Hey Dear Robi (11 pm by the time I submit this):

Using my computer, I just ran my reply through AI (Copilot) who, if I may say so 🙂, liked everything in my recent reply to you except for this. Its words:

“The only part that gives me a little pause is: ‘first, to me, your gf looks quite promising as a lifetime partner.’ You don’t actually know that, and neither does he yet.

“The sentiment is encouraging, but it’s the least grounded part of the reply. Everything else is focused on understanding him, whereas that sentence makes a prediction about the relationship.”

I guess that was wishful prediction on my part, encouraged by her attending therapy in regard to her relationship with her mother, and her investing time & money visiting you. But yeah, I guess I don’t know and can’t predict the future.

What stays with me most about what you shared 10 hours ago or so, is this:

“I want to escape from the responsibility of growing up, being someone’s partner, not always having things my way”-

Never having things your way growing up => the need to Always (your word, “always”) having things your way now. It’s like trying to undo and re-do childhood, having it right this time: having things my way this time around!

That’s what my grieving has been about: to no longer try to redo childhood, and instead to grieve it, to mourn it. For it (my childhood) is Dead. And here I am now, Alive.

And now what?

Anita

Dear Robi:

Tiptoeing was the best Robi the kid could do in the circumstances of his childhood. It has become a habit, and as an adult, going back to the circumstances that created this habit (living with parents) reinforces the habit.

So, in between Tiptoeing and Flying there’s.. just walking 🚶‍♂️‍➡️

“f8ck that. I don’t want to live by anyone’s else’s rules anymore.”- not your parents’ rules, for one. By the way, if you were to list their rules (1, 2, 3..), what would these rules be in simple words?

About #3 & #4- I think that it’d be best if you had your own room while living with your gf, your own room to which no one has access to.. and her own room. And the 2 of u meet in either’s room when both want to.

About # 6: first, to me, your gf looks quite promising as a lifetime partner. Second..

“I want to escape from the responsibility of growing up… not always having things my way”-

You hardly had anything going your way growing up, if anything at all (having to wait at their workplace for hours each day is just one example). So, now, as an adul 🙂 you’re supposed to give up what you never really experienced growing up (having things your way? 🤔

In my case, it took grieving the childhood and life I never got to experience, saying goodbye to what never was and never will be.

I just lost my focus in regard to processing the rest of your message tonight.

Would love to read your thoughts about the above Fri morning (Thurs night here).

Anita

Hi again, Peter 🙂

Well, thank you for caring to tell me about your observation, and for inquiring..

Hmm 🤔 I think so, yes, I think I’m more at peace with myself, quieter than I was. Less rigid in my thinking, less (I hope not at all!), less didactic or corrective in my replies.

Did I answer your question, Peter? Please let me know.

Anita

Dear Robi 🙂

I’ll reply further in the evening, but for now, in regard to # 5 (“Better that you work- for a living- more with things… than with people.”)- notice I didn’t suggest that you shouldn’t work with people. I think it’s good for you to work with people and that you’re good at it, only that limiting it in time and balancing it with working with things (which are way more predictable and therefore lower on the overwhelm scale) makes sense for you.

And in regard to # 6 (“You need a non- critical, more emotionally independent than dependent, non- demanding girlfriend.”), that was in general. I wasn’t thinking that your gf is not right for you. In fact, I think that she’s quite right (.. as long as she understands that the 2 of u living with her mother is NOT an option).

Back 2 U in the eve.

Anita

* No, not Quikong, Qigong (I was introduced to it in 2011 in a California YMCA, and remember the first time very vividly, it felt very meaningful)

* I didn’t respond to everything you wrote. Please let me know if you’d like me to respond to something I didn’t.

* You asked how am I doing? Still healing from my traumatic long, long childhood. 1000% better than I used to feel, and working on the next 1000…

Wait, is this obese bird (not) me, trying to Fly 🐓=> 🦅?

🤔 Anita

46% charged.

Back to obese chickens.. No.

I would like to write whatever comes 2 my mind in regard to what I think you need at this time and in the near future, and please tell me if I’m on the right track and where I am not:

1) I think that once you move out of your parents’ better not return to living with them again.

2) I think that if you move back to Warsaw, you shouldn’t live again with your girlfriend’s mother- not because you described anything negative or abusive about her behavior (you didn’t), but because of the intense, negative reactions you had to her presence.

3) Wherever you live, you need your own room (where you live alone or maybe with your girlfriend) with a real, solid door with no one being able to enter without knocking and being given permission.

4) It’s better that you live in a small apt without roommates than in a big house with roommates and people coming in and out without your control.

5) Better that you work- for a living- more with wood (which you enjoyed so much); more with things more than with people.

6) You need a non- critical, more emotionally independent than dependent, non- demanding girlfriend.

7) You need a daily routine that works for you, literally deciding how much time (outside of paid work), you spend in front of the computer, and including walks, Quikong (did I say it right)? and other healthy practices.

43% charged.

What says Robi?

🤔 Anita

Dear Robi: I’m looking forward (!) to read and reply this evening 🙂

Continued:

I saw the woman with the tattoo I told you about in the dog park today. It was a very cloudy, gray day, the bit of blue in the sky quickly disappeared and it started raining cats and dogs.. in the dog park 😄

Anyway, she has the tattoo that says: ‘What if I Fall?.. But darling, what if you Fly?’

This quote didn’t apply to me growing up because early on I wasn’t able to fly (except when day- dreaming). I couldn’t even walk because I was just crawling, practically, not literally.

Why would a parent or parents beat their child’s legs so that they can’t walk and cut off their wings so that they can’t fly?

One answer: aggression-within turned against their child. Not once. Not twice. But as a pattern. As business as usual.

A picture from a movie I saw long, long ago stayed in my mind, been decades. It was Pet Cemetary, a boy, maybe 4, blond hair, I remember, came out of the grave (a living dead) and with his hurt, sad, corners of the mouth turned down, like he’s just about to cry, he stabbed his unsuspecting mother.

It stayed in my mind because that’s how I always saw my mother: emotionally a toddler with a knife.

Figuratively a knife; literally it was lots and lots of BS (blaming sessions), ‘poor, poor me, oh,how why did YOU hurt ME??’

As well as physically hitting me while appearing to be the one in pain.

And the scary part, she really was in pain and knew no other way to feel better other than to take advantage of finally having a dependent, weak human under her “care” to express her rage with no consequences to her.

It amazes me, the psychology of evil. Evil by impact and from time to time by intent as well.

Back to the quote and thinking of you- what does crawling mean to you? Walking? Flying?

🤔 Anita