Is she religious (praying, you said)? Can you tell me a bit more about what you felt or still feel about her praying and lighting a candle for your deceased mother?

Hey Confused the Poet:

I wish you could accept how you feel: what you feel and what you don’t feel at any moment in time.

The distress is of no good use, nothing positives comes out of it.

I think I mentioned to you the concept of Radical Acceptance. That was part of my CBT- radical acceptance e exercises. I bet you can find those online.

🌿🌿🐰🌿🌿Anita

Hey Starlight1 🌟

I just replied to your new thread. I will read your post above (and any post you may add) when I return from a walk with my 🐕 Bogart the Beagle and attend his play date with the neighbors’ beagles Kooper and Kurby. And then continue to clear the huge blackberries in the yard.

🐕 🐶 🐕 🌿 🌿 Anita

You’re always welcome, and no: you’re not at all offloading too much, really! I’ll answer then in your third thread later on (taking a break)

Still morning, Starlight ✨

I was wondering if I should reply to your 3rd thread here for 2 reasons: (1) to not spread or our 1 to 1 communication over too many threads, and (2) other responders (sadly I’m the only one responding for quite some time) may not want to intrude on our 1-to-1 conversation. If I leave your 3rd (and maybe 4th, etc.) thread unanswered, maybe someone else will answer it.

What do you think, Starlight? I would like to respond to your 3rd thread here or there, whatever you choose. Just let me know 🙂

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