Dear Anita,

Anita, as I feel very comfortable talking to you regarding my issues, because I feel heard and understood for the first time in my life, I want to share what happened to me today.

I tried to use the strategy that you suggested me. This situation caused my natural reaction of helping my family, and I want to know how do you think I should have responded to that. I was text messaging with my mother. Started with random topics and (as always) at one point when I asked mother what are the plans for weekend, she replied: well, father is again not talking to me, built a silence wall, so I will be doing my own things, and he his. After reading this message, I physically felt a stress reaction: my heart was racing, head spinning, felt nervous, scared and had an immediate thoughts of “I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, I HAVE TO SOLVE IT, HOW CAN I COMFORT MY MOTHER, HOW TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM FOR HER, WHY IS FATHER NOT TALKING, I HAVE TO MAKE THEIR RELATIONSHIP RIGHT, I HAVE TO KNOW THE DETAILS, MAYBE KNOWING THE DETAILS WILL HELP ME SOLVE IT”. It was a true reaction of stress, tension, fear. But I paused. I didn’t write anything, I just put my phone away. Tried to challenge those thoughts and said to myself that I do not have to comfort her, solve her and father’s relationship problems, cheer her etc. But then I started facing new thoughts, which were: “How dare you not helping her, comforting her, she is lonely, go do something, say something, you are not taking care of your mother, which is your duty. Doesn’t matter that you do not think that it is your responsibility to do that, JUST DO IT AND DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO HELP HER AND MAKE HER HAPPY!!”. Those thoughts were the ones that made me really sad and stressed out. I didn’t know what to do, I wrote to my mom: “Oh ok, get it “. That’s it. No comforting thoughts, no questions, solutions, nothing. After writing that I felt very bad, as the worst daughter ever. And I feel till this moment that I made a wrong decision, that I had to help her, that she is poor and sad, with no one around to help her, I am the only one that can do it. A huge guilt inside of me. I would appreciate a lot your insights on this situation, maybe this could help me reshape the way I think and see situation.

Thank you so much!

Milda