Dear Alessa:

I appreciate 🙏 you taking the time to write to me even though you’re busy and have an exam to submit this weekend AND after a message was timed out (lots of people would have given up)!

Please feel comfortable to not reply further to me before you submit your exam 🙂

It didn’t occur to me until you mentioned it, but yes, my body does feel calmer overall because of having Bogart in my life. He sleeps 💤 with me, sometimes right next to me and otherwise, often close to me, feeling safe with me.

So, yes, I think that he has been helping with my C-PTSD.

He’s not perfect in regard to the pulling. He gets so much into smells that he forgets to not pull. But continued improvement!

I am 😊 that my discussion about my lack of autonomy led you to research it. What you shared about it made it even clearer to me how my autonomy was crushed in multiple ways: eating, washing, dressing, even going to the bathroom (I was maybe 6 or 7, don’t remember), as well as in mental-emotional ways, like being self-referential, meaning there was zero space for my emotions.

Yes, I think that I am reclaiming my autonomy. I am giving my emotions space to be, like giving them the 3rd dimension, so that they are less and less suppressed or pushed down into a 2-D existence.

Congrats 👏 for your son peeing on the potty for the first time and 👍 for him going # 2 on the potty for some time!

Oh, yes, Bogart loved rolling in whatever it is 🤪

I guess it was a husky, he sure looked wild. And he did look 👀 up and down as potential food.

Talking about food, being that the cooker is broken, I guess you’re using a microwave for cooking/ heating food?

Pikachu, mew and togepi (no emojis are showing on my phone, but when I use the computer tomorrow, I will look for the images of the latter two (can’t forget how Pikachu looks like). I will also look for the three in stained glass style. I am curious 👀

Almost 2 weeks for the arrival of your 🐈. It’d be a full house 🏠

It is indeed a pleasure 🙏 talking with you, it really is!

I wish you well on the exam and in everything else 😊

🤍 🤍 🤍 Anita

Dear Alessa:

Funny, I am using my phone and wvery time I type your name, a glass of beer emoji shows up and I never stopped to figure out why. I now understand why: Ale 🍺 here it is.

I am typing this message on a Sat afternoon 4:54 pm at this moment, Bogart slightly snoring, curled up against me on the lounge chair we’re sharing.

When I read “We have some similar values”, I felt nice, flattered.

One of the advantages of my laptop 💻 breaking is that I no longer quote members on a regular basis because I can’t select and copy on the phone. But even if I could, I don’t want to.

I think that quoting sometimes (like above) is okay, but not religiously, so to speak, like I used to.

Like I expressed to Peter in his thread, I am quite.. bamboozled by the.. what’s the word, inappropriate replies I sent too often: directive, corrective, overly analytical, overly lengthy, like essays no one asked for.

So, the 💻 breaking was part of this realization.. can’t and won’t write long, long analytical essays on the phone or on the computer.

So, it helped me be more of a conversationalist.

So, being on the 📱 I scroll up, read a part of your message, scroll down and respond:

I wish you didn’t suffer from bug after bug 😪 and hope for your full recovery 🙏

Yes, I am interested in simple techniques to recover from a PTSD episode. Thank you for offering 🫴

And thank you for sharing your research on early-life autonomy.

My sister was luckier than me in that she did attend kindergarten and preschool, so she had the opportunity to learn and develop some autonomy skills. I didn’t. My mother was a major autonomy killer in every way you listed. Every single one.

Congrats 👏 for having the cooker fixed!

I did Google images of the tattoo you’re considering: colorful and delightful 😊

Yes, I feel fine about talking about autonomy, thank you for asking. Autonomy is a huge item when it comes to mental health. When I walk Bogart (sometimes he takes me on a walk 🐕 🚶‍♀️), I see to it that he ofyrn gets to stop and smell when he wants to, choose his pace.

But sometimes I lose patience. I can only imagine how much patience and endurance it takes to be a good mother of a baby and s toddler.

Yes, I too appreciate “small talk”- way preferable to the analytical, long essays I used to send members 😳

(55 minutes since I started this post 😊 )

🤍 🤍 🤍 Anita

Whatever comes 2 mind this Wed evening, March 11, 2026, as I listen to nostalgic Israeli music and more than enough red wine in my system:

Tears in my eyes as the war rages on: Iran (since 1979) trying to DESTROY the state of Israel where I was born. Where I have family. It breaks my heart.

Ever since 1979, the Iranian regime DECLARED again and again, and again:

“Death to Israel! Death to America!”-

Quite violent, isn’t it?

The only way to satisfy the Iranian Regime is the destruction of a country (Israel), the death or expulsion (to WHERE?) of millions of Israeli people, millions of children included.

Iran is what.. 70 times the size of the small county of Israel, and yet, it wants Israel’s destruction, that and nothing less. And it has been financing his proxies (in Lebanon- Hizballah; the Houthis in Yaman and others in Iraq and elsewhere).

I am just besides myself: the Iranian regime stands as it is, no change there (it’s been acknowledged most recently by Israel and the U.S.). It stays and so does its goal: the destruction of the state of Israel, the destruction of millions of people who understandably, like anyone and everyone.. just want to LIVE.

Such a small, tiny country (Israel). Such a big, huge country (Iran)- and the other countries in the middle east.. so much bigger than the tiny Israel. Will Israel survive? I pray. I pray. I pray.

Anita