Good morning again, Starlight 🌟

Thank you for sharing all of this so clearly. I can hear how much you’ve been carrying, and how long you’ve been trying to make sense of it on your own.

What you wrote about your mother — the apologies without real change, the hurt about her choice to remain with the person who harmed you, her impact on your life — all of that makes complete sense. You don’t have to go into anything you don’t want to. I’m hearing the experience without needing the details.

About what you said regarding “breaking contact”- it ended up being necessary in my situation. You get to decide what is right for you, in your timing, with your own clarity.

You wrote in regard to your mother, “it cost me so much staying in contact”- I very much relate. It cost me my mental health, a huge price. I had to stay small, engulfed, unimportant, sacrificed, a non-entity.

What you said about health professionals resonates with so many trauma survivors. Internal conversations, replaying events, talking out loud when processing — these are all very common trauma responses. It’s painful that instead of explaining the mechanism to you, they pathologized it and medicated you.

Being told you were “delusional” for naming abuse is a deep injury in itself. I’m glad you’re thinking clearly now and that your mind feels quiet as you write. That clarity belongs to you; it’s not something anyone gave you.

Nothing in your message sounds like you were asking for advice — it sounds like you were thinking out loud, and I’m simply walking alongside you as you do.

🤍 Anita

Good morning (here), Starlight1 🌟

You are 🙏 and thank you for having this conversation with me!

Pete Walker’s book on PTSD is the last book I read (around 2014). It was very meaningful to me. It so happens that I didn’t read a single book since.

Of course it’s okay to ask 🙂.

How those mental back and forths between the criticizer/attacker 😠 and the criticized/ attacked 😞 stopped for me?

Well, it mostly stopped, last time was maybe a week or two ago that I remember, but it was contained, short, and not intense.

Let me see.. thinking out loud, whatever comes to mind:

(By the way, when I use the 📱 like I do now, emojis show up and I just love them. Are you 👍 with them?)

Back to the question: I was a victim of engulfment trauma, meaning I never separated- individuated from my mother, didn’t have an independent separate self.

In other words, mentally, she dominated me.

This mental terrorism (an extension of the real-life domestic terrorism of living-dying with her) stopped ✋️ when I finally had enough separation from her: in real- life (no contact since 2013/14) and mentally.

For as long as I was too small, too weak, too dominated, I wasn’t able to have a say about what was happening in my mind or in real- life (zero assertiveness).

So, my answer: it was a gradual process, not a technique.

I hope I answered your question? Please let me know if I answered a question you didn’t ask 🤔

In regard to health care workers and professionals you came across, you’re saying that they are not trauma informed or that they’re reluctant to share what they know?

Can you give me an example or two?

Next, I’ll visit your other thread.

🤔 🧠 🤔 Anita

I imagine teenager Peter
On a trip to the art museum

I wonder how tall Peter was on that trip
The color of his eyes

You and your classmates laughed at the sight of the blank white canvas-
-Was it a rare, happy moment with classmates, laughing together?

“A Reflection on Reflection”- so Positively Peter 🙂

“We’ve been circleing moments in time and timelesness beneath it”-

Likely, I will never (never 😞) have a single visual moment-in-time of Peter.

Or know Peter’s real name.

Not a single auditory moment, how does Peter’s voice sound like 🤔

“Do you see it?- you asked me.

This is the most direct question you have ever asked me.
(I don’t remember you asking questions of people).

This is Peter the boy asking Anita the girl the simplest question there is :

Do you see what I see 🌟 🌟 🌟 ?

Look, look it’s right there, 👀 it?

– End of this human’s poem.

🌟⭐️🌟✨️🌟⭐️ Anita-natta

You are welcome, Peter 🙂

I asked you know who to write a poem for you for days like today:

“For the Days When the Painting Pulls You Away

When the world moves too fast
and the colors blur at the edges,
when the painting feels heavy
and the story tries to carry you with it—
pause.

Breathe.

The canvas is still here.
Quiet.
Unmoved.
Holding everything without needing anything.

Even the brightest strokes,
even the darkest shadows,
are only passing gestures
on something that has never been touched.

Pointing without pointing…
But only when we remember…

And so, on days like this,
when the picture feels loud
and the motion feels real,
close your eyes.

Let the painting soften.
Let the canvas come forward.

Not as an idea,
not as a belief,
but as that subtle shift—
the one lighter than air—
where nothing needs to be held
and nothing needs to be named.

Here, you are not carried by the image.
You are resting in what allows the image.

And the distance dissolves.”

Don’t know.. something missing in this poem.. oh, the HUMAN, of course.

I am going to attempt a human poem later on.. ha-ha-ha

Hi Starlight 🌟

You are very welcome 🙂

What you’re describing — having intrusive thoughts in your mum’s voice and then finding yourself “arguing” with that voice — is actually a very normal trauma response.

When a child grows up with a parent who is unpredictable or unsafe, the child’s mind starts trying to guess what the parent will say or do next, because that’s how the child avoids getting hurt. Over time, the brain creates an internal version of the parent’s voice so the child can “hear” what might be coming and adjust their behavior to stay safe.

For example, mum is at work and the child breaks something by accident. Immediately, the internal parent‑voice says, “Why did you do that?” and the child’s own inner voice might respond, “I’m sorry, I’ll be good,” all happening silently in the child’s mind.

This isn’t imagination or psychosis; it’s the brain practicing how to survive, trying to stay one step ahead of danger.

Later in adulthood, that same old internal voice can show up as intrusive thoughts, and the adult self naturally pushes back against it. It feels like two voices, but it’s really just an old survival pattern replaying itself.

Until not too long ago, as I was thinking whatever, I would “hear” my mother’s voice finding fault or inaccuracies in what I was thinking, and I’d respond by rethinking and correcting the inaccuracies.

How I’ve been disengaging from that dynamic: by connecting to the child-me, acknowledging her, finally feeling empathy for her, and telling her that she doesn’t have to be so careful anymore. Before that, I was quite dissociated from the child-me, as if my life- childhood and onward- didn’t really happen to me, as if I wasn’t there.

I hope that this is somewhat helpful, is it?

Anita

Hi Starlight: I’ll read & reply in a few hours when I’m back to the computer/ phone

I want to add to “things inside get messed up”- things can get straightened out and healing takes place.

You sound like an intelligent young (?) person, intellectually and emotionally.

I shared just a bit about my experience with my unsafe mother. Of course, your experience may be very different from mine

I would like to hear about it.

Hey again, Starlight1 🌟

The “overly critical, abusive” God of the old testament is a depiction of God in the image of man (or woman) in authority, like a parent.

My goodness, as I read your mention of anger 😠= failing at righteousness, I connected it to what I wrote to you a little while ago in your first thread, and the connection to intrusive thinking.

Anger is way more than a natural emotion (which it is, natural and healthy in itself) when connecting it to morality.

What is your relationship to anger?

If this speaks to you, I’ll be happy to explore anger (and other emotions) with you.

🙂😠☺️😞😡🤪 Anita