My goodness, Confused..? Your mother has Tourette Syndrome?

In the more than 10 years I’ve been in these forums, no one ever shared they (or their mothers) had Tourette’s.

And she confessed to you her issues with your father? So did my mother, in great detail!

Oh.. how FAR are some (too many) mothers from what mothers are supposed to be.

I so wish you’d be way, way less confused and consequently way less depressed.. or not at all.

I only read parts of your recent message of exactly.. 28 minutes ago. I will read all and reply Tues morning.

🤍 Anita

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S, Peter,

A Christmas of not seeking, but of surrender; one of no grasping, no guarded view; one of being transparent to transcendence.
A Trusting the Light Within Christmas 🎄✨🎅 🎁❄️⭐🎉 🌟

🤍 Anita

Dear Bea:

The little voice inside me has been telling me these very days to let go of expectations and attachment to what could have been, but wasn’t, and to stop resting what-is, which I cannot change.

A lot of what you’re feeling seems tied to expectations — the future you expected with your partner, the parent you expected your mom to be, and even the version of yourself you expected to grow into. When those expectations don’t match reality, the gap between the two becomes its own kind of grief.

Sadness often comes from attachment: to certain outcomes, to certain people, to certain roles, and even to certain emotional states. We get attached not just to what we like, but also to what we dislike, because both shape our identity. In your case, sadness and anxiety became familiar, almost like a default setting you learned early on.

Letting go is about loosening the grip on the idea that things should have been a certain way. When you release the expectation that life, people, or relationships must match a specific picture, the emotional charge around them starts to fade. Detaching from likes and dislikes means (my little, big voice says 🙂), not letting them dictate your well-being.

Your sadness makes sense in the context of what you hoped for and what you held onto. As you step back from those expectations and see things as they are, not as they were supposed to be, the sadness has less to cling to.

So, I am sitting here this Mon evening, part of me wished I was elsewhere, socializing, thriving in real-life interactions. “Wished”, I say, because right now, this evening, I don’t wish to be anywhere else, I don’t hold a better option in my mind. I’m here. There’s peace in not wishing to be elsewhere, to not redo history.. to just rest in the here and now, just as it is.

🤍 Anita

Dear Alessa:

I imagine that by the time you read this message it’ll be one day before Christmas Eve.

I want to let you know that I consider two things you did for me as two 🎁🎁 you left under my (imagined) 🎄:

One is addressing me as “Dear Anita”, and the other is replacing red hearts emojis with blue and white.

I would like to place a gift under your Christmas tree: my sincere appreciation of your consistent empathy and kindness to me and to so many members over the years.

I wish you and the people you love a M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S ✨🎅❄️⭐🎉🌟🎀🎁✨🤶✨❄️

Anita

James, Oct 31: “Dear Anita… Drop the Anita, who is trying to understand non duality. And see (actually not see) BE the LOVE.”

Nov 27: “Absolute freedom is only comes when physical death comes. Even mind is transcended, there is still bondage with body and mind.”

Dec 4: “Love is not being alone or isolated. İt is sharing, caring and compassion.”

🙏🤍🙏 Anita

Good morning (it’s morning here):

You are very welcome, Confused (soon to be Clear, I hope 🙂), and thank you for the empathy for me. From all that you expressed, it is clear to me that you are an honest, caring, empathetic person. Even though you lost some of your feelings for her, you still have empathy for her and you care about her well-being.

For example, you wrote earlier: “She instantly flipped to a colder version of her, withdrawing possibly because of being overwhelmed…”- you did not dismiss her reaction — you were trying to understand it. That’s empathy.

Another example: “I don’t think I have the energy of pursuing her anymore… I need her to show up or just be done with it.”- This isn’t coldness — it’s you trying not to drag her into a dynamic where you’re exhausted and resentful. That’s actually a form of care.

And another, in your most recent post: “I don’t wanna hurt her feelings.”

The biggest indicator that you care about her well‑being is that you actively try to prevent misunderstandings, reassure her, and avoid hurting her emotionally, even when you yourself are overwhelmed.

I hope that you find some comfort in the fact that you are a loving person even when you don’t feel in love.

About feeling “in love”- it is clear to me that you believe love must feel intense in order to be real:

“I’m scared that if I don’t feel it intensely, it means I’m falling out of love.”

“I worry the feeling won’t stay strong.”-

These quotes show that you equate love with intensity. This is a known sign of someone who grew up in a high‑intensity emotional environment. When childhood was filled with chaos, fear, or unpredictability, the emotions that got attention were the intense ones: fear, panic, anger, crisis, emotional explosions. So the body learns: ‘Intensity = urgency, connection, love.’

This becomes the emotional ‘baseline.’ Anything less than intense feels.. irrelevant or depressing, like something essential is missing.

And the flipside: ‘Calm = danger or disconnection.’ When someone grows up in a home where calmness was the quiet before the storm, a sign that someone was angry but silent, a sign that something bad was about to happen, the person’s nervous system learns that calm is not safety, that it is threat. Calm means something is wrong.

So in adulthood, a calm partner feels distant, a slow‑building relationship feels ‘off.’, a quiet moment feels like abandonment, a neutral tone feels like rejection, a partner who withdraws for a moment feels like they’re leaving forever, and.. a lack of intensity feels like falling out of love.

I think that this is why you reacted so strongly when she became “colder” or “withdraws.” To you, that’s not just a mood shift — it’s danger. Your body may have interpreted it as: ‘She’s disconnecting. I’m losing her. Something is wrong.’ Even if nothing is wrong.

Attachment (love) is supposed to be calm, steady. But if you grow up in a chaotic war zone of a home, you don’t get that, so you don’t trust calm or steady, you kind of trust what you grew up with: intensity.

And all this is fixable — but only once the person realizes that calm is not danger/ disconnection; calm is safety.

And that intensity (infatuation) is not love.

I was going to answer your questions about my healing but this post is getting too long. I will do so in the next post. Please let me know of your thoughts about what I wrote here, whenever you are ready.

🤍 Anita