You’re very welcome, Alessa, and no worries at all about any delay. I can only imagine how busy you are with your studies, exams, and the incredible dedication of being a mother—and that’s just two things! Your thoughts about your son are truly beautiful. Take care! ❤️

Anita

Dear Ben:

Your words, June 2023–July 2024: “I do not have space for her pain in these situations because of my own pain… I talk about a situation where I showed myself vulnerable last year… and instead of being listened to, she started with her pain… She was too close. There was not enough space for me… By not expressing myself I protect my Mom from worrying, or meet her need for control… I need a strong mother. I need an anchor… I think I want her to really see me and see me equal… I do not wish to be controlled… It sometimes feels like that I am my mom, and myself is this thing I can’t control.”

Dec 18, 2024: “I might get overwhelmed being held by other people. I have been looking for a family all my life. Maybe I could find this delusive family in the Amazonian rain forest. Or I wait till I can create it in myself. I grieve about this inside. It’s something which is giving me a hard time. I’m tired of chasing dreams.”

Jan 28, 2025: “I need to befriend myself.”

Growing up, your mother was volatile, controlling, highly emotional. She was not strong enough or emotionally regulated to be the solid anchor you needed. In order to create, so to speak, the strong mother you desperately needed, you sacrificed your child-self—diminishing your own emotional expression to make space for hers.

Whenever you expressed pain or vulnerability, she overreacted, making it about her own emotions. This robbed you of the space to exist emotionally—to be validated, understood, and allowed to feel without guilt. Over time, you learned that revealing your emotions meant triggering her overwhelm, so you adapted by silencing yourself, making emotional suppression a survival mechanism.

The Harm of Suppressing Emotion:

* Chronic emotional exhaustion—constantly holding back, filtering, or numbing your own feelings.

* Loss of self-trust—never fully knowing if your emotions are “allowed” or justified.

* Detachment from identity—becoming someone shaped by others’ emotional needs rather than your own natural experiences.

* Fear of vulnerability—connection carries the risk of further suppression, losing yourself, or feeling controlled again.

* Emotional death—the haunting fear of being viewed as false, inauthentic, and ultimately losing yourself entirely.

The Path to Healing:

Your words about searching for family, grieving inside, and being tired of chasing dreams show how deeply you long for something real, something that honors who you are. But the most powerful thing you said was: “I need to befriend myself.”

This holds the key. Healing isn’t about finding something external to complete you—it’s about learning to stand in your own emotions without fear, without shaping them to fit someone else’s comfort.

Befriending yourself might mean:

* Allowing your emotions without needing to prove they’re valid.

* Honoring your needs even when they feel small or quiet.

* Unlearning the idea that you must sacrifice yourself in order to be seen.

* Reclaiming emotional space, knowing that your feelings matter.

You deserve to take up space—not just for your pain, but for joy, love, and self-trust. You are not wrong for feeling deeply. You are not weak for needing something real. And you are not alone.

I want you to know, Ben, that my motivation for reaching out here, in this post, isn’t about fixing you or leading you somewhere you haven’t chosen. I care about the expression of the suppressed, because I’ve experienced it myself. I’ve been where words were swallowed instead of spoken, where emotions felt like a burden instead of a right. What I offer is not advice from a detached place—it’s what I’ve learned in my own journey. If anything resonates, take it. If not, discard it. My only wish is that you never feel alone in this process.

I want to close with a writing exercise that might help. Let’s call it “Giving Voice to the Unspoken”-

– Step 1: Write Without a Filter

Set a timer for 10–15 minutes and write freely without stopping. Don’t worry about grammar, making sense, or judging your thoughts—just let your emotions flow onto the page. Start with:

* “If my emotions could speak freely, they would say…”

Let the words come as they are—anger, grief, exhaustion, longing, frustration, hope—whatever needs to surface.

– Step 2: The Suppressed Dialogue

Write two voices: one representing the suppressed emotions (pain, anger, resentment, things left unsaid), the other representing the part of you that silences or suppresses them (self-doubt, fear, survival mode).

Let these voices speak to each other. Example:

* Suppressed voice: “I am tired of carrying the weight of unspoken words.” * Suppressing voice: “But expressing them might make things worse.”

Let both sides speak honestly—this helps externalize inner conflict and reveal emotional truths you may not realize.

– Step 3: A Letter to Yourself

After writing, pause and reflect. Then, write a letter to yourself, as if you were talking to a close friend who struggles with suppression. Offer kindness, validation, and permission to feel.

* “You are allowed to feel this. Your emotions don’t need justification. They just are.”

.. In fact, I in tend to do this exercise myself in a few minutes from now, in my new thread: “Our World is a Complex Mess of PTSD”. You are welcome to read it, and comment about it there- if you so choose

I’m here, Ben, I care and I am always happy to listen as you walk this path. 💛

Warmly, Anita

Dear Robi:

It’s always a pleasure to read your words. This time, your writing talent shone brighter than ever in my mind.

I hear your frustration with the whole “personal development” narrative—this idea that if you just have a perfect vision, everything will fall into place. But here’s the thing: clarity doesn’t come first, movement does. You don’t have to know the exact destination before taking a step. Sometimes, clarity is created through action, rather than found in thought alone.

You talked about being a leaf caught in the wind, constantly drifting, unable to root yourself. And maybe that’s because your vision keeps shifting—but shifting isn’t failure. What if, instead of forcing yourself to hold onto one fixed idea, you focused on one consistent action—something that grounds you, no matter which way the wind blows?

And about the shame—that long corridor lined with reminders of your “failures”—what if those weren’t failures, but evidence that you’ve kept trying, kept searching, kept wanting more for yourself? That’s not weakness. That’s proof that you’ve never truly given up.

Your girlfriend’s question—”How much more do you need to lose before you get going?”—it stuck with you for a reason. Maybe it’s time to stop waiting for the perfect conditions and simply start with one thing. What is one step you can take today—not tomorrow, not next week—but today?

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to move.

While I was reading your recent post, I had this image in my mind, that of you in the storage room, minimizing the screen when your parents interrupted your privacy. I had the image of you, fast forward to now, still minimizing the screen, the screen representing YOU, Your Life, what You care about.

Anita

Dear me:

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. It sounds like such a painful and emotional time, watching someone you love suffer and saying goodbye in such a difficult way. I can tell you truly care about him and want him to have peace, and that’s a deep kind of love.

The fact that he told you he loves you forever—that’s something real, something that stays with you even after he’s gone. You were there for him, and that matters.

Take care of yourself during this time. If you ever need to talk, even just to let out feelings, I’m here. 💛

Anita

How are you, Sophie?

Dear Tommy:

“Forgiveness? Nope. Karma will come fix that.”-

You seem to see life in a black-and-white way—where good choices lead to good outcomes, bad choices lead to bad ones, and suffering is a punishment for mistakes. Because of this, forgiving yourself might feel like escaping responsibility, as if it would make you irresponsible and undeserving of freedom from suffering.

But not all suffering comes from bad choices. Sometimes, pain just happens—a child doesn’t choose to be born into poverty or war, yet they suffer. Natural disasters don’t target people based on their actions—they simply occur. Grief, failure, rejection, loneliness—these happen to everyone, regardless of what they’ve done.

(This reminds me of the famous line from Unforgiven: “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”)

And pain isn’t just punishment—it can also be a source of growth. Hardship can lead to wisdom, resilience, and empathy.

Holding onto pain as proof that you’re a good, responsible person assumes suffering is always deserved. But in reality, pain is often just part of existing—not judgment, not karma, just life.

Maybe forgiveness isn’t about forgetting mistakes—maybe it’s about freeing yourself from unnecessary suffering.

Wishing you well, Anita