Dear Mollie:

I’ve been thinking about your last message, and something really struck me — the way you hold love and gratitude for your parents while also acknowledging the pressure and overwhelm. That kind of emotional balance is rare. Most people swing to one extreme or the other, but you seem to have a very grounded sense of nuance. It says a lot about your emotional maturity.

And you’re right: stressful seasons like preparing for the bar tend to amplify old patterns. It doesn’t mean the patterns aren’t real — just that they become louder when life demands more from you. When things quiet down, you may find that the same themes are still there, just in a softer form.

I admire how reflective you are about all of this. You don’t shy away from looking inward, even when it’s uncomfortable. That’s a strength 💪

You wrote yesterday that I am selfless, but I do get something out of trying to understand how people’s childhoods affect their adulthoods: it helps me understand the same about me.

You asked, “Please tell me more about how you are doing. How have you been able to find peace in those bouts of anxiety? Did you take a break from the online world?”-

Yes, I do take breaks from the online world. I’m usually online in the mornings and in the evenings. I used to socialize with people in the real world a whole lot earlier, almost every day, sometimes up to 10 hours a day, but not much and not enough since Dec of last year because of a business closing. I socialize in the local taproom a few times a week and really enjoy it!

About finding peace, I’ll share what the analytical post I sent you on Feb 21 brought up for me in regard to seeking my own peace of mind:

I grew up in a home with conflict and tension. I can still feel the tension in my body all those years later, in the form of motor and vocal tics (Tourette’s) which involve physical tension.

There was a lot of emotional instability in the home (which didn’t feel like a home, but more like a pressure cooker), and I indeed absorbed a lot of the stress I grew up with.

My mother was explosive and her explosions were unpredictable. I tried my very best, again and again and again (after each time I failed) to be perfect so to prevent her next explosion.

My focus was my mother, how she felt. How I felt was moved out of focus. In other words, my needs, feelings, wants, preferences, those were moved so far out of my focus that I no longer knew what they were.

I felt responsible for how she felt, felt very guilty, as if I caused her to be miserable or angry, as if I birthed her, not the other way around. I wasn’t a care-free child or adolescent.. or adult.

I loved my mother deeply, but I also felt trapped and often angry. I tried to stop caring about her so that I could become a separate person, living my own life, so I kept being angry at her, but the anger never led to separating from her (psychologically). What did help is to allow myself to feel love for her, to not push down that love (trying unsuccessfully to get rid of it). (I’ll continue this post later).