I think 🤔 that I am getting new insight into myself because of you:

If I read about your anhedonia when I was growing up / living with my mother, I would have been jealous of you!

Because not feeling would have been so much better than the pain (shame, guilt, self-doubt) that tormented me growing up.

So, again, I think you did an excellent job (when you were growing up) numbing/ shutting down/ suppressing your emotions- a way superior job to mine 👏

But now, what worked before (when living with your mother) is not serving you anymore.. because your GF is.. not like your mother. Maybe no one is like her.

Back to me, I wish I was able to not feel back then.

I did my best suppressing, just not as good a job as you did.

🌿 🌟 🌿 Anita

Hey Confused:

Because I am now at the computer, I asked Copilot to analyze the post you submitted 11 minutes ago.

Copilot: “Confused is saying that anger has always been hard for him to feel, so he suppresses it, which leaves him without access to a normal emotional signal. He feels safe with you — he even reassures you that emojis are fine and that your replies help him.

Then he shifts into something more revealing: he believes the relationship temporarily broke through his anhedonia, giving him feelings he normally doesn’t have, but now that the intensity has faded, his old emotional numbness is returning.

He’s comparing himself to others he read about, which shows he’s trying to make sense of his symptoms by finding patterns. Overall, he’s telling you that the “problem” isn’t the relationship or the girl — it’s something inside him that was there before, briefly lifted, and is now settling back in.”

Next, I asked Copilot what can help you.

Copilot: “1. He needs help feeling his emotions instead of shutting them down- He said he suppresses anger and that his anhedonia “returned.” That means he has a long‑term pattern of numbing instead of feeling.

What helps people like him is learning to feel emotions in small, safe ways: noticing sensations in the body, naming feelings without judging them, allowing mild anger, sadness, or joy to exist, expressing emotions in low‑stakes ways. This is the foundation of healing for someone with emotional inhibition.

2. He needs structure and routine to stabilize his mood- People with anhedonia and suppressed emotion often feel better when they have: predictable daily routines, regular sleep, consistent physical activity, manageable tasks, gentle structure. You can gently encourage him toward small stabilizing routines.

3. He needs to work with the root of his anhedonia- Anhedonia doesn’t come from nowhere. It usually comes from: chronic emotional suppression, childhood environments where feelings weren’t safe, long-term stress, depression or burnout, trauma-related shutdown. He needs support that helps him understand the origin of his numbness.

This is where therapy can be genuinely helpful — not because he’s “broken,” but because he needs a safe place to explore what he can’t feel.

You can gently point him toward supportive professional help.

4. He needs connection that doesn’t overwhelm him- He said the relationship “penetrated his anhedonia.”
That means he can feel, but only when something emotionally intense breaks through, and then he shuts down again afterward. This is a classic pattern.

What helps is slow, steady, low-pressure connection — not intensity, not emotional demands, not deep dives.

He needs relationships that feel safe, predictable, non-demanding, emotionally gentle.

5. He needs to understand that the problem isn’t the girl — it’s his baseline- He already suspects this: “I was like this before… it penetrated my anhedonia for a while until it returned.”

This is insight.

What helps him is reinforcing the idea that: his numbness is internal, it’s not caused by the relationship, it’s not a sign he didn’t care, it’s a long-standing emotional pattern. This reduces shame and helps him move toward healing.

6. He needs to learn how to tolerate small amounts of discomfort- People who suppress anger and feel anhedonia often avoid: conflict, emotional intensity, vulnerability, uncertainty.

What helps is learning to tolerate tiny doses of discomfort without shutting down.

This is something he can practice slowly, over time.

7. He needs compassion for himself- He’s not cold. He’s not uncaring. He’s emotionally inhibited and overwhelmed.

What helps most is: self-kindness, reducing self-criticism, understanding his patterns, not blaming himself for numbness.”

I’ll post again from my phone.

Me

Good 🌄 Confused:

Yes, I remember you shared before that you never or almost never feel 😡- why do you think that is?

Mostly disconnected and numb sucks. I wish you mostly felt connected and alive- not all the time and not in an intensity that is unsustainable, bur.. reasonably connected and alive.

🙂 😞 😡 😃 😉 😢 ☹️ 😭 😔 😊 Anita

Good morning, Peter!

Thank you 🙂. I appreciate the way you reflected the movement in what I shared. It helped me feel seen in a simple, grounded way. I’m glad my walking and finding my footing came through clearly to you.

🚶‍♀️ Anita

Hi Peter:

Someone painted 🎨 abuse and hate on my mother’s canvas. She then painted abuse and hate on mine and I had a lot of work to do to remove enough of the nasty painting off my canvas enough to see what’s been hidden.

Love/ genuine connections within and with other people (including with Bogart the beagle 🐕) was ✂️ off by said painting.. well, not fully cut off, more like the love-connection hung loosely off the canvas, hanging on a thin thread, trying to hold on.

“The love we were trying to achieve was actually the ground we were standing on all along”-

I just had an image of my mother kicking me, so I fell.

And I just remembered the poem I wrote as an older teenager (or in my very early 20s). I shared about it with you, Peter, but now I remember more:

In the poem I was lying on the ground, crawling, asking or begging passerbyes to give me a hand and help me up, help me so that I can stand and walk on my legs.

Huh.. so, no, I was not standing on the ground all along.

I suppose the work was more about standing on the ground that was there all along than realizing it was always there, as in changing my position to the ground- from crawling to walking.

Funny perhaps, I am known in the area were I live as “the walker”. I walked 4+ miles today ( with Bogart). I walk every day.

🚶‍♀️ Anita

Hi again, Miss L Dutchess:

You shared before about feeling lonely, about not connecting with (much older) people you work with and wishing you had close friends and having only a few friends and far in between 😞

Why do you think that’s the case (I don’t remember if you shared about it)?

It so happens that I was very lonely most of my life. One reason why I had only a few friends and not for long, was that I was suspicious and distrustful of people. I also easily got angry at people (I suppose the distrust and anger go together).

I don’t remember if you shared before about wishing to have a long-term boyfriend?

Regarding the question in the title of this thread, a simple way to answer is this:

Karma isn’t a punishment system. It doesn’t operate like a cosmic police force handing out tickets. It’s about the natural consequences of our behaviors and outcomes of how we live.

Unkind people often look like they’re getting away with things because consequences can be slow and internal. Someone can appear successful or untouched on the outside while living with chronic conflict, shallow relationships, and distrust.

Some outcomes are visible. Some are not. But no one escapes consequences of their own behavior.

I would very much like to hear your thoughts about all of this.

🌟🍃⭐🌿Anita

Good 🌄 Peter:

I read your message much earlier this morning and gave it time to sink in.

Sustaining the reality of love: being present (vs absent in the ways of analysis, comparisons, measurements, expectations, labels, definitions, judgments, fears, smokes and mirrors).

To stay with and find comfort in the silent (blank) canvas- not rushing to fill it in with noise (paintings)

“Returning to the love that was our origin all along.”- this speaks to me so.. silently loud!

Right there, in those 10 words is everything!

✨️✨️✨️ Ani-natta

Thank you for the answer, Miss L Dutchess 🙂 Now I know, LOL

Well, seems to me that you did a good job confronting him. Problem is a whole lot of people, when confronted, become defensive and retaliate when confronted, no matter how wrong their initial behavior has been.

So, part of confronting a person is to do so in a calm way, using as neutral language as possible (while still delivering the message you have in mind) and then expect some defensiveness, expecting the confronted person to reject your message or get upset with you, or sadly, become somewhat punitive like your mother.

Talking about mothers, mine was punitive as well and I too- as an adult- feared confronting people. So, I kept things inside, angry, and sometimes I would over confront. And I found out that other people in my life were not even close to how punitive my mother has been, so my fear was more than what reality proved to be with other people.

Does any of this resonate?