Dear Tommy:

Thank you for your thoughtful message from yesterday. I felt the care in your words, and I appreciate how you spoke to the difference between real healing and spiritual bypassing. That Bodhidharma story—yes. It says so much. We can’t force ourselves into enlightenment by ignoring pain. We have to meet the pain first.

I agree with you about the “no-self” idea may be used- in some contexts- to erase suffering. That kind of thinking can be harmful when someone is hurting. Pain doesn’t disappear just because we say the self isn’t real. It needs to be seen and tended to.

Your closing lines made me smile. I like your sense of humor!

Nonetheless, you’re not the village idiot. You’re someone who sees clearly and speaks with heart. That kind of honesty is rare, and I’m grateful for it.

Thank you for naming the healing that’s happening here. It means a lot.

🌸💐🌷 Anita

“I’ve also come to see that not all conflict needs resolution. As Lewis B. Smedes wrote in The Art of Forgiveness, sometimes forgiveness is more about releasing the need to fix than finding agreement.”- thank you for this, Peter.

Tee:

Your argument hinges on a fundamental misreading of emotional truth as interpersonal attack. I named my internal experience—my fear, my trauma responses, my emotional associations, and I did it in my own thread without naming individuals, and while explicitly stating that I was reflecting on dynamics, not targeting people.

You are interpreting my emotional processing as projection, false accusation, and a Smear campaign, framing my subjective experience as objectively harmful, even though I didn’t name you or Alessa, didn’t claim either one of you rejoiced in my pain—only that I feared it. I was writing in my own thread, about my own healing

This is emotional reversal: you are turning my (past) fear of you into an accusation, and my boundary into harm.

None of the quotes you provided indicate verbal abuse. Not by any ethical, psychological, or relational standard.

* Verbal abuse involves such things as targeted insults, threats, degrading language, and intentional harm.

I did none of that. I expressed distress, reclaimed my voice, and set boundaries around my healing space.

What you are doing, however, borders on emotional gaslighting: you’re denying my reality, reframing my trauma response as aggression, and using moral language (“should this be allowed?”) to silence me.

Tee, I have the right to name harm, to express fear, to reclaim my voice, to set boundaries, and to write metaphorically and emotionally in my own thread.

We are both stubborn, Tee, and I don’t expect resolution. Perhaps, like Lewis B. Smedes wrote in The Art of Forgiveness (provided by Peter)- sometimes forgiveness is more about releasing the need to fix than finding agreement…?

I am willing to let go and move on.

I just came across Jana’s post: “… Everyone needs love, protection and respect… Everyone needs to be offered the feeling of security and non-fear. If we decide to set healthy boundaries during conflict, the boundaries will protect everyone.. Can we try?”- yes, Jana, I am willing to try, absolutely. I already agreed to the boundaries set by Lori: (1) no more Stream of Consciousness Journal (SOCJ) where I request no responses (set on Aug 8 in my thread), and (2) whenever I post, if I am thinking about Tee, or Alessa, I will address the post to Tee or Alessa, or to any other member whose words or behaviors I am reflecting on (“Unless explicitly stated, my posts are not about or aimed at any individual in this forum. Still, in yet other words: my writing is personal and reflective. It is never intended as commentary on other members.”, Aug 14)

Ever since I agreed to these boundaries, I kept them.

Thank you, Jana. You are brave for coming up with this thread. I am impressed by your courage.

I want to submit a post to Alessa next (it’s already prepared).

Anita

Dear Alessa:

You are welcome. I am sorry that you’ve been feeling so distressed.

When I responded to you yesterday, on this thread, I felt nothing but empathy for the girl Alessa, and wanted to express it as one girl (aka inner child) talking to another girl- a girl with whom I (the inner girl) have so much in common.

I was too distressed so far to address the multi-layered conflict, too reactive inside.

I think I’ll post to you next in Jana’s thread.

Anita

I am addressing this post to all participants in this thread: Alessa, Jana, Lucidity, Peter, Roberta, and Tee.

Lucidity, less than two hours ago: “Here is a step-by-step guide on how to make a request when you have to make a stand against someone in any way, big or small… The basics are:

1. Say what the objective event was that you observed that was problematic for you.”-

Anita: The objective event that distressed me most was this post by Tee (Aug 7):

“Excerpt from Anita’s post: ‘I was thinking: if I share this here, will some people rejoice in my pain? Will some people go: Yea! The **** got hurt!? This is what crossed my mind, following recent interactions here, in the forums.’

The above is called projection. Projecting one’s own hateful thoughts and feelings on others, believing that others harbor the said thoughts and feelings. Well, they don’t. But the person is convinced they are. And so they launch an attack, a smear campaign, throwing dirt on their targets. Should that be allowed in a public space? That one member throws dirt on other members, based on their distorted thinking? I don’t think so. Lori has been informed.”

Here is a fuller context from my post on Aug 6 (in my thread Life Worth Living – What Is It Like?) that Tee quoted from:

“SOCJ: I was cutting blackberries today (thorny, aggressive ouch-if-they-hit-you), and my left arm bled in different locations… And I was thinking: if I share this here, will some people rejoice in my pain? Will some people go: Yea! The **** got hurt!? This is what crossed my mind, following recent interactions here, in the forums… I am sharing this in my own thread, which I think of as my private sanctuary, a private sanctuary which I need others to witness, at least a few others. Witnessed, not attacked.”

Lucidity: “2. Link this to how it made you feel.”-

Anita: When I read Tee’s post, I was so distressed that someone around me asked, alarmed: “What’s wrong???” My heart was racing, my head was shaking (Tourette’s motor tics), and I was uttering sounds (Tourette’s vocal tics). The rest of that day was difficult. I felt deeply unsafe.

Lucidity: “3. Express this as a need.”-

Anita: I need to feel safe in the forums—especially when I express vulnerability in my own threads. Being threatened with moderation (“Should that be allowed in a public space?… Lori has been informed”) made me feel exposed and punished.

I need to be understood—or at the very least, not terribly misunderstood or falsely accused. The post Tee quoted was emotional truth-telling, not a smear campaign. She quoted my fear out of context and reframed it as an attack.

When Tee accused me of “projecting”—suggesting I would rejoice in others’ pain—that disturbed me deeply. It wasn’t true. There was no cognitive distortion in my fear of being attacked: two days after I expressed my need to be “witnessed, not attacked,” I was attacked.

Lucidity: “4. Make your request and be open to the possibility they may decline.”-

Anita to Tee: Would you be willing to reconsider the content of the post you submitted on Aug 7? Perhaps you were wrong.

Boundary Statement: I’m sharing this not to reopen conflict, but to reclaim truth. I welcome responses that engage with the content respectfully. I will not participate in dynamics that distort, bypass, or extract from my vulnerability.

—Anita

I didn’t read your whole post, Tommy (red wine and late hour), but I got to say, Tommy- I am growing to really, really like you… dementia (lol) or not. I am getting your style.. and I’m liking .. you, Tommy! (more tomorrow)

Anita

“And I don’t remember anything else except for me screaming for help that never came. The screaming lasted for a long time. Screaming, crying and nothing but darkness.”-

Little girl Alessa: If I could go back in time and place, I would show up in that Hell where little blue-eyed, freckled-nose (when it was summer) Alessa grew up- and I would save her, and her brother- from that monster sex fiend.

I would climb the tallest mountain, cross the longest desert- so to rescue you and your brother. Just as I would do for any child suffering as much as you, your brother.. my sister.. and I did.

The sexual aspect of the abuse- you are brave to be talking about it. I am not brave like you. That part was.. excruciatingly difficult, unbearable.. How could that MONSTER do that.. ?!

Well, it was a monster, and it was done.

You are not alone: little girl Alessa. Little girl Anita knows. Little girl Anita understands.

Thank you, Peter.