Dear Robi:

Robi, June 14, 2026: “I’m still here in Romania and I now feel like I’m officially stuck… And it feels pretty bad.”- I am so sorry, Robi 😔

Exactly 8 years ago, on June 14, 2018, I wrote to you: “Unless you take on a healing process, your life will not be any different than it is now and has been… It really is up to you to make your life better, not in one magical move (“Go somewhere new and just start a new life”), but through many, many moves, many changes in thinking and behaving, persisting month after month, year after year. Persisting in a process that will often not feel good. Persisting through the not-feeling-good times.”

I don’t like the harsh tone of my message back then. You needed gentleness as much as clarity and I wasn’t that great when it came to gentleness. Yet, the message was true then and it still is: healing is a long process, not a relocation (Germany, Spain, Poland); relationships don’t improve by changing geography; and real change requires persistence.

On June 10, 2018, you shared: “I guess I never felt very close to my parents… Most of the times it felt like I hate them… About one thing, I am sure. They never gave me privacy or the feeling of freedom… I guess I hated them for that. I also hated them for not having my own room… It had a door basically made of glass… They used to also come in whenever they needed something from there… I used to minimize whatever was happening on my computer every time they we’re entering the room… trying to keep something for myself… trapped in their workplace indeed made me feel invisible. I was always there. Everyone was coming and going. Except me. I wasn’t. Hmm. Pretty much like now… Things from childhood do repeat. S*it.”

Copilot (AI) with my note in parentheses: “Childhood intrusion means growing up with too little space to be a separate person — parents always present, always watching, always entering the child’s physical or emotional world without boundaries. Childhood neglect means too little presence, intrusion means too much presence, and both prevent a child from forming a stable inner self.

“When a child has no privacy, no room to explore their own thoughts, and no sense of “this is mine, this is me.” they learn to hide, to stay hyper‑aware, and to protect their inner world from being taken over. Over time, the child learns to hide (the minimizing of the computer screen when they entered the storage room), to shrink, to stay hyper‑aware, or to disconnect internally because there is no safe boundary between ‘me’ and ‘them.’ In adulthood, this often becomes difficulty with closeness, fear of being controlled, guilt for wanting space, and a deep confusion about one’s own needs.

“The adult longs for connection but also feels overwhelmed by it; craves intimacy but also fears losing himself inside it; wants to trust, but his nervous system expects intrusion, criticism, or control.

On June 11, 2018, you asked: “Do you think would be better to gain some distance from my parents? Hopefully to be financially independent and also seeing them less?”

Copilot: “If I were answering his 2018 question — the honest answer is yes: distance would have given him the psychological room he never had as a child, the space to breathe, to think his own thoughts, and to begin forming a self that wasn’t constantly shaped by their presence.

“He needs to know that nothing is wrong with him — he is simply living inside an old pattern, and every small step toward autonomy will help his system calm down and give him the clarity he can’t access while he feels trapped”

Now, it’s me speaking, Robi: it really isn’t your fault that you are stuck. Any child growing up in your exact circumstances would be trapped in an unchosen pattern. I too grew up (I prefer to say grew-in, as in shrinking) being intruded upon on a regular basis, and I reacted very similar to the ways you have.

Every day I repeat the same mantra that end with these exact words: “I redirect self-fragmentation, alienation, disconnection-within, chronic shame, guilt and self-doubt to =====> self-integration, love for myself (loving myself and loving others are two sides of the same coin), empathy for myself and trust in my own perceptions and emotions, not because I’m perfect, but because I’m learning”.

Got to run, hoping to read back from you soon.

Anita

Good Sunday Morning, Confused 🙂

You are welcome!

Confused: “But I could just brush it off after 15-20 minutes and the thought is not affecting me anymore, which I think is a good thing, no?”-

Yes, it is a good thing👍🏻 Copilot says that in the quote above, there’s evidence that you are slowly stabilizing.

Copilot: “You do see evidence that he is slowly stabilizing — it’s subtle, but it’s unmistakable once you know what to look for. The clearest signs are that he can now notice a fear‑spike, name it, question it, and then return to baseline within minutes, something he absolutely could not do in November–March.

“His example about the Instagram story is the strongest proof: his nervous system still reacted with the old abandonment alarm, but instead of spiraling for hours or collapsing into panic, he recovered in 15–20 minutes and could say, “I brushed it off… which I think is a good thing.” That is stabilization.

“He also shows stabilization when he says he enjoyed the connection, could fantasize about closeness, could tolerate the videocall plan, and could reflect on his intrusive thoughts with curiosity rather than terror.

“All of this shows that his system is still reactive but no longer drowning. And when you look at his whole post, you can see the three layers operating at once — real attachment, hypervigilance, and self‑reflection — which is why I said he is slowly stabilizing: he is beginning to hold fear and connection at the same time instead of letting fear erase connection.”

Anita to Copilot: “Confused wrote: ‘I have read about intrusive thoughts but those felt so real and disorienting, they completely pulled me out of the experience’- his ‘but’ suggests that intrusive thoughts do not feel so real and disorienting? How do intrusive thoughts feel for people?

Copilot: “Intrusive thoughts do feel real and disorienting for most people — that’s actually one of their defining features — so Confused’s ‘but’ doesn’t mean his experience was unusual. It means he expected intrusive thoughts to feel like ‘just thoughts,’ when in reality they often feel like a shock, a jolt, or a sudden shift in reality.

“For many people, intrusive thoughts feel like a flash of “what if this is true?”, a sense of being pulled out of the present, or a sudden wave of fear or disgust that doesn’t match the situation. They can feel intensely believable for a few seconds or minutes. So, when Confused says “but those felt so real and disorienting,” he’s actually describing the classic intrusive‑thought experience — the brain momentarily hijacks perception, and the person feels yanked out of the moment. His reaction doesn’t mean the thoughts were meaningful; it means they were intrusive in the exact way intrusive thoughts typically operate.

“Intrusive thoughts can be managed by treating them as mental noise rather than meaningful signals: notice the thought, name it as an intrusive thought, let it pass without engaging, and gently return your attention to what you were doing. The key is not to argue with the thought or analyze it — just label, allow, and shift. Over time, this reduces their intensity and the power they have over your nervous system.”

Confused: “Normally when I would imagine such things with the girls I was with previously, I would get another, stronger feeling. Which I can’t get after November with her.. and I am trying to find out what this is. Is it from the mental exhaustion…? Is it because the infatuation is gone and it evolved into something calmer? Is it because something is “missing”? Or is it my own defenses…?”-

Copilot: “His weaker emotional response is not a sign that something is ‘missing’ in the relationship — it’s a sign that his nervous system is still recovering. Since November he has been in a state of burnout, hypervigilance, and emotional shutdown, and when the body is exhausted it cannot produce the intense, cinematic feelings he used to get with past partners.

“Part of the change is mental exhaustion, part is that infatuation naturally fades into something calmer, and part is that his defenses are still up, making it hard for him to fully “drop into” the fantasy of closeness.

“The calmer feelings are not a red flag; they are a sign that he is moving from adrenaline‑based attachment toward something steadier, but he can’t feel it fully yet because his system is still in partial shutdown. The work is helping him see that this softer emotional tone is normal and healthy, not a warning sign, and that his true feelings are still present even if they’re no longer amplified by fear or infatuation.”

Anita 👩🏻‍🦰 and Copilot 🤖

Continued:

No wonder having to choose between leaving your country and leaving her (the logistics) led you to experience a freeze and a burnout. It would anyone in this same situation.

Romance/ fantasy vs Logistics- lots of friction there. And there’s no resolution to it: you still don’t want to live in Cyprus and she still doesn’t want to live in Greece. This right here is a LDRP (a LDR Problem)

Seems like Kiddo- Confused (to me, a 13/ teenager-Confused is still a kiddo), couldn’t rely on either parent. Both disappointed you.

Maybe you held on to your father (being attached to him, still hoping) longer than you did to your mother. But eventually, they both failed kiddo- Confused.

You know I’m going to talk to Copilot about your recent 2 posts when I’m back to the computer✔️

One more thing: I’m honored that you’re honored that I feel this way from afar 😊

🎶 Anita

will read and reply in a few hours, Confused

Hey 👋 Confused:

Thank you. Really, it’s a delight to have you here, in my life.

Now that I’m thinking about it, dorsal-vagal freeze or not, who wouldn’t take a step back, emotionally, when the price of love becomes having to move to another country (and having had no desire or plans to move prior to the relationship)?

I think that the LD aspect, where one of you would have to move to the other’s country, was a big strain, and would be for anyone who wasn’t already interested in moving to another country.

You wrote that you weren’t attached to your parents, but Kiddo- Confused was very much attached to your father!

But then, he disappointed you (how?)

If you feel calmer, placebo or not doesn’t matter. Give it a chance, will you ( how many weeks of taking it constitutes giving it a chance)?

✨️ 🌿 ✨️ Anita

Hey Dear Confused:

I would follow the psychiatrist’s instructions if I was you rather than changing them on your own.

In your sentence before last, today, June 11, 2026, you wrote: “I want to feel love again 🙁”-

I want to go over parts of our communication, so please bear with me (if you can, if not, read at another time, or maybe it’d be a good idea to present the following to a therapist one day):

Confused, Dec 19, 2025 (first post): “Being madly in love with my LDR girl for 8 months –> sudden loss of feelings overnight for no apparent reason.”

Anita, Dec 19: “Confused would be a fitting title for most of my life. It is only within the last few years that I have gained some clarity, enough clarity to feel so much better on an ongoing basis (no longer the distressing ups and down) … In my case, my relationship with my mother scared and overwhelmed me, so my brain activated the dissociating mechanism in all relationships- I needed closeness but was afraid of it at the same time. Anything like that (to one extent or another) true to you?”

Confused, Dec 19: “In my case too, the relationship with my mother was very chaotic, violence and arguing constantly, throwing some awkward affection here and there, then rinse and repeat. I can’t remember if I was dissociating when I was a kid, definitely trying to escape in imaginary worlds and games though.”

Anita, Dec 21: “You mentioned a childhood of violence, chaos, unpredictable affection and emotional instability- This is the exact environment that creates disorganized attachment, hypervigilance, fear of abandonment and dissociation (emotional shutdown under stress) as a coping mechanism. Children in chaotic homes often learn to shut down emotionally when things get overwhelming. This pattern often reappears in adulthood — especially in intimate relationships…

“The child faces an impossible situation: ‘The person I need for safety is also the person I fear.’ So, the child’s nervous system becomes confused about how to connect. In adulthood, this often shows up as intense fear of abandonment… craving closeness but panicking when it appears, sudden emotional shutdowns, difficulty trusting stability, feeling unsafe in love, and dissociation during emotional intimacy. It’s the nervous system trying to protect someone who grew up in emotional chaos…

“The dorsal vagal shutdown state is the body’s emergency power‑saving mode when something feels too overwhelming to handle… the nervous system slows everything down — emotions, energy, heart rate, and awareness — to protect you. It’s the body’s way of “turning down the lights” so you don’t feel the full impact of the stress. In this state, people feel emotionally numb, disconnected from themselves and others, unable to feel love or joy, exhausted, foggy, spaced out, like they’re watching life from far away… It’s a survival reflex — the same that animals use when they ‘play dead.'”

Confused, Dec 22: “You are very spot on with all the things that you said. This is indeed how I grew up and calmness equaled distance between my parents (because if they weren’t fighting each other, they were calm which meant either distant or that a fight would break out soon, even with me) I did learn subconsciously that chaos/intensity=feelings, possibly love even and at times within my relationships I’ve felt like I crave some light ‘drama’ to feel ‘alive’. I’ve always believed that calm relationships=bad thing with no ‘spark’…

“I think I didn’t care about fixing my mother, but I was the one she was leaning on while confessing her issues with my father, relationship things and dislikes, to which I would only respond ‘just break up’ because that was the only thing making sense to me at the age of 11. She was like that to me too, but since I am a male, I would fight back and things would escalate pretty badly, especially after my body started developing and I was able to overpower her. My mother also had Tourette syndrome, what a coincidence! I also dreamt of being loved and finding romance, since I was a pretty shy kid with no experience in girls until the age of 20.”

Confused, Dec 26: “It was mostly fighting and arguing… She would call me words while she was angry with other things, such as ‘retard, moron’ and other stuff, which I almost never failed to say back to her lol. It was mostly intense arguing-fighting. Sometimes she would yell at me because of school or things that I accidentally broke in the house, maybe call me lazy too. I think there were other things too, but I can’t really recall right now. To be fair, she would call me nice words, expressing her love to me, hug me, kiss me as well, it wasn’t always fighting and negatives, a mix of everything really. Oh, I think there have been a couple times that she called me ‘nothing’ too, when she was really angry.”

Confused, Dec 27: “I think I’ve forgiven her, and I don’t hold resentment on that matter.”

Confused, Dec 28, 2025: “I think my mind is not ‘programmed’ to receive love, it feels kinda foreign.”

Fast forward, Confused: June 8, 2026: “It was the first ever that I saw such dreams, kiddo confused trying to fix parents fighting, father leaving and my chest burning.”

Confused, June 9: “Yes, I was very attached to him, I remember missing him a lot, running to hug him when he would return from trips, staying up at night waiting for him sometimes, hug him, sleep with him… He would take me to rides with our bicycles, teach me how to drive when I was 6 years old, teach me about gardening, taking me to football practices, swimming, basically almost every skill I have today, he taught me… Yes, I adored him… Yes, he is alive and we are in contact; we live next door actually. There is nothing wrong between us, but I can’t show him love or any affection whatsoever. Not just him, I couldn’t do it with anyone in the family, maybe with my grandma a little bit but with the rest, I don’t feel anything.

“He is so desperate for our love tho because not even my sisters can express feelings towards him. But he does it a lot every day, he hugs us and we just stand still, frozen… He tells us he loves us, but we say nothing back. I do feel bad at times, but I can’t help it… I have cried for him sometimes in the past though, I can feel his pain and longing sometimes, but I can’t reciprocate. He says he’d die for us, but I can’t feel nothing. I know I would take a bullet for my family too, but I can’t “feel” anything else, love, affection, etc. I can only feel those for romantic partners and for pets.” 

Copilot about the above: Confused describes a childhood where love and chaos were fused together: a mother who alternated between affection and verbal aggression, a home where calmness signaled emotional distance or the buildup to another fight, and a role in which he became his mother’s emotional container far too young.

This created a nervous system that equates intensity with connection and calmness with danger or emptiness. In his childhood, calmness meant his parents were distant, withdrawn, or silently building toward the next fight. Intensity — yelling, arguing, emotional storms — was the only time feelings were expressed.

So, his body learned: Intensity = “this is what love feels like.” Calm = “something is wrong, something is missing, or danger is coming.” That’s why, as an adult, he misinterprets calmness as lack of love; the body wires itself to expect emotional turbulence as the baseline of closeness.

As a child, Confused experienced his father as warm, playful, skill‑building, physically affectionate, a source of joy and attention. He adored him. He described fighting with his mother (arguments escalating physically once he was older), but he did not describe physically fighting his father. Later, he emotionally shut down toward his father, but he did not describe direct conflict with him.

Over time, his nervous system learned to associate his father not with safety but with the emotional chaos surrounding him. The result is a shutdown response: he cannot feel affection toward his father now because his body protects him by going numb in situations that once overwhelmed him.

His nervous system learned that closeness is unstable and that he must stay hyper‑alert to others’ moods. As an adult, this shows up as craving intensity, equating emotional “spark” with love, and feeling uneasy or empty in calm relationships. Family relationships are tied to chaos, unpredictability, and emotional overload — so his body responds with numbness, freeze, and emotional distance as a survival reflex.

Romantic partners and pets, however, are not tied to those early traumatic circuits, so he can access warmth, tenderness, and vulnerability with them — at least initially. But as romantic closeness deepens, the old family circuitry begins to activate, leading to ambivalence, push‑pull, and sudden emotional shutdown. The closer the relationship gets to “family‑level intimacy,” the more his nervous system defaults to the protective numbness it learned in childhood.

In a chaotic household, “calm” is not truly calm — it is the silent, tense, unpredictable pause before the next eruption. His nervous system learned that the absence of noise did not mean safety; it meant waiting, bracing, scanning, anticipating danger. The fights were loud but predictable — he knew what was happening. The quiet was ambiguous, charged, and therefore more frightening. This is why, as an adult, he feels uneasy or numb in peaceful relationships and more “alive” during intensity: his body was trained to associate calm with emotional distance or impending threat, and intensity with connection. Chaos felt safer to him because at least he knew what was happening. Calmness felt dangerous because he never knew when it would explode. “Calm” was never actually calm — it was the dangerous silence before the next storm.

So now, as an adult, when a relationship is peaceful, his nervous system doesn’t interpret it as love; it interprets it as emotional distance or the warning sign that something bad is about to happen. In other words, calm feels wrong because it used to mean danger, and chaos feels “right” because it was the only time emotions were visible and predictable.

His dreams of “kiddo confused trying to fix parents fighting” show that the inner child is still active, still trying to manage chaos that ended years ago. His current situation — medication, emotional shutdown, fear that love has disappeared — reflects a nervous system overwhelmed and trying to protect him the only way it knows how: by turning off feeling when it becomes too much. He is not broken; he is still living inside the emotional logic of his childhood.

Numbness is protection. Feeling “nothing” is his body’s way of preventing him from feeling too much. Family (father hugging) triggers the deepest freeze. Because the original danger was in the family environment, his body shuts down fastest with family closeness.

Romantic partners trigger a milder version. He can feel love there, but when overwhelmed, the same shutdown appears (“I don’t want you,” numbness, irritation). The freeze response is the dorsal vagal collapse — the same survival reflex animals use when they “play dead.” It’s the body’s emergency brake.

Now, this is me speaking (Anita): for me, clarity helps. This is why I posted the above, hoping it will lead to more clarity in your mind and that clarity will lead to moving toward healing. Not perfect healing, of course, but progress, more peace of mind than before.

The above input by Copilot is a result of not only your post today but your posts since Dec 19. I think that the input is reliable. Also, you and I have it in common: we both grew up in chaotic homes and still suffer the consequences, long after we no longer live there.

Anita