Dear Dafne:

“He was cold as stone and had an attitude of being offended… I feel like a Villain”- He was offended—or he pretended to be offended—but you didn’t offend him.

If he learned earlier that you easily take on guilt that doesn’t belong to you, he may be using it to control you. In a relationship with a man like this, all he has to do to keep you in line is appear offended, and you automatically feel guilty and try to appease him.

“I told him that we will not meet again. It was my first reaction to his lack of understanding, empathy and coldness.”- What happened first is that he was cold and refused to help you when you were lost and scared. What happened next is that you told him you wouldn’t meet again.

It wasn’t the other way around: that you told him you wouldn’t meet again, and then he turned cold and refused to help you.

“Why he did not want to at least wait for me?”- Because, like you said, he was “cold as stone.”

“I felt guilty as I took the wrong way and made him wait. He doesn’t cope well with stressful situations. And that I wish we had communicated better that day and that him shutting down emotionally caused me a lot of pain. I wanted to tell him that we should work on that in the future.”- Your focus shifted from protecting yourself from a cold-as-stone man to… protecting him.. from you.

Recently, I came across the term emotional reversal. It’s a relational dynamic where someone responds to your authentic emotion—(in this case, your valid anger and disappointment about his cold-as-stone behavior)—by shifting the focus onto how your emotion makes them feel, rather than honoring your emotion. It’s a form of deflection, often used to avoid responsibility, maintain control, or preserve comfort.

Common examples: You say: “I’m angry about how I was treated.” They say: “You’re making me feel attacked.”

You say: “I need space right now.” They say: “Wow, I guess I’m just a terrible person then.”

You say: “This dynamic feels unsafe for me.” They say: “You always make things about you.”

Instead of engaging with the content of your emotion, they react to the discomfort it causes them—and make you responsible for that discomfort.

Emotional reversal is harmful because it invalidates your emotional truth. It shifts blame and derails accountability. It pressures you to soothe them instead of honoring yourself. It often leads to self-doubt, shame, or emotional labor.

“I could actually contact him first to say that I am sorry for ruining that afternoon…” To tell him you’re sorry is the emotional labor I mentioned above (another new term for me). He mistreated you that afternoon… and yet… you want to soothe him, to take care of his emotions.

You didn’t ruin that afternoon, Dafne—he did, by choosing coldness over care. You don’t owe him an apology for reacting to being mistreated. You owe yourself protection, clarity, and self-loyalty. You’re not a villain—you’re someone who felt pain and named it. That’s not cruelty. That’s courage.

🤗💝 Anita

Dear Laven:

I didn’t read all of this post, but of what I read, this is breaking my heart: “I don’t have a family, nor have a family unit. I’m an orphan…that no one genuinely wants. They weren’t searching nor looking for me. They never are. They don’t even know my last name…still…after all these years.”-

It’s breaking my heart because I know you are a real person out there feeling this way.. and because I too felt this way for way too long: no one was looking for me. It was as if I was a non-entity.. something that wasn’t visible.

But I do see you, Laven! You are visible here because you made yourself visible by telling your story here, and I am honored to see you!

More, tomorrow.

Anita

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Alecsee~ will reply further tomorrow.

Anita

Dearest Dafne: I will read and reply to you either tonight or Sat morning (it’s Friday afternoon here).

💝 Anita

Dear Laven:

I am truly sorry for all the pain and turmoil you’ve been carrying for so long, and that today was terrible 😔

Please keep sharing, keep telling your story. You matter, Laven!

If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll consider reaching out to a therapist or crisis support. You deserve help that’s equipped to hold this kind of intensity with care and skill. You don’t have to fight this alone.

—Warmly, Anita

Hi again, Jana:

“When I am vulnerable, people want to connect… in the end I always open the door to more genuine and honest conversation.”-That’s excellent, Jana! It makes me happy to read this.

“I like it. The more open I am, the more welcoming my energy is… and people are nicer. (98% of them) It just took me some time to understand it. I have processed the strange idea that people wanted to hurt me… Socializing feels much better today! And I don’t even feel so drained after that. Hurrah!”- Hurrah indeed! Reading your words this morning brought a big smile to my face (still smiling). I’m happy for you.

“Do you have any plans for the weekend? It’s really hot here. We might go swimming to a local quarry with our dog.”- It was hot here too, but last night it started raining—now it’s cool and breezy. I’m planning to socialize this afternoon, and tomorrow night I hope to dance to live music—maybe even outdoors, depending on the weather.

I hope you enjoy your weekend and have a great, refreshing time swimming!

With care, Anita

“❤️ and ☀️”- back to you, Jana. Sincerely, I like you. I.. don’t have the words.. How should I put it.. Don’t know.. Maybe put it this way, Jana: I am not the enemy.. Yet seems like you .. think I am..?

No, Jana.. wanted to be your friend and nothing else. For whatever it’s worth..

Goodbye, Jana.

Anita

Hi Debbie:

Your question—“What if my authentic self is someone I don’t like?”—is brave and honest, and I want to honor that.

What parts feel hard to like?

Whose voice taught you that those parts were unworthy?

What would it mean to offer those parts compassion instead of critique?

I will answer these questions as they apply to me, past and present:

(1) “What parts feel hard to like?”- Past: all the parts. Present: The part of me that still tries to get my mother/ others to like me by minimizing myself, disregarding myself, compromising my truth so to please others.

(2) “Whose voice taught you that those parts were unworthy?”- primarily my mother. To a lesser extent: peers in school.

I remember my mother telling me (as she was hitting and shaming me): “The only thing I like about you is that you look down at the floor and you don’t talk back”- She liked my submission, me giving in to her.

Other than liking my submissiveness, she mentioned 2 other things she liked about me: she said I look European and that I was very intelligent and an excellent student in school.

This is it, just these 3 things.

Now, thing is, I really wasn’t very intelligent. I suffered from learning disabilities and it took me many hours to do homework and prepare for tests, only to get on average, C+ grades, and I would forget almost all the material I memorized for tests soon after each test. Also, I do not look European. I look North African.. like my mother.

So 2 of the 3 things she liked about me weren’t true. The submissiveness part she liked- that liking led to a lot of devastation in my life for decades and decades.

In school, I was never part of the “cool kids”. I was the outsider and I believed it was so because I was inferior, defected, unacceptable. Having Tourette’s (motor and vocal tics) didn’t help, to put it mildly.

3) “What would it mean to offer those parts compassion instead of critique?”- I didn’t expect to ask myself this question. My first instinct was to say that I will never, ever like the part of me that still tries to get my mother/ others to like me by minimizing myself, etc., submitting to others, that is. I hate that part!

But then, the question above remains.. It makes sense that I’d need to like all parts of me, including parts I want changed. So, let me try this here (continuing to type as-I-think).. I’ll write a letter to my Submitting Part. I’ll call it SP-

Dear SP:

Thank you for trying so hard to protect me all those years. You knew that her aggression could be deadly. You saw how volatile she got, how rageful.. You heard her threats.. Yes, of course you felt I was in physical danger. So, you did your best for my sake: submit, go belly up.. this way she’d feel she won, she’s on top of me and she’d calm down and let me live.

We’re not there anymore, SP, subject to her aggression, at her mercy. So, you can rest now.. until and if we’re in that position again. I would need you if a situation like that happens again (one where I am completely powerless against an aggressor). Again, thank you so much and rest well. You deserve the rest.

(Letter completed).

I hope something in what I shared above resonates or supports you in your own reflection.

With care, Anita