Dear Anita,

“she attacked you=> you attacked you. You+ Her= A Unit. Part of the Unit attacks the other part.”

I want to make sure I won’t be part of her unit anymore.

““Learned helplessness, training/conditioning… A very powerful way to remove the power of someone“- a very powerful way to remove a person’s belief in her own power.”

Belief seems to be the right word. Beliefs are powerful…

“it takes experiencing it to make a difference. For the elephant that would be to actually move its body forward, beyond the distance allowed by the chain.”

And experiencing it takes… trying? It seems too easy. It probably isn’t or I’d already have a plan… But probably, all considered, it could be easier than what I’ve been made to believe.

“ if it is possible for you to break the chain, then it is possible for you earlier than you think. It could have happened to me way, way earlier if I had the help that I needed.”

I guess it could… I’ll try to not this possibility as a reason to pressure myself in an unhealthy way. I’m still unsure what is the right help for me, practically speaking.

I guess if I slowly deconstruct some beliefs, it can’t hurt.

I have still to figure out when it is right for me to push myself and when it is wrong. What is the necessary push/amount of trying to trigger motivation and good things… and what is too forceful and will drive me into a corner of negative feelings of helplessness and inadequacy.

I am uncertain of my capacity of recognizing what is good for me, since I have a hard times figuring out how to differentiate the good coping mechanism from the bad ones.

I guess that’s all I can think of at the moment, in regards to healing.

Thank you, our conversation is helping my focus, it is significant even if I can’t figure out things too quickly. At least I can tell this is good. And the connection helps, because it makes it less academical, more emotional… I got the feeling you noticed my tendencies to withdraw into academic knowledge when I am overwhelmed/confused/lost/afraid. I appreciate how you get my attention back to things that matters and that I overlook/avoid. It is different in a challenging but interesting way.

Linarra.