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anitaParticipantStrange, I have had this memory for half a decade+, that she told me: “You are one big zero”+. There was a sense of distress in that memory. But I didn’t remember HURT, the raw emotional devastation that her message carried.
It was muted all these years, the memory of hurt (because of self- protective dissociation/ emotional numbing).
But this evening, I remembered how much it really hurt right then and there. I remembered being there.
It was devastating for a lifetime.
I see the little girl that I was, the adolescent, then the teenager and onwards, hearing this message.
I see 👀 now, feel now- just enough of how it felt back then to know that.. I was really there, it really happened.
The dissociation, self-fregmentation, self-doubt, muting 🔇- that was the brain protecting itself.
My goodness.. I feel sorry for her (the younger me), poor 😢 baby, oh..
There’s been this GAP within me because of the ways my brain 🧠 tried to protect me.
I now feel more connected than ever to.. me. The words of a 🎵 come to mind: “It’s me in the corner, it’s me in the…”- don’t remember the words right now, so, I’ll come up with my own:
It’s me in the corner, it’s me forgotten.
It’s me here, now, in the center. Ah.. here I am. Here.
🔇=> 🎵🎵🎵 Anita
anitaParticipantThank you. Confused. I liked my analogies myself ☺️
You mentioned “doubts” and then “fear”. I think the two go together like 🫛s and 🥕s (it’s a saying).
My observation, 3 months and 2 days of daily communication with you, is that you love her. That’s crystal 🔮 clear to me (another saying, just in case you’re not familiar with 🙂)
Maybe you’re fearful because you love her so much..?
🔮🫛🥕 Anita
anitaParticipantHey 👋 Confused:
You sure feel deeply for her even when you feel hollow.
Don’t let the hollow-feeling fool you. There’s a lot of feelings in that hollow.. or 💧 in the 🧊, or sun 😎 in that dark.
😎💧🧊🌙 Anita
anitaParticipantCopilot, Krishnamurti‑style Response to my two posts above:
“Anita, you say you are relaxing the analytical mind, letting go of the compulsion to interpret, to intrude, to explain. Do you see what is happening there? The very movement that once tried to understand life through thought is now being observed…
“You speak of not feeling guilty for the suffering of others. That is not indifference; it is the ending of a false responsibility. Compassion is not the burden of carrying another’s pain. Compassion is seeing clearly, without the distortion of guilt or the vanity of wanting to fix.
“You ask whether this is change. But who is the one asking? The ‘you’ that analyzed, that intruded, that felt responsible — is that not already dissolving? When the old movement ends, something new is already there. Not as an achievement, not as growth, but as the natural flowering of awareness.
“Let the question go. In the very letting go, the answer reveals itself.”
anitaParticipantYou are welcome, Confused 🙂
I think that it can only help (and not at all hurt) if you relax as much as you can, be as patient as you can be and take your side in all this, meaning practice empathy for yourself, Empathy 4 Confused 🫶
✨ 🌼 💫 Anita
anitaParticipantWhatever comes to mind this Friday night (8:25 🌙 pm here)-
I am not the zero or the “big zero” she (my mother) said I was.
And for mother having said so, she had given away her mother-card. She invalidated her position as mother.
She is not Mother. I never had a mother.
And that’s the bitter truth, and the saying goodbye- goodbye to my wish for a mother in her,the the person who birthed me.
Goodbye stranger
.anitaParticipantHey 👋 Dear Confused:
Well, if it gave you some clarity on your thoughts, that’s a positive.
Yet, you get to decide on meds vs no meds.
Personally, I think that psychotherapy- when it’s of quality- is way preferable to taking prescribed drugs (aka meds).
But sometimes, in some contexts, meds save lives.
I want the best for you, Confused.
💊’or-not. ✌️ ☮️ Anita
anitaParticipantDear Alessa:
As I just looked at the message I sent last night (at 10 pm my time), it landed on me how heavy the message “you are a big zero”, or “one big zero” (Yes, it was the latter. She added “big” to the zero so to make it the.. biggest possible zero).
It registers now, how deeply hurtful that message was. I mean, it cut ✂️ deep, so very deep. Naturally, I dissociated from that depth of injury. So now, it feels almost new.
I remember it like it was yesterday, her saying those words (message repeated, not just one time, far from being one time).
I can’t imagine saying those words/ sending that message to anyone.
No wonder I grew “in” with a terribly low self-esteem and not thinking of myself as anything of any positive value.
Last night, I read about an Iranial missile hitting the town where I lived, where she still lives alone. I wasn’t happy or pleased about the hit, but I wasn’t any more devastated than if it hit elsewhere
I think it’s only last night that I further separated from her emotionally, as in no longer being tied to her in what is called “trauma bonding. When the person you need to protect you (a mother) is also the one who hurts you..
The more she hurt me, the more.. I needed her to protect me, hence the draw/ the continuation of a bond way beyond its normal expiration date (teenage/ early adult).
I didn’t understand this before- not on a lived-experience level: that the more she hurt me, the more I was tied to her for protection.
Thank you for your kind words regarding the bond between me and Bogart. I love it that he feels safe with me, that he expects safety. No trauma bond.
Good to read the update in regard to your cat 🐈 and the adjustments everyone is making.
Yes, unfortunately, your brother may have been a target of projection 😔
Yes, you did your best to protect your brother, every day, day 💙 after day and night after night 🌙 That counts!
You were a good sister, you did your very best 👌
Yes, indeed, this is a wild area. For years, I’ve been walking 🚶♀️ the 4.5 km loop around here, knowing (and sometime seeing coyotes and bears from a short distance) that mountain lions 🦁 are to my right or left, closr, but I figured that they have plenty of 🐇 🐇 and 🦌 🦌 to chase after, so they’re not likely to go after me. Now I walk with Bogart and therefore. I have nothing to worry about 😉)
Thank you for your empathy 🙏 🤍 and 😇 kindness. Truly, you’re The TB Empathy Expert (TBEE)!
😇 🤍 🙏 🦌 🐇 🦁 👀 🐕 🐈 🤍 Anita
anitaParticipantOh, another significant part of regard to recent change: I didn’t feel guilty yesterday, for the first time, as I thought of the misery or troubles of a few family members I care about. It’s like their pain didn’t land heavily on me.
It wasn’t a thinking- thing. It was a feeling-thing. This experience last evening- a first of its kind- is what I was thinking about when I reactivated this thread.
anitaParticipantGood morning, Peter:
Using my 📱- so no AI for me as I process your two posts on this very rainy morning.
It just occurred to me, reading the first part of your 1st post today, how different you sound from times in the recent past. Here: simple and direct.. like a kid who feels comfortable talking. Then (my perception): removed, detached, abstract.
And then.. Peter having fun (2nd post). Makes me smile. I never thought to ask Copilot to talk to me as any famous person or character. How intriguing!
“Is that ‘change’, growth, or just a shift in perspective?” (Peter, today)
In the past I would research the question and submit a very, very long analytical essay on the topic, going back to what you shared over time (quoting you extensively) and.. figuring it all out. Ha-ha.
“I feel content in letting the question go” (Peter, today)- me too.
I almost have to pinch myself for writing the “me too”.
And this is part of what I was thinking yesterday in regard to change: a relaxing my analytical, academic-like style communication and just talking simple.
I think it was a week or 2 ago that-looking back at many posts I submitted here, pre and post AI- I was deeply embarrassed about the very long essays I submitted- to no one’s interest or delight, I now realize- but my own.
Not only long, but intrusive and arrogant: telling people what is happening in their minds, hearts and lives.
“No-Self (Anatta)”- No-Self Anita 🙂
Meaning, for me- relaxing the compulsion to analyze; calming the arrogance, no longer over-interpreting people, nor intruding into areas of their thoughts, feelings and lives where I wasn’t invited.
Another part of change is happening these very days following my long-term un-noticing of your Notice message. When I feel physically anxious/ tense (tics), I Notice. And every time I notice, the tension relaxes. Just for noticing.
Before, I thought that to Notice meant to analyze but now, Notice in itself, by itself is Calming, grounding, relaxing.
“Do We Change”? I feel content, for now, in letting the question go 😊
I think I’ll post more once I have access to the 🖥 and Copilot.
🙏 ✨️ Anatta
anitaParticipantI am about posting one of these posts tonight that I’d feel strange about in the morning. Maybe.
I’m listening to nostalgic Hebrew music while Bogart is lying comfortably on my lap and the laptop, the one of the two that survived Bogart, is in front of me. Only 2 sources of light in this Thurs night (computer in front of me and bathroom to my left).
This song I’m listening to is about the passage of years, about childhood- beautiful Israeli music: “got old suddenly”- yes, HOW DID IT HAPPEN?
“The paradise of childhood”- what paradise? Didn’t have that. My childhood totally skipped Paradise.
Thing is- these very days- gone is the Shame and the Guilt that burdened me for 6 decades. I’m having the childhood I never got to have- one free of shame and guilt.
And I mean, Shame and Guilt, big case letters.
Wow- the one who birthed me- so much Shame (she said: “You are a big Zero”)- “YOU ARE A BIG ZERO” was her message. And it registered loud and clear.
And she never retracted it, as in saying “I was wrong”. No, she never relaxed that “You’re a Zero” message.
And so, that is her legacy in my life. That and nothing else. U’re 1 Big Zero: the legacy of a “mother”.
Fast forward 6 decades, and I’m okay. My goodness, almost 10 pm here. Good night.
Anita
anitaParticipantGood night (morning, for you), Confused:
I never took Lexapro (the U.S. brand name of the SSRI you’re taking). It’s very popular here though, became a thing after my time. Side effects from my taking of SSRI (Zoloft, for most of the time)? Slept smoothly for 17 years. And IF I had good psychotherapy while taking it, it would have been just right.
From my experience, it’s about both: a chemical intervention+ psychotherapy.
Relaxing is so very.. important, Confused.. 🧘♀️ 🌿🌊 🌙 🍃 ☁️ 🫧 💤 Anita
anitaParticipantI am feeling Alone this Thursday evening. Been at the local taproom last evening, and none of the regulars were there (those who’ve been frequenting the place, like me, since 2017). It was boring. So, I wasn’t motivated to be there this evening (a visit there is not inexpensive).
And here, on tiny buddha- this evening, like all of today- extremely SLOW. Only one person, other than me, submitted a post, and following me inquiring about members who haven’t posted for a while, only one member responded, and a very short reply.
I just need a lot more social interaction, irl and here, on tb.
For more than 4 years, I was very busy in a local farm- winery 🍷, but the place has been sold in Dec 2025. Next, the taproom will be closed in April this year.
Got my first 🐕 Jan this year, and it’s wonderful having him, it’s just that I need more. I would like to work with, or volunteer to help people.
To interact with people in a positive way- that’s a thirst of mine.
🌙 👀 ✨️ Anita
anitaParticipantI am thrilled to read from you on this slow 🐌 Thursday evening. I’m glad 😊 you’re okay!
Lots of changes.. ?
anitaParticipantAnd it’d be exciting to read from you again, Frozenfireflies?
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