Dear Ben:

I’ve been reading your posts on your other thread, and I find myself feeling both concerned and deeply impressed by the progress you’ve made.

Three days ago, in your most recent post, you wrote:

“I do think about physical suicide by times but as long as I don’t suppress it it’s fine. I think it’s normal and I don’t give it too much weight. I don’t like to tell you because I don’t want you to worry. I have to speak the truth.

“I learned that I hate myself so I had to open up to it and allow myself to hate myself. I had to be a mother who accept her child this way. And I haven’t had it since.”-

Your words reflect a powerful emotional strategy—one that few people find on their own:

* You don’t reject your pain—you acknowledge it.

* You accept your emotions instead of suppressing them.

* You “mother” yourself, offering warmth and understanding instead of punishment.

* Through this acceptance, something inside you shifted.

This emotional approach aligns with radical acceptance—a psychological practice that helps people cope with intense emotions by acknowledging and allowing them rather than fighting them.

Your sentence, “I have to speak the truth,” stood out to me deeply. This has been my longing for so long—to speak my truth.

Over five months ago, when you started this thread, you wrote:

“I noticed that when I meet someone with the glassy alienated look in their eyes. It affects me very much… I feel alienated too and I worry big for the person even if I don’t know her… I wonder what this needs from me… Maybe there is a different word for it. Maybe a Pali or Sanskrit word?”-

I wasn’t able to respond to this back then the way I am able to now. So, here’s my response today:

When you see the glassy, alienated look in someone’s eyes, it deeply affects you. Their self-alienation awakens your own. Even if you don’t know them, you feel a strong concern, as though their pain is calling out to you.

This reaction isn’t random—it’s tied to your own history of emotional suppression. You recognize alienation in others because you have experienced it yourself. The way you were forced to push down your emotions created a gap between your inner feelings and your ability to express them.

So when you see that distant, disconnected look in someone else, it stirs something in you—a reminder of your own suppressed emotions, a longing to understand, and maybe even a question: What does this ask of me?

You asked if there’s a Pali or Sanskrit word for this feeling, and there are words that might resonate with your experience:

Saṃvega (संवेग) – A deep, unsettling realization of alienation, urgency, and disillusionment with life.

Dvesha (द्वेष) – Aversion or suppression of emotions, linked to self-rejection or avoidance.

Āsava (आसव) – Mental effluents or old emotional habits that keep you trapped in suffering—suppressed feelings could be seen as āsavas, lingering beneath the surface.

Vedanā (वेदना) – The raw experience of feeling something deeply before it’s suppressed or distorted.

In your second post on this thread, you wrote:

“My psychologist, we mainly do gestalt psychology (inner child), said that she thinks I’m growing up. I have her since one month. Since then my impulses are less strong. I need less sleep. I don’t really feel tired anymore. When I tell myself I love you, I feel it. When I give myself a hug, I feel it.” (Dec 16, 2024)-

I wonder—do you still see that psychologist? I hope you do, because she seems to have had a deeply positive impact on you—helping you connect with your emotions in ways that feel real and healing.

More about Alienation (the first word in the title of your thread), self-alienation, more precisely: it is the feeling of being disconnected from oneself—one’s emotions, identity, or true desires. It happens when a person suppresses, ignores, or rejects parts of oneself, often to fit external expectations or avoid painful feelings.

It can look like: feeling emotionally numb or detached from your own experiences, feeling like you’re living someone else’s life, no longer knowing what you truly feel, struggling to trust your own instincts or make decisions confidently.

Self-alienation can stem from emotional suppression, past trauma, or external pressure to be someone you’re not. Healing involves reconnecting with your emotions, accepting all parts of yourself, and allowing yourself to feel without fear.

In my next post, I will share about my own experience with self-alienation and reconnection. I’m posting it separately in case it might be difficult for you to read—so please feel free to skip it if you need to.

Anita

And please feel free to post anytime, if it helps with the grieving process.

Wishing you the best!

You’re very welcome, Alessa, and no worries at all about any delay. I can only imagine how busy you are with your studies, exams, and the incredible dedication of being a mother—and that’s just two things! Your thoughts about your son are truly beautiful. Take care! ❤️

Anita

Dear Ben:

Your words, June 2023–July 2024: “I do not have space for her pain in these situations because of my own pain… I talk about a situation where I showed myself vulnerable last year… and instead of being listened to, she started with her pain… She was too close. There was not enough space for me… By not expressing myself I protect my Mom from worrying, or meet her need for control… I need a strong mother. I need an anchor… I think I want her to really see me and see me equal… I do not wish to be controlled… It sometimes feels like that I am my mom, and myself is this thing I can’t control.”

Dec 18, 2024: “I might get overwhelmed being held by other people. I have been looking for a family all my life. Maybe I could find this delusive family in the Amazonian rain forest. Or I wait till I can create it in myself. I grieve about this inside. It’s something which is giving me a hard time. I’m tired of chasing dreams.”

Jan 28, 2025: “I need to befriend myself.”

Growing up, your mother was volatile, controlling, highly emotional. She was not strong enough or emotionally regulated to be the solid anchor you needed. In order to create, so to speak, the strong mother you desperately needed, you sacrificed your child-self—diminishing your own emotional expression to make space for hers.

Whenever you expressed pain or vulnerability, she overreacted, making it about her own emotions. This robbed you of the space to exist emotionally—to be validated, understood, and allowed to feel without guilt. Over time, you learned that revealing your emotions meant triggering her overwhelm, so you adapted by silencing yourself, making emotional suppression a survival mechanism.

The Harm of Suppressing Emotion:

* Chronic emotional exhaustion—constantly holding back, filtering, or numbing your own feelings.

* Loss of self-trust—never fully knowing if your emotions are “allowed” or justified.

* Detachment from identity—becoming someone shaped by others’ emotional needs rather than your own natural experiences.

* Fear of vulnerability—connection carries the risk of further suppression, losing yourself, or feeling controlled again.

* Emotional death—the haunting fear of being viewed as false, inauthentic, and ultimately losing yourself entirely.

The Path to Healing:

Your words about searching for family, grieving inside, and being tired of chasing dreams show how deeply you long for something real, something that honors who you are. But the most powerful thing you said was: “I need to befriend myself.”

This holds the key. Healing isn’t about finding something external to complete you—it’s about learning to stand in your own emotions without fear, without shaping them to fit someone else’s comfort.

Befriending yourself might mean:

* Allowing your emotions without needing to prove they’re valid.

* Honoring your needs even when they feel small or quiet.

* Unlearning the idea that you must sacrifice yourself in order to be seen.

* Reclaiming emotional space, knowing that your feelings matter.

You deserve to take up space—not just for your pain, but for joy, love, and self-trust. You are not wrong for feeling deeply. You are not weak for needing something real. And you are not alone.

I want you to know, Ben, that my motivation for reaching out here, in this post, isn’t about fixing you or leading you somewhere you haven’t chosen. I care about the expression of the suppressed, because I’ve experienced it myself. I’ve been where words were swallowed instead of spoken, where emotions felt like a burden instead of a right. What I offer is not advice from a detached place—it’s what I’ve learned in my own journey. If anything resonates, take it. If not, discard it. My only wish is that you never feel alone in this process.

I want to close with a writing exercise that might help. Let’s call it “Giving Voice to the Unspoken”-

– Step 1: Write Without a Filter

Set a timer for 10–15 minutes and write freely without stopping. Don’t worry about grammar, making sense, or judging your thoughts—just let your emotions flow onto the page. Start with:

* “If my emotions could speak freely, they would say…”

Let the words come as they are—anger, grief, exhaustion, longing, frustration, hope—whatever needs to surface.

– Step 2: The Suppressed Dialogue

Write two voices: one representing the suppressed emotions (pain, anger, resentment, things left unsaid), the other representing the part of you that silences or suppresses them (self-doubt, fear, survival mode).

Let these voices speak to each other. Example:

* Suppressed voice: “I am tired of carrying the weight of unspoken words.” * Suppressing voice: “But expressing them might make things worse.”

Let both sides speak honestly—this helps externalize inner conflict and reveal emotional truths you may not realize.

– Step 3: A Letter to Yourself

After writing, pause and reflect. Then, write a letter to yourself, as if you were talking to a close friend who struggles with suppression. Offer kindness, validation, and permission to feel.

* “You are allowed to feel this. Your emotions don’t need justification. They just are.”

.. In fact, I in tend to do this exercise myself in a few minutes from now, in my new thread: “Our World is a Complex Mess of PTSD”. You are welcome to read it, and comment about it there- if you so choose

I’m here, Ben, I care and I am always happy to listen as you walk this path. 💛

Warmly, Anita

Dear Robi:

It’s always a pleasure to read your words. This time, your writing talent shone brighter than ever in my mind.

I hear your frustration with the whole “personal development” narrative—this idea that if you just have a perfect vision, everything will fall into place. But here’s the thing: clarity doesn’t come first, movement does. You don’t have to know the exact destination before taking a step. Sometimes, clarity is created through action, rather than found in thought alone.

You talked about being a leaf caught in the wind, constantly drifting, unable to root yourself. And maybe that’s because your vision keeps shifting—but shifting isn’t failure. What if, instead of forcing yourself to hold onto one fixed idea, you focused on one consistent action—something that grounds you, no matter which way the wind blows?

And about the shame—that long corridor lined with reminders of your “failures”—what if those weren’t failures, but evidence that you’ve kept trying, kept searching, kept wanting more for yourself? That’s not weakness. That’s proof that you’ve never truly given up.

Your girlfriend’s question—”How much more do you need to lose before you get going?”—it stuck with you for a reason. Maybe it’s time to stop waiting for the perfect conditions and simply start with one thing. What is one step you can take today—not tomorrow, not next week—but today?

You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to move.

While I was reading your recent post, I had this image in my mind, that of you in the storage room, minimizing the screen when your parents interrupted your privacy. I had the image of you, fast forward to now, still minimizing the screen, the screen representing YOU, Your Life, what You care about.

Anita