Hey Confused:

I am glad to report that today was better and calmer than yesterday, thank you for asking. It’s a good practice to list things we are grateful for. Well, I am grateful for a calmer day. Anything at all Confused is grateful for 😊?

Hello Kelly:

Thank you for sharing more. What you wrote about hiding during your parents’ fights, suppressing your feelings, and learning to be “okay” on your own makes a lot of sense. Many people who grow up in homes with conflict or unpredictable anger develop very similar patterns.

In that kind of environment, a child’s body learns a simple survival rule:

“If I show my feelings, I might get hurt. If I stay small and quiet, I’m safer.”

So, the child learns to hold their breath, tighten their body, stay hyper‑aware of others’ moods, scan for danger, suppress tears, hide anger, hide needs, hide sadness, and stay watchful. Over time, this becomes automatic — it becomes the child’s “normal.”

When that child grows up, the body often continues reacting the same way, even when the adult environment is safe. In relationships, the nervous system might panic when things get serious, doubt feelings, fear closeness or abandonment, need reassurance, feel uneasy during silence, spiral into “what if” thoughts, shut down or go numb, or feel confused about love. Not because the partner is unsafe, but because the body learned long ago that closeness = danger.

It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you, and it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with your boyfriend. It’s simply that old survival patterns can get activated when closeness is desired.

You mentioned craving connection and reassurance, and that your boyfriend’s style is more “we each take care of ourselves first.” That kind of difference can be challenging, especially for someone who grew up needing emotional safety that wasn’t available.

I’m wondering if this general explanation resonates with you — not as a label, but as something that sometimes happens to people with similar childhood experiences.

🍃 Anita

How are you. Alessa? I hope your studies are going well as well as your full house, 🐕, 🐈 and humans 😊

How 🤔 are you these days, Peter? Never quite free from the prison house of language 🙂?

How are you, Miss L Dutchess? I wonder if any of the 4 replies you received in this thread resonate with you, or maybe you’re uncomfortable with the replies?

I am asking because I would like to improve my replies 🙂

🤔 🍃 Anita

This man married for almost 50 years- he didn’t seem hopeful for a better future. He just said he’s happy to go into a warm bed tonight (like not freezing), and I forgot what else he said..

– Not hopeful for a better future, but appreciative of the present here and now

Here and now (no emojis..)? 🐇📱🌙 Anita

Hey 👋 Confused:

The words of a 🎵 come to mind: “Mama told me there’ll be days like this” (Confused: “today feels like hell…Damn, today’s been hard”).

I suppose it was a good mother having said that to her son (referring to the 🎵).

What I figure is that 🤔 Well, it was a bad-feeling day. There’re days like that. Mine wasn’t the best 😕 either.

Thing is, whatever you feel.. feel it, let it be. Don’t fight your feelings, don’t argue against your feelings or your thoughts. Tell your thoughts: ‘you say I don’t want her and I need to end things.. hmm, I hear you”- and that’s it. Witness your thoughts objectively, don’t drown in them.

🤔🎵💡🐇🌙 Anita

Good 🌄 Confused:

Wow, not-so-confused, Confused: this is the most clear and insightful post I read from you!

Indeed, there is a big difference between knowing something intellectually, and experiencing it.

“How did u reconnect or find that part?”-

Like you, my few memories of childhood felt removed, as if what happened- didn’t happen to me. As if I wasn’t there. It was like a fragmented movie (isolated short scenes) that I was watching from a far: something I didn’t really experience.

It is only recently that it ocurred to me- in that experiencing vs knowing way you mentioned- that I was there. Before I felt no empathy for the girl that I was (because she.. wasn’t there). Recently, I felt empathy for her because I.. experienced her there, in the midst of the events happening around her.

It happened as a result of communicating with people on a deep level, like I’m doing with you right now.

Intellectually, I know it’s the undoing of the dissociation, shutdown, self-fragmentstion. But these would be clinical, diagnostic terms.

Above, I explained it in my own words.

💡 Anita