if and when he leaves them, he will still take them with him in his mind and heart wherever he goes. They will still be speaking to him, still approving and disapproving this or that behavior, etc., without being physically present in his daily life. But leaving his parents’ home is the beginning of freedom from them (we are talking primarily about his need to be free from his mother and her input).

You wrote about yourself: “I’m pretty classic.. look extremely fancy’, very bourgeoise’, ‘you must come from a high social class’.. it’s just clothes, it doesn’t define who I am.. people, they aren’t defined by their appearances, we are more than that and it seems to be a bit superficial to qualify someone according to what he/ she wears, at least for me”-

You mentioned earlier that your mother is similar to his (“bossy, strict,  old-school.. add a ‘bourgeoise’ side”), that you too hated your social environment for a long time, and that you too went against the social norms you were raised in, having a punk  period, “went on strike with the anarchists.. was part of the Antifa movement etc.”-

– you do relate to him a lot, don’t you. You are fascinated by who he is underneath his appearance, by his undefined true self that is aching with desire to burst out and assert itself in the world, as in: here I am! This is who I am!

Am I correct, you have that true self inside you, aching with desire to be seen, heard and known?

anita