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October 9, 2026 at 8:20 pm in reply to: When family dynamics you grew up with become unacceptable in adulthood #461454
anitaParticipantGood Friday Evening, Nea 🙂
I’d like to answer your recent message this way: I’ll read the first paragraph, respond, then read the second paragraph, respond, etc. It’d feel like having a conversation with you this evening.
I’m glad the weather is lovely where you’re at. It’s almost lovely here, and heavenly compared to the weather across the continent- in Fl right now (category 3 hurricanes).
My congrats to you for not pushing your husband further to wish HB or to initiate any conversation with your father 👏
Letting things go, and letting them be.. where’s that emoji again.. 👏
Focusing on Maya and the move is healthy. It’s moving away from what has been unhealthy for too long, way before the incident with your husband in early Aug.
I am surprized that your father had apologized to you after calling you names. I wonder if following his apologies, he had made any detectable effort to fix the (mis) behaviors he apologized for.
“I can’t expect my husband to just sweep (the argument) under the rug”-
What went through my mind as I read this sentence was the image of your husband sweeping his own dignity and self- esteem under the rug.
.. You wrote: “My husband refusing to initiate a conversation and be the bigger person and maintain peace had become so difficult for me to accept”-
I think that your husband refusing to initiate a conversation is about.. not being the smaller person.
And about peace- since your father taking out his stress at home is a decades-long Pattern, Peace around him is only a Pause before the next time. Isn’t it?
About me, helped by your 13-page story, I understand my own story better. And for that I thank you 🙏
Only a short while ago today, I remembered something childlike that my mother said, something that makes me feel affection for her. And at the same time, I hold memories of great hurt and distress that she has caused me.
I can hold both memories, both emotional experiences together.
And there’s grief about never having experienced what a mother should be: safe. I never had and never will have that experience.
Experiencing this grief is helping me finally move on more. I mean, to really trust my experience and to fully understand that there was nothing I could have done and nothing I could do now to have a mom.
Having a mom (a safe and loving mother) has been nothing but a fantasy that I’ve been chasing in one way or another.
👣 (one step, one day at a time), Anita
October 9, 2026 at 1:47 pm in reply to: growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma #461451anitaParticipantI LOVED reading your message, your sense of humor is amazing! I’ll get back 2 u tonight.
anitaParticipantI hope you’re okay, Nami.
How are you?
🤍 Anita
October 8, 2026 at 11:05 am in reply to: growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma #461438anitaParticipantGood Thurs morning, Robi:
Yesterday, you started your message with: “Long day here- yesterday, I started removing the old paint off the main gate of my parents’ property and started repainting it. I wanted to do it throughout the summer, but didn’t manage”-
Did your parents, any one of them, show appreciation for your work, or did they criticize you for not having started it earlier?
Did part of you hope for their appreciation, for them telling you something like: ‘Thank you! You’re a good son!’
I mean, a tiny part?
Bogart the beagle loves hearing “You’re a good boy!”
Any parent ever say that to you?
I wonder how often (if at all), they sent you the you’re-a-good-boy vs the “you’re a bad apple” message.
Another thing I was wondering about this morning is that you shared a lot about your parents in your first thread (June 2018), but I don’t think you mentioned having been “brutally beaten” on that thread. I think that you mentioned it first in this thread (2024-26), and you didn’t elaborate on it.
I wonder how often you were beaten, how brutally and how it felt when she cried and apologized afterwards.
I wonder how it feels now when you remember.
I’m asking because the brutal beating part can make a significant difference in understanding what you’ve been struggling with all along.
Please answer only if you’re able.. and willing 🙂
Anita
October 7, 2026 at 11:49 pm in reply to: growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma #461424anitaParticipantRobi1992, June 8, 2018 (1st post ever): “Hello! I’m about to tell you a story. My story… I’m a 25-year-old guy, living in Europe and I’m supposed to be a photographer. Well technically I am, because I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree in that field but actually, I am not doing anything in that direction. I am not doing anything at all in general and I guess I’ve been pretty much always like this.”
Robi1992, Oct 7, 2026 (8 years & 4 months later): “I’m qualified to do quite a few things. On paper: professional photographer & film maker (BA, MA), certified English teacher and certified fitness/ personal trainer.
“I’m guessing fear has stopped me from doing all of the above. That needs to sink in a little.. Fear has stopped me doing all of the above. Damn it.”
This makes me think of the photo you uploaded only a few days ago, that which I WOW-ed repeatedly, a 2-D photograph of your shadow.
I wonder about the color of your hair, the color of your eyes, your skin, is it pale? How does your voice sound like, a Romanian accent (when you speak English)? How do you sound speaking Romanian? When you get excited about something, is there like a glitter in your eyes?
“On paper: professional photographer…”- In real-life- a Robi that still needs to be seen, heard, and feel like a 3-D magnificent human that you are (not a 2-D image, an on-paper idea)?
Would like to continue this in the morning (my morning)
Anita
anitaParticipantMy dear friend, Going Through Life:
I am curious about the differences you personally see between your “third world country” and “developed ones”, and what you most appreciate in what you observed in France and in Italy.
Here, my socialization experience has been in 2 places: (1) my lovely next-door neighbor who has 2 beagles and a huge outdoor property. We have daily play dates with the 3 beagles (I would have loved to upload a photo of Bogart, but I don’t know how to do it. I’m very low tech),
(2) the dog park downtown, where Bogart gets to play with all kinds of dogs. Sometimes there’s drama among the dogs’ (human) moms and dads, which makes the time there even more interesting.
I did visit a couple of dog-friendly taproom, but only a few times.
🐶 🐾 🐕 🐾 💫 Anita
October 7, 2026 at 10:53 am in reply to: growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma #461417anitaParticipantGood Wed Night (your time), Robi 🙂
I hope you are out and about socializing as I’m typing this, and I understand your need to disconnect from home and all.
I won’t be in a rush to reply then.. I will Thursday or Friday morning (your time).
Anita
anitaParticipantHi Nami:
That on the day he broke up with you, he sent you a pic of him and a new gf on a date, plus, a text saying he’s going to bed with her, suggests to me that his intent was to make you feel badly, to upset you, to hurt you.
You wrote that you think he was toxic- the behavior I just mentioned was indeed toxic.
Your friend said, “You can’t just get a girlfriend on one day like magic”-
The timing of him getting a new girlfriend is unlikely to be true- that he would manage to have the time and the state of mind to start a new romantic relationship on the very same day that he broke up with you.
So, in my mind, like your friend suggested, he’s been cheating.. or maybe, it was all a show (the pic and text at the restaurant, and the pics on discord) meant to hurt you, to produce that “punch on the gut” that you mentioned in your original post.
What do you think, Nami?
🤔 Anita
October 6, 2026 at 8:20 pm in reply to: growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma #461401anitaParticipantHey Dear Robi:
I didn’t respond yesterday to what you wrote here:
“There’s fear of not being good… Whenever I even think of getting any job, I always play out all sorts of things in my head, ‘But what if I mess up that or this?’… I would be afraid of making bad coffee… Yes.. there’s a lot of fear of doing anything. Anything that requires me to perform things… I need to take a good look at it.”-
It may be your body remembering the terrible consequences you suffered when you supposedly made a mistakes in performing things (e.x., exams in school measured in grades) that led to those brutal beatings you mentioned.
The way you described your mother, sounds like she has been very angry, keeping it in most of the time (suppressing it, trying to distract herself by watching lots of TV and online shopping), expressing her anger passive- aggressively,
And at other times (when you were younger) exploding, becoming physically aggressive.
It could be that her anger, chronic anger that your body remembers and is afraid of?
🤔 Anita
October 6, 2026 at 1:10 pm in reply to: I’m not Buddhist, but I love the House of a Thousand Mirrors. #461399anitaParticipantMom says that too? And what does Sleipnir say? 🙂
anitaParticipantDear Going Through Life 🙂
I’m thrilled to read from you again!
Congrats for the new job 👏
Did you enjoy your trip to France and Italy.. and your sister’s wedding in France?
My life hasn’t changed much since we last talked. Well, Bogart the beagle is a bit bigger and as cute as ever and I didn’t find a regular irl socializing opportunity since the taproom closed back in April.
🤍 Anita
anitaParticipantI’m sorry you’re hurting, Nami. 💛
Sending you a photo of himself on a date with a new girlfriend, breaking up with you while already out with someone else, and then appearing publicly affectionate so soon afterward would leave many people feeling shocked and replaceable.
Honestly, none of us can know if the tweet was the reason or just an excuse. The truth is that nobody outside the relationship can know whether he had emotionally checked out long before the breakup, whether he met the new girlfriend shortly beforehand, or whether the tweet genuinely upset him. People who want to leave a relationship sometimes point to a specific incident as the reason, even when their dissatisfaction began earlier.
Right now, I think blocking him was the best thing you could do. It’s a healthy step because every new photo reopens the wound and makes it harder to grieve the relationship.
Try not to focus on whether he cheated or why he left. Focus on taking care of yourself and giving the pain time to settle. It’s only been a week, so it’s normal to still miss the good times.
🌷 Anita
anitaParticipantYou are inspiring, Calm Moon! I would love to read updates from you every once in a while- about work, the possible side-gig.. about anything you’d feel comfortable talking about here.
Anita
October 5, 2026 at 10:34 pm in reply to: growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma #461377anitaParticipantContinued:
You wrote that at times your mother brutally beat you. (It makes ME angry)
My mother didn’t brutally beat me. She slapped my face with her open hand right and left, right, left, my face felt hot. Don’t know if my burning face was a result of her open hand hitting me (the friction, the impact) or was it my A.N.G.E.R. burning my face.
When her arm/ hand got tired, she said, looking at her hand, “Look what YOU did to ME, my hand is hurting”
Sometimes she hit me with her hands and feet anywhere they landed. She hit me as if she was the one in pain. And I guess she was.
And she said: “You think I’m stupid? I’m not going to break your bones or make you bleed, that would get me in trouble”-
So, I suppose she didn’t brutally beat me (?)- No bleeding and no broken bones.
Attached to these memories, is a contained, subdued, hushed anger.
“Bitch, do your song, keep telling yourself that you was a mum” (Eminem)-
It’d be more untrue for me to call her a “mum” than..
And yet, little girl Anita loves the mum she needed so early on, the one who wasn’t there, the one she didn’t have.
Yes, I LOVE my imagined mum, the idea of her, still. Ahh.. hmm. It’d be like a dream come true, retroactively if only..
When a Need replaces Reality.
How to let go of that little girl’s hope, Robi?
* I read that years after that song, Eminen apologized to his mother (disappointed).
Anita
anitaParticipantOh, dear.. my goodness, Going Through Life.. that’s you? (big smile on my face!)
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