Dear Dafne:

Thank you for your beautiful message—it truly means a lot. I’m so grateful for our compassionate exchange, and I deeply admire your openness in exploring paths toward healing.

I absolutely believe that a change in environment can be helpful, and I love that you’re considering options for refuge and reflection. That being said, a monastery or silent retreat typically involves deep solitude, which may not be the best fit for someone who thrives on connection and supportive relationships. While silence can bring peace, isolation might make healing more difficult—especially for someone as relational and warm-hearted as you.

Would you be open to considering a place where you can reflect while still surrounded by kindness and warmth? Perhaps a healing center, a spiritual retreat with gentle community engagement, or another supportive environment where you can process emotions without feeling completely isolated.

Whatever path you choose, I trust that you’ll find one that truly nurtures your heart and spirit. I’m here for you along the way. Sending lots of love. 💕

anita

Dear Jana:

Your photos are absolutely beautiful! I had no idea about wandering rocks—so fascinating. The trees in your pictures look a lot like the ones around here. And ouch, a bee sting—that’s never fun. I hope it’s feeling better now.

I’ve actually seen bison in person at Yellowstone National Park years ago. They’ve lived there since prehistoric times, but their numbers dropped drastically due to hunting and habitat loss. By the 1880s, only about two dozen remained—but now there are around 5,400 bison in Yellowstone. They’re massive, yet despite their size, they can run incredibly fast. If you ever come across a bison, you can tell its mood by its tail—hanging down means calm, raised means it might charge.

It’s sad how people fought to shoot wolves after they reappeared where you live—it’s such a loss for nature and ecosystems. In the U.S., wolves were heavily hunted and nearly wiped out. Alaska currently has the largest population of gray wolves, with 7,000–11,000. I’ve never seen a wolf in the wild, and honestly, I’d be terrified if I ever came across one—or worse, a pack—on a walk, which might end up being my last!

Where I live, we have deer, elk, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, and black bears. If you ever encounter a coyote, mountain lion, or black bear, the best thing to do is stay calm, make yourself look big, make loud noises, back away slowly (facing them, never turning your back), and never run (running triggers their chase instinct). With mountain lions, maintaining eye contact helps assert dominance, while with grizzlies, playing dead is the recommended survival strategy.

Carrying bear spray is smart—but I had a bad experience once. I accidentally sprayed myself in the face (forgot the safety cap!), and wow, did it burn! I ran onto someone’s property—something I’d never normally do since people here have guns and guard dogs—but I was desperate. I grabbed their outdoor hose and sprayed my face for 20 minutes, shocked that I could still see. After that, I was too scared to carry bear spray for a long time, but I finally started again—this time, with the safety cap firmly on!

I was confronted by a coyote on one of my walks- the reason I ordered and started carrying my first bear spray. It was my first and hopefully hunter-hunted moment.

Your Easter tradition (Pomlázka) sounds so bizarre and uncomfortable—I completely understand why you dislike it. I’m glad your partner doesn’t celebrate, so you don’t have to deal with the awkwardness.

I hope your dog gets relief soon—ticks are such a hassle, and it’s frustrating when pets react badly to collars. It sounds like you’re doing everything you can to take care of her.

Thanks for sharing all of this—it’s always great to read your thoughts!

anita

Dear Tom:

Thank you for sharing this with me. I think it’s great that you’re considering therapy—it can be incredibly helpful when you find the right therapist and the right approach. You might want to explore one or a combination of the following:

1. Trauma-Focused Therapy
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) – Helps reframe negative thoughts and beliefs shaped by trauma.

Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) – Gradually reduces fear and anxiety by confronting distressing memories.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) – Uses guided eye movements to process traumatic memories without needing to verbalize them.

2. Therapy for Overthinking & Anxiety
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) – Helps challenge negative thought patterns and develop healthier coping mechanisms.

Mindfulness-Based Therapy – Encourages present-moment awareness to reduce excessive rumination.

3. Therapy for Family & Relationship Impact
Therapy that explores how childhood experiences shape current relationships and emotional responses.

I completely understand that figuring out where to start can feel overwhelming, but even taking the step to research options is a significant move forward.

I appreciate you keeping me updated, and I’ll be here to listen whenever you need. No matter what, just know that you’re doing the best you can in this moment, and that’s enough. Wishing you clarity as you navigate this period—I believe in your ability to find what works for you.

anita

And I am okay with you giving me advice because I trust you.

anita

Dear Lucidity:

Thank you for your deeply introspective message. I’m genuinely grateful for our conversations—they feel like discovering a twin sister I never knew I had, someone so similar to me, so compatible in thought and understanding. Thank you so much for simply being you.

Here, I’ll be thinking out loud as I respond to what you shared:

“It is true that I have been the more resistant to allowing my family’s dysfunction to infiltrate what I know is my reality, and I am the more rebellious of my sister and me… But then I also see that I accommodated my family’s narrative, stayed silent at my mum’s mistreatment of me… What does that do to someone to have these two conflicting personality traits?”-

It creates deep inner conflict, and with conflict comes distress. Holding both defiance and compliance within you means constantly navigating opposing forces—wanting to resist but feeling trapped by the environment around you.

“In the same way, applying this to my sister who was… always more submissive in nature, less confrontational—what does it do to a person like her…?”-

It likely made her far less conflicted or distressed—if at all. Being the younger sibling, she had the advantage of observing what happened to you when you weren’t always submissive, and she decided she didn’t want to experience the same consequences. You didn’t have that privilege—you were born first and had to navigate everything firsthand.

“I think this type of question is what keeps me up at night. If you’re familiar with the narcissist literature, then you may know of the family roles involved—the scapegoat (that was me) and the golden child (my sister)… My sister doesn’t appear to fit into what I’ve learned should happen to a golden child in that they become like the narcissist.”-

This could be because your mother wasn’t strictly narcissistic but may have exhibited traits from multiple personality disorders. It’s rare for someone to fit neatly into just one diagnostic label—many individuals have a mix of several disorders or display features from multiple personality disorders. My mother, for example, exhibited traits of borderline, histrionic, and paranoid personality disorders, with narcissistic tendencies layered in. If your mother wasn’t strictly narcissistic, that could explain why the traditional scapegoat and golden child roles didn’t fully apply.

Personality disorders often overlap, making rigid classifications difficult to apply to real-life experiences. Research shows that comorbidity is common, meaning people with one personality disorder frequently exhibit traits from others.

“Sometimes I wonder if my family situation had the rare outcome of only producing one messed-up sibling while the other made it through okay-ish relative to me. I actually do wonder that. I think it’s one of the big, apparently deluded, thoughts I have about this that I can’t let rest.”-

One sibling internalized conflict, while the other buried thoughts and emotions, removing conflicting feelings from awareness. A sibling who does not actively engage with their pain can appear functional, but only as long as they keep their conflicted sibling outside their mind, heart, and life.

Your sister may seem okay-ish because she suppresses conflicting emotions rather than processing them. While this may allow her to function well outwardly, it doesn’t necessarily mean she is truly calm. Suppressed emotions often manifest in unexpected ways—physical symptoms, anxiety, relationship struggles—especially during moments of major life stress or transition.

True emotional stability comes from integration, not avoidance, so if she never confronts her buried emotions, they could catch up to her later. Some people go through life suppressing feelings without obvious consequences, while others experience delayed emotional fallout. Whether her calmness is genuine or fragile depends on how deeply she has buried her emotions and whether future situations force her to reflect.

And now, about my sister and me—she minimized my mother’s misbehaviors, making herself believe her home life was just as normal as anyone else’s. As a teenager and young adult, she appeared far better than just okay-ish—physically beautiful, gracious, social, and seemingly so normal. That made me feel like a freak. If she was normal, then what did that make me? It felt as if my conflicted, distressed universe was a parallel universe to hers, one where everything was almost fine and dandy. So, the problem must have been me… or so I thought.

Unfortunately, my sister experienced the delayed emotional fallout I mentioned earlier. It happened when she was older than your sister is now, judging by your photo and knowing your sister is six years younger.

I haven’t spoken to my sister in a long time. Every day, I think about calling her, but I’m afraid of what I will hear if I do. I fear she might collapse at any moment. I fear hearing her fall apart.

I remember one time, when she was in her mid-20s, she pointed to her forehead, making a gesture that I was crazy—crazy for making things up, for greatly overreacting. Fast forward to now, I am the farthest from crazy that I have ever been, and she… is the closest. It breaks my heart.

anita