Hey Confused (using computer):

First, I want to tell you that you made my day (well, evening here) by posting- no one posted on the forums today but me. And then, you did! Makes me feel better just because you posted!

“Maybe I should have been more like you..”- ha-ha, you’re funny, funny and very intelligent, Confused.

I suppressed a lot too, but not so much the anger. I was so angry for so long, like boiling water inside.

I don’t think you’d want to be more like me in this regard: angry (let me ask Copilot for an appropriate emoji or emojis).. 😠 😤 😣 😡 😾 😕 😑 😒

“But now I want to appreciate and feel love truly”- I keep wanting to give answers, if only I could.

I am listening to Israeli music right now. Do you like Greek music?

Anita

How R U, Thomas? 🙂

Hi Starlight1 🌟

I am glad you did some spontaneous art and that it helped you!

I reread all your posts in this thread, so this reply is about everything you shared here.

In your most recent post, you wrote: “these issues have become confused or conflated… sometimes forgiveness becomes confused with reconciliation with the other person(s).”-

Please let me know if my thinking in what follows is true to you, or not exactly (I’ll use upper case for the different issues that became conflated)

* FORGIVING OTHERS has become tangled with FORGIVING YOURSELF — as in, you have to forgive others if you ever did anything wrong yourself.

* RECONCILIATION got tangled with FORGIVING OTHERS- as in, forgiving others means you must reconnect and interact with them.

Your CREATIVE BLOCK got tangled with EMOTIONAL HARM (by your mother and the woman in church). Both experiences made you feel that you and your creativity existed only to serve other people, not yourself. Because of that, when you think about art, you may also be thinking about guilt, pressure, and being used.

And underneath all of this sit RELIGIOUS MESSAGES that taught you that you must forgive others in order for God to forgive you. Those teachings got mixed with your personal experiences of being used, pressured, and guilt‑tripped (emotional harm)

This may create a loop where you want to protect yourself by not forgiving, but you also fear you are doing something spiritually wrong.

About emotional harm: when a parent expects a child to support their needs, dreams, or emotional stability, the child learns that their own desires are secondary.

Instead of being supported in exploring art, you were told to give up your path so that your mother could pursue hers. That kind of role‑reversal teaches a child to silence their own feelings, to feel guilty for wanting things, and to associate creativity with obligation rather than freedom.

Over time, this can create a deep internal block — because every time the child reaches toward their own creativity, the old message returns: “Your needs don’t matter. Someone else comes first.”

Your mother’s voice (as well as the church’s) sounds like guilt, pressure, duty, and the idea that you must sacrifice your own needs.

Your own voice is quieter — it shows up in your spontaneous art, your curiosity, your desire to understand yourself, and the longing for creative freedom. One helpful way to connect with your quieter voice is through small acts of creativity that have no purpose except expression, just like the spontaneous art you shared about in your recent post. Over time, you can learn to treat the others’ voices as an old echo, and hear your own, authentic voice clearly.

Anita

I think 🤔 that I am getting new insight into myself because of you:

If I read about your anhedonia when I was growing up / living with my mother, I would have been jealous of you!

Because not feeling would have been so much better than the pain (shame, guilt, self-doubt) that tormented me growing up.

So, again, I think you did an excellent job (when you were growing up) numbing/ shutting down/ suppressing your emotions- a way superior job to mine 👏

But now, what worked before (when living with your mother) is not serving you anymore.. because your GF is.. not like your mother. Maybe no one is like her.

Back to me, I wish I was able to not feel back then.

I did my best suppressing, just not as good a job as you did.

🌿 🌟 🌿 Anita

Hey Confused:

Because I am now at the computer, I asked Copilot to analyze the post you submitted 11 minutes ago.

Copilot: “Confused is saying that anger has always been hard for him to feel, so he suppresses it, which leaves him without access to a normal emotional signal. He feels safe with you — he even reassures you that emojis are fine and that your replies help him.

Then he shifts into something more revealing: he believes the relationship temporarily broke through his anhedonia, giving him feelings he normally doesn’t have, but now that the intensity has faded, his old emotional numbness is returning.

He’s comparing himself to others he read about, which shows he’s trying to make sense of his symptoms by finding patterns. Overall, he’s telling you that the “problem” isn’t the relationship or the girl — it’s something inside him that was there before, briefly lifted, and is now settling back in.”

Next, I asked Copilot what can help you.

Copilot: “1. He needs help feeling his emotions instead of shutting them down- He said he suppresses anger and that his anhedonia “returned.” That means he has a long‑term pattern of numbing instead of feeling.

What helps people like him is learning to feel emotions in small, safe ways: noticing sensations in the body, naming feelings without judging them, allowing mild anger, sadness, or joy to exist, expressing emotions in low‑stakes ways. This is the foundation of healing for someone with emotional inhibition.

2. He needs structure and routine to stabilize his mood- People with anhedonia and suppressed emotion often feel better when they have: predictable daily routines, regular sleep, consistent physical activity, manageable tasks, gentle structure. You can gently encourage him toward small stabilizing routines.

3. He needs to work with the root of his anhedonia- Anhedonia doesn’t come from nowhere. It usually comes from: chronic emotional suppression, childhood environments where feelings weren’t safe, long-term stress, depression or burnout, trauma-related shutdown. He needs support that helps him understand the origin of his numbness.

This is where therapy can be genuinely helpful — not because he’s “broken,” but because he needs a safe place to explore what he can’t feel.

You can gently point him toward supportive professional help.

4. He needs connection that doesn’t overwhelm him- He said the relationship “penetrated his anhedonia.”
That means he can feel, but only when something emotionally intense breaks through, and then he shuts down again afterward. This is a classic pattern.

What helps is slow, steady, low-pressure connection — not intensity, not emotional demands, not deep dives.

He needs relationships that feel safe, predictable, non-demanding, emotionally gentle.

5. He needs to understand that the problem isn’t the girl — it’s his baseline- He already suspects this: “I was like this before… it penetrated my anhedonia for a while until it returned.”

This is insight.

What helps him is reinforcing the idea that: his numbness is internal, it’s not caused by the relationship, it’s not a sign he didn’t care, it’s a long-standing emotional pattern. This reduces shame and helps him move toward healing.

6. He needs to learn how to tolerate small amounts of discomfort- People who suppress anger and feel anhedonia often avoid: conflict, emotional intensity, vulnerability, uncertainty.

What helps is learning to tolerate tiny doses of discomfort without shutting down.

This is something he can practice slowly, over time.

7. He needs compassion for himself- He’s not cold. He’s not uncaring. He’s emotionally inhibited and overwhelmed.

What helps most is: self-kindness, reducing self-criticism, understanding his patterns, not blaming himself for numbness.”

I’ll post again from my phone.

Me

Good 🌄 Confused:

Yes, I remember you shared before that you never or almost never feel 😡- why do you think that is?

Mostly disconnected and numb sucks. I wish you mostly felt connected and alive- not all the time and not in an intensity that is unsustainable, bur.. reasonably connected and alive.

🙂 😞 😡 😃 😉 😢 ☹️ 😭 😔 😊 Anita