Dear Al:

“my elementary years were way better”- one reason those were better years was that you were no longer in the same place and with the same people where you suffered two years of separation anxiety. A different place/ different people=> different experience.

(similar to leaving to Australia at 19: different place/ different people=> different experience).

“my mom.. she has always protected me since I was a child”- you will have to accept that she didn’t protect you from that childhood separation anxiety and the damage it caused you.

“Understanding all of this .. What do you think I should do now that we have gathered this new information”- an emotional learning journey, that which you expressed an interest in, is about going beyond gathering information. It is about processing it emotionally. It takes time. It is different from processing information strictly intellectually, as is done in academics.

For example, you are probably very invested in seeing your mother as most loving, and I am not saying she was not most loving of you, but.. how do you process your most loving mother not helping you for two years, seeing you suffer and letting it be- I imagine this topic, right here in this paragraph is extremely difficult to process for you, as it is for any child/ adult child. Questioning or examining a parent’s love is a major reason why many quit their emotional learning journeys.

anita