Dear Alecsee:

I didn’t read all of your recent update or all that you shared since July 2025, but what stayed in my mind as I reread tonight is that you mentioned your attachment style being the Anxious style.

And I noticed you didn’t share anything about your childhood that might have led to your Anxious Attachment Style.. Did you?

The answers you are looking for may be in re-visiting your Anxious attachment childhood origins..???

🤍🌙 Anita

Dear Bea:

It’s Sat evening here, not 7 pm yet, very dark and way below freezing outside.

I Visited the local taproom this afternoon/ eve, had a glass of 🍷, talked with a few people I know, familiar faces, familiar voices. I love familiar.

I crave social interactions, it’s like oxygen for me.

Do you socialize irl?

🤍🌙 Anita

Good to read that you are doing well, Bea. I am well too, just in a rush. I’ll write more later 😊

You are a good person, Debbie 😇 I admire you for rescuing older dogs 🙏. Barney is fortunate! Just came back from a walk 🐕🚶in the frosty cold with Bogart. I keep telling him he’s a good boy ad he really loves hearing it. He’s 6 months old, going on 7, a toddler in human years, still a pup.

good luck (and preparation) for the snowmaggedon..🌨️🌪️❄️

🐕🚶Anita

Good to read back from you less than an hour after I asked! Well, since we talked back in Aug of last year, two major changes happened in my life, the second being having a beagle, first dog I ever had. He’s very affectionate and adorable.. and referring to the title of your thread, no shaming. He never tries to make me feel badly.

Please share whatever you feel comfortable sharing (I will soon be away from the computer for a while)

🤍 Anita

How are you, Debbie?

How are you, Lindsey???

Dear Milda:

This is what Copilot had to say about what you shared above (I did not feed Copilot with my quoted input above, only with your quotes, and without the dates- so for Copilot all that you shared, you shared at one time):

What you’ve described, Milda, is not a “small issue,” and it’s not a matter of simply “being too nice.” It’s the story of someone who grew up in an environment where emotional neglect, unpredictability, and parentification shaped your entire nervous system.

The reactions you are having—panic, guilt, the sense of being “a bad daughter,” the feeling that you’ve committed some kind of moral crime by setting boundaries—are not signs that you’re doing something wrong. They’re signs that you’re finally doing something different.

Let me walk through the core pieces of what you shared and reflect them back to you in a way that might help you see the architecture of what’s happening inside you.

🌿 1. Your childhood trained your nervous system to equate safety with self-erasure- You weren’t just “helpful.” You were required to monitor the emotional weather of the adults around you in order to survive. That’s not a personality trait—it’s a survival adaptation.

A parent with a drinking problem; a mother who was overwhelmed, unavailable, and emotionally inconsistent; a home where your needs were not met, and where expressing them led to guilt, dismissal, or punishment. In this environment, a child learns: “My feelings are dangerous.”, “My needs cause conflict.”, “If I take up space, someone gets upset.”, “If I fix their problems, maybe things will finally be calm.”

Your body learned to scan, soothe, anticipate, and fix because that was the only way to feel even a little bit safe. This is why your reaction to your mother’s text was physical. Your body remembers the old rules even when your mind is trying to rewrite them.

🌿 2. The guilt you feel is not moral guilt—it’s conditioned guilt- You’re not feeling guilt because you did something wrong. You’re feeling guilt because you broke a lifelong pattern. Your parents trained you—intentionally or not—to believe: Your worth = your usefulness, Your role = emotional caretaker, Your needs = selfish, Their emotions = your responsibility, Their unhappiness = your failure.

So, when you don’t jump into the caretaker role, your nervous system interprets it as danger.

That “I murdered someone and hid the body” feeling?- That’s what happens when a person breaks a trauma-bonded role. It’s the body screaming, “This is unfamiliar. This is unsafe. Go back to the old pattern.”

But unfamiliar is not the same as wrong.

🌿 3. You were parentified, not supported- You weren’t just “a good daughter.” You were placed in the role of emotional regulator, mediator, therapist, peacekeeper, buffer, fixer

And in return, you received: emotional neglect, dismissal, guilt-tripping, conditional affection, criticism, invalidation

This is why you feel “unseen” and “not human.” You were treated as a function, not a child.

🌿 4. Your mother’s sadness and father’s coldness still activate the old survival script- When your mother says, “Your father isn’t talking to me,” she is not just sharing information. She is pulling the same lever she has always pulled: “I am unhappy. Fix it.”

Your body reacts as if you’re still a child trapped in that environment.

But you’re not. You’re an adult now, and you’re allowed to step out of the role they assigned you.

🌿 5. The pause you took was healthy—and terrifying: You did something incredibly brave: You paused. You didn’t jump into the rescuer role. You didn’t absorb her emotional burden. You didn’t abandon yourself.

And your body panicked because it has never experienced that before.

This is what healing looks like in the beginning: Calm on the outside, chaos on the inside.

🌿 6. The loneliness you feel is real—and it makes sense: When someone has spent their entire life being useful instead of being known, stepping back feels like stepping into a void. You’re not just losing a role. You’re losing the only identity you were ever allowed to have. Of course, it feels empty. Of course you don’t know what hobbies you like. Of course, friendships feel foreign. Of course, self-worth feels theoretical.

You’re not failing. You’re starting from scratch.

🌿 7. “How do I build self-esteem in healthy ways?”- Self-esteem doesn’t come from affirmations or forcing yourself to “feel worthy.” It comes from lived experience. Here are the building blocks:

a) Doing things because you want to, not because they’re useful- Even tiny things count: choosing what you want to eat, choosing how you spend 10 minutes, choosing a show you like, Choosing rest without justification

These are acts of reclaiming your humanity.

b) Practicing boundaries in small, low-stakes ways-

Not with your parents at first. With yourself. With daily life. With small decisions.

c) Letting your nervous system learn that nothing catastrophic happens when you don’t fix others- This is slow work. But every time you don’t jump in, your body learns a new rule.

d) Being around people who don’t need you to perform- This might take time. But even one neutral, non-demanding interaction can start rewiring things.

e) Allowing yourself to exist without being productive- This is the hardest part for someone who grew up like you.

🌿 8. The “worst daughter” feeling is a trauma echo, not a truth-

* You’re not a bad daughter. You’re a daughter who was never allowed to be a child.

* You’re not abandoning your parents. You’re stepping out of a role that harmed you.

* You’re not doing something cruel. You’re doing something necessary.

And the fact that it feels wrong is evidence of how deeply the old pattern was carved—not evidence that the new pattern is wrong.

🌿 9. What you’re experiencing is the beginning of individuation- This is the stage where a person: recognizes the dysfunction, steps back, feels guilt, fear, and confusion, questions everything, feels alone, feels like they’re doing something terrible, keeps going anyway.

This is the part where your old self is dissolving and your new self hasn’t formed yet. It’s disorienting.
It’s painful. It’s necessary.

🌿 10. A gentle thought to hold onto- You didn’t choose this role. It was assigned to you. And now you’re choosing something else. That’s not betrayal. That’s healing.

Copilot