Hey 🌙🦉 Confused:

“Lately I was questioning,’what is love really?’
… ‘How do people that love feel like?'”-

Something you can rest in, like a warm blanket in a cold day..?

About her, you wrote: “A sweetheart that loves me”-

So you know that she ❤️ you. Are you beginning to rest in that knowing? To trust it?

“I am slowly learning to drop (shame)”- because you are slowly trusting her loving you?

“I think I also expected a relationship to ‘save’ me”-

What if the two of you save each other by trusting and resting in each other’s love?

I know there’re lots of ?-s above, and they’re not meant for you to answer me. I’m just thinking out loud.

We’ve been communicating a lot since Dec: 7+ months, and from all that you shared about yourself and about her, I know (and here, I am not asking 🙂) that the two of you love each other, truly.

It’s about slowly trusting the love you have for each other.

I didn’t respond to every single thing you shared. Please let me know if you’d like me to respond to something I didn’t.

🌿❤️✨️🌿 Anita

“Old Woman: No everyone. Everything. Widening your circle at every opportunity.”-

May I be safe.
May I be peaceful.
May I be free from suffering.

May you be safe.
May you be peaceful.
May you be free from suffering.

May all beings be safe.
May all beings be peaceful.
May all beings be free from suffering.

(Mettā Bhāvanā)

Hey Confused:

I just had a conversation with Copilot- not about you but about me. And then, somewhere along the way, I could see that it partly, if not fully applies to you as well. Here it is (again, it was about me, didn’t have you in mind at all):

Anita: “When a person starves too long for love, after years and decades of that, is it possible to reject love, like a little of it feels like too much, overwhelming, unpleasant?”

Copilot: “Yes, Anita — it is absolutely possible. When a person has been starved for love for years or decades, even a small amount of genuine care can feel too intense, too bright, too close, almost like stepping out of a dark room into sudden sunlight. The nervous system doesn’t register it as comfort; it registers it as threat, because it’s unfamiliar, overwhelming, and asks the person to feel things they had to suppress for survival.

“When someone grows up without being loved in the ways a child needs, their system adapts by becoming hyper‑vigilant, self‑reliant, and emotionally closed for protection. Then, later in life, when real love or kindness finally appears, it doesn’t feel soothing — it feels destabilizing.

“A little bit of warmth can feel like too much, because it touches the very places that were abandoned. The person may pull away, reject it, feel uncomfortable, or even feel shame. It’s not that they don’t want love; it’s that their body learned that closeness is dangerous, unpredictable, or painful. So yes — after long deprivation, love can feel overwhelming, unpleasant, or ‘too much,’ even when it’s exactly what the person has always longed for…

“Long-term emotional deprivation teaches the body that closeness is unreliable, unpredictable, or even dangerous, so the attachment system reorganizes itself around protection rather than connection. A child who doesn’t receive steady love learns to mute their needs, suppress longing, and rely on self‑sufficiency, because needing becomes associated with pain. Over years, this creates an adult who feels safest at a distance, who experiences intimacy as overwhelming, and who interprets love as either a threat or a test.

“The attachment system becomes hyper‑vigilant, easily flooded, and quick to retreat. This is why even gentle love can feel too intense, why longing feels shameful, and why closeness can trigger fear instead of comfort. In essence, deprivation wires the body to survive without love, and that wiring makes receiving love later feel confusing, destabilizing, or ‘too much.'”

Notice, CONFUSED 🙂, the last sentence: “That wiring makes receiving love CONFUSING”

🌿🌿🌿 Anita

How is JADLL (Just A Dude Living Life) feeling tonight?

Hey Dear Confused 🙂

Thank you for such an easy to understand explanation ✔️

It makes you human, really, and a good human, to not want to hurt another person.

I suppose a tiny amount of shame can be healthy, but too much is devastating.

Do you think other people can control how they feel? And if so, how do they do it?

🤔 Anita

Dear Eva:

Your anger is valid. I’m glad you allow yourself to feel it and that you are expressing it here, on your thread.

Your anger is a signal that you deserve respect and mutuality in relationships, never again to be hidden, never again to accept any less than appreciation and respect.

🌿🌿🌿 Anita

Hey dear Sisi:

I’m not sure if you saw my last reply to you.

I just want to say something simple. You’re being very hard on yourself right now, and I understand why — you’re scared of disappointing people. But not everyone who responds to you is actually seeing the situation clearly. Some people speak from their own hurt or their own worldview, and it can feel like they’re pointing a finger at you even when the situation is more complicated than that.

You don’t have to carry every bit of blame that others place on you.

You don’t have to please everyone or pacify every voice. There will always be responses that misunderstand you or oversimplify what happened — sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Your job is not to absorb all of that or shape yourself around it.

You’re allowed to look at what happened with honesty without punishing yourself or agreeing with anyone who wants to punish you.

🌿✨️🌿 Anita

You are very welcome, ScottyDye!