Dear Robi:

I appreciate it that you took the time to give me a quick update!

Well, she’s arriving Monday. Here is my suggestion: have a conversation with AI (I use Copilot, as you know), and tell it the situation, just as you told me over time. Tell it the current circumstances and how you feel.

It will probably give you worthwhile suggestions in regard to talking with her this Monday and how to plan the visit so that it could be fruitful, resulting in clarity and ability to make clear decisions, one way or the other.

When it gives you suggestions that don’t sit well with you, tell it about it, present your thoughts, doubts, etc. Have a conversation.

I’d say, prepare for the visit best you can, with AI”s help.

🤍 Anita

Hey Robi:

It’s exactly 10 days since you returned from the mini- vacation with her.

I wonder if there’s any news regarding the job in Poland, for which you asked for more money?

It’s seems to me that if you move back to Poland, it needs to be to a partnership with her, not to being a secondary figure in her life, second to her mother.

🌙✨️✨️ Anita

A month and 3 days since you posted last. Thinking about you, Robi- from- Romania 🇷🇴.

I talked to a Polish- American woman the other day. I asked her what she thinks of Romania. She said it’s a beautiful country but lots of Romanians look for opportunities in Poland 🇵🇱 because it’s a much richer country.

Do you agree?

🇵🇱 🇷🇴 🇺🇸 Anita

Dear Robi:

Robi, June 14, 2026: “I’m still here in Romania and I now feel like I’m officially stuck… And it feels pretty bad.”- I am so sorry, Robi 😔

Exactly 8 years ago, on June 14, 2018, I wrote to you: “Unless you take on a healing process, your life will not be any different than it is now and has been… It really is up to you to make your life better, not in one magical move (“Go somewhere new and just start a new life”), but through many, many moves, many changes in thinking and behaving, persisting month after month, year after year. Persisting in a process that will often not feel good. Persisting through the not-feeling-good times.”

I don’t like the harsh tone of my message back then. You needed gentleness as much as clarity and I wasn’t that great when it came to gentleness. Yet, the message was true then and it still is: healing is a long process, not a relocation (Germany, Spain, Poland); relationships don’t improve by changing geography; and real change requires persistence.

On June 10, 2018, you shared: “I guess I never felt very close to my parents… Most of the times it felt like I hate them… About one thing, I am sure. They never gave me privacy or the feeling of freedom… I guess I hated them for that. I also hated them for not having my own room… It had a door basically made of glass… They used to also come in whenever they needed something from there… I used to minimize whatever was happening on my computer every time they we’re entering the room… trying to keep something for myself… trapped in their workplace indeed made me feel invisible. I was always there. Everyone was coming and going. Except me. I wasn’t. Hmm. Pretty much like now… Things from childhood do repeat. S*it.”

Copilot (AI) with my note in parentheses: “Childhood intrusion means growing up with too little space to be a separate person — parents always present, always watching, always entering the child’s physical or emotional world without boundaries. Childhood neglect means too little presence, intrusion means too much presence, and both prevent a child from forming a stable inner self.

“When a child has no privacy, no room to explore their own thoughts, and no sense of “this is mine, this is me.” they learn to hide, to stay hyper‑aware, and to protect their inner world from being taken over. Over time, the child learns to hide (the minimizing of the computer screen when they entered the storage room), to shrink, to stay hyper‑aware, or to disconnect internally because there is no safe boundary between ‘me’ and ‘them.’ In adulthood, this often becomes difficulty with closeness, fear of being controlled, guilt for wanting space, and a deep confusion about one’s own needs.

“The adult longs for connection but also feels overwhelmed by it; craves intimacy but also fears losing himself inside it; wants to trust, but his nervous system expects intrusion, criticism, or control.

On June 11, 2018, you asked: “Do you think would be better to gain some distance from my parents? Hopefully to be financially independent and also seeing them less?”

Copilot: “If I were answering his 2018 question — the honest answer is yes: distance would have given him the psychological room he never had as a child, the space to breathe, to think his own thoughts, and to begin forming a self that wasn’t constantly shaped by their presence.

“He needs to know that nothing is wrong with him — he is simply living inside an old pattern, and every small step toward autonomy will help his system calm down and give him the clarity he can’t access while he feels trapped”

Now, it’s me speaking, Robi: it really isn’t your fault that you are stuck. Any child growing up in your exact circumstances would be trapped in an unchosen pattern. I too grew up (I prefer to say grew-in, as in shrinking) being intruded upon on a regular basis, and I reacted very similar to the ways you have.

Every day I repeat the same mantra that end with these exact words: “I redirect self-fragmentation, alienation, disconnection-within, chronic shame, guilt and self-doubt to =====> self-integration, love for myself (loving myself and loving others are two sides of the same coin), empathy for myself and trust in my own perceptions and emotions, not because I’m perfect, but because I’m learning”.

Got to run, hoping to read back from you soon.

Anita