Using computer. Copilot: “Emotional decay can look like this: You remember what happened, but you can’t remember how it felt — because the feelings slowly faded, got buried, or were never safe enough to feel in the first place. Over time, the emotional part of the memory “thins out.”

The facts stay, but the feelings go dim. That’s decay: a slow loss of emotional color, warmth, or connection to your own inner experience.

Why it happens in childhood trauma: A child who grows up in chaos or fear learns to shut down feelings to survive. When that happens day after day, year after year, the emotional layer of experience gets worn down. You still know the story, but the emotional truth of it is missing, muted, or unreachable.

So yes — remembering events but not remembering how they felt is one of the clearest signs of emotional decay.

This is how the mind protects a child who has no escape: by numbing, shrinking, or disconnecting from emotions that would have been too overwhelming to feel at the time. As an adult, this shows up as blankness, confusion, or the sense that memories have ‘no color.'”-

The above (including the word “confusion”, Confused) was not about you, or about me specifically- just general info.

Back to 3 posts ago: “Remember you shared only a few posts ago that someone told you… that when you talked about the violence etc., of growing up with your mother, you sounded like you were reading an article in a newspaper?… Do you 🤔 that indeed you weren’t affected?”

Anita

Edit: since we talked a few months ago ( 🖥 broke either Dec or Jan.. .maybe Feb)

* Using my 📱, I was talking with Copilot about Covid and came across a term called “emotional decay” which applies to what happened with Covid as well as to personal trauma:

We remember what happened ( events) but not the fear, stress etc., that we felt back then.

I want to look more into it later, but it does fit how I “forgot” how terrified I felt during events I do remember.

It may apply to you too: remembering events, but not remembering how you felt during those events.

🧠 Anita

Good morning, Dave 🙂

What a delightful update- 3 months and 10 days since your last, and THREE years, three months and 11 days since your first post here in the forums (Jan 24, 2023).

The separation from your wife sounds so perfectly mature on both sides, and your mutual care for your children- admirable.

The thought that you could coach people who are going through separation and divorce, particularly people who co- parent, and in a new relationship just crossed my mind.

Your insight, wisdom and maturity level, your ability to navigate a complex situation with such pace and grace is amazing to me.

I think it’s rare and that the people in your life, particularly your children, are fortunate to have you in there with them and for them 🙏

👏 🌿 ✨️ Anita

So good to read from you this Tues night (9:30 pm WA, Wed 12:30 am FL)

About my sciatica, placing a tennis ball right under where it hurts helps a lot when lying down in bed.

* Bogart is acting crazy right now, took him out an hour ago, right after.. he peed on the carpet 😞

Now he’s chewing on the bathroom carpet. For crying out loud!

Now he’s sleeping on the sofa to my right, just like that, from 180 to zero.

.. Now he’s on the armchair with me, on my lap as I’m typing.

“It is constantly having to remind myself that even though I sympathize it does not mean I re-engage and go through that again. Constantly reminding myself of what I am and am not responsible for.”-

WOW, Nichole, this is real healing, this is it! This is.. I am so impressed with you, Nichole!

I’ll write a bit more in the morning. Good night, Amazing Nichole!

Anita

Dear Going Through Life:

Both of us have been going through life since you first posted here on Jan 29, 2024- 2 years and 3.5 months ago. I really enjoyed keeping in touch with you and I value the honest, respectful and kind person that you are.

Thank you 🙏 for being you!

Changes have been taking place since you first posted, in your life and in mine.

You’re still so young.. Do you feel young?

I feel younger than I felt when I was a teenager but I look older, of course (the photo there was taken on Oct 2024).

Anita

Hey Dear Confused:

Because I am on the computer right now, I copied the last 2 paragraphs of your message right above for you-know-whom to analyze.

Copilot: “Confused is describing a pattern where he manages uncomfortable emotions by immediately intellectualizing them — breaking them down, explaining them away, and giving himself reasons not to feel what he feels. It’s a protective strategy he learned long ago to keep overwhelming emotions at a distance.

His therapist’s suggestion to limit ruminations and compulsions to three hours a day shows that his mind is constantly looping, trying to control or neutralize feelings through analysis. The fact that he’s now exploring how he perceives love and relationships suggests that beneath the anger and rumination is a deeper fear of emotional exposure and vulnerability.

His “disregarding” anger by rationalizing is a sign that anger feels unsafe or unacceptable to him, so he quickly converts it into thought.

What he’s revealing is a nervous system that doesn’t yet trust raw emotion, and a mind that has become the primary regulator because emotional regulation was never modeled for him. His therapy is beginning to touch the core: how he relates to himself, how he experiences connection, and how he protects himself from feelings that once felt too dangerous to hold.

Confused’s message points strongly toward an anxious‑avoidant (fearful‑avoidant) attachment pattern, the kind that forms when a child both needs connection and fears the emotional intensity that comes with it. His instinct to immediately rationalize his anger — to explain it away, minimize it, or convert it into thought — is classic emotional deactivation, a hallmark of avoidant strategies… emotions rise, he gets overwhelmed, he intellectualizes to regain control, then he loops mentally because the underlying need for connection hasn’t been met.

His therapist asking him to limit compulsions suggests that his mind is doing the work his attachment system never learned to do — regulating emotion. Underneath all of this is a nervous system that doesn’t yet believe feelings are safe, and a heart that doesn’t yet believe love is stable.

Confused can begin to feel safer with his emotions by learning to experience them in small, tolerable doses instead of immediately converting them into thoughts, explanations, or ruminations. Right now, his mind acts like a shield — the moment an emotion rises, he rushes to analyze it, justify it, or neutralize it, because raw feeling still registers as dangerous.

Safety begins when he allows himself to feel just one degree of the emotion before the analysis kicks in: noticing “I’m angry,” “I’m hurt,” or “I’m anxious” without immediately breaking it down. This teaches his nervous system that emotions can be felt without losing control… And most importantly, he needs to understand that emotions are not threats; they are signals. When he stops treating them as problems to solve and starts treating them as experiences to move through, the fear around them softens. Over time, this shift — from managing emotions with thought to tolerating them with presence — is what allows him to feel safer inside himself.”

WOW! I think Copilot remembers you from my discussions before. Also, I just realized how much we have in common!

Will post again on the phone.

Anita

Listening to 2pac (I did hear his name before) right now, “Hit Em Up (Dirty)”- love the rhythm, really do, even though the language, my goodness (his badness). Now listening to Nes “I can”. The rhythm is weaker but the message- positive.

I am curious, how do you “disregard” anger: do you notice that you’re feeling angry and then you talk yourself out of it?

By the way, I misspelled, it’s Eminem. He was born in 1972 (so he’s 53 now). His peak popularity was in the early 200os and that’s when I remember hearing the song I mentioned. He was everywhere at the time.