Sounds like you really do need some deep rest. Put yourself first, Robi. What you need, what you feel IS important! I hope to read from you after you rest!

Dear Robi:

As I was reading and studying your earliest thread (“My story and my search for answers”, June 8, 2018- July 4, 2018, age 25) and part of the second, I came across a term called Identity Diffusion which may have applied to you back in 2018 and maybe still. It definitely applied to me for the great majority of my life.

Identity diffusion means the person doesn’t have a consistent sense of who they are across time, they feel like different people in different situations and their view of others swings between idealization and devaluation. This creates a self that feels fragmented, inconsistent, or hollow, especially under stress.

Identity diffusion forms when early caregivers were intrusive, inconsistent, emotionally absent, frightening, and/ or unpredictable, and it leads to unstable relationships, shifting self‑image, intense emotions that feel unmanageable, idealizing then devaluing others, feeling empty or unreal, and difficulty making decisions or commitments

It’s the adult expression of a childhood where the child had to ADAPT to the emotional environment instead of DEVELOPING an inner center. The child grows up without enough emotional space to develop an inner center, suppressing their own preferences, feelings, and impulses because expressing them either doesn’t matter or creates conflict. Over time, the child oriented around the parent’s moods, expectations, and needs, building a self that is externally shaped rather than internally rooted.

This produces an adult who feels blank, indecisive, easily overwhelmed, and dependent on relationships or external structure to feel real, shifting identity depending on who the person is with, mistaking intensity for connection, and collapsing when alone because there is no stable inner “me” to return to.

Identity diffusion feels like blankness when someone asks what you want, fog when you try to make decisions, and collapse when you’re alone. You might feel intensely connected to someone one day and disconnected the next. There’s a constant sense of being pulled by external forces — partners, expectations, moods, fantasies.

Identity diffusion shows up in relationships as a kind of shapelessness — a person who becomes whoever the relationship needs, then collapses when the role becomes too heavy. It looks like shifting preferences, values, or desires depending on the other person. It shows up as clinging when alone and avoidance when intimacy gets too close, because both closeness and distance feel destabilizing when there’s no inner center.

It creates cycles of idealizing a partner, then feeling suffocated, then feeling guilty, then feeling empty — not because the partner changed, but because the person’s internal structure is too thin to hold steady. It also shows up as romantic over‑investment after minimal connection, or sudden doubt and emotional numbness once the initial intensity fades.

The above, Robi, is general information. Does it resonate?

Anita

… Lella?

Dear Robi:

By this time I imagine you sent her a message? If you did, did she reply?

And today, you’re supposed to resume talking with your girlfriend- did you?

I wonder what it is that kept the two of you together all this time..?

The Shakespearian quote just came to my mind: “To thine own self be true, and if follows like (I’m paraphrasing here) night follows day, you will be true to everyone else.

I hope to read from you soon.

By the way, I liked 🙂 the visual of Robi transferring wine from a barrel through a small hose just so to have a 🍷

Anita

Hey Dear Confused 🙂

She got emotionally very attached to you- even though she has difficulty trusting people- because (I figure), she can tell that you are the bee’s knees when it comes to a man being honest with her and caring for her and about her.

Her trust doesn’t mean that it is possible for you to be perfect. No human can be perfect and never hurt another person unintentionally- not even a bee’s-knees-human aka Confused!

Another thing that nor human nor bee can do is feel good 🥳 all of the time. Or even close to all of the time.

🌿🎶✨️ Anita

* great idea

Dear Robi:

“I might just tell her I feel attracted to her and see what’s what. I feel I have no more space for playing things cool or anything like that. Some simple honesty feels alright these days.”-

I like this very much! Some Simple Honesty (SSH) may huSSH.. the pissed-off Robi. SSH with everyone, particularly with yourself ✨🤍✨

Café del Mar- WOW! If I ever get to Spain, I am going there! I remember that you told me you worked in a cafe in Spain and I think it was on the beach.. was it this place?

🌿Anita