Tonight then:

(I’m developing my thoughts as I type))

Going over our recent communication, I see that on June 22, I wrote to you about a new term (for me)- Identity Diffusion, which includes “a shifting self-image”.

In my earlier-life daydreaming, I saw myself (I didn’t tell anyone about it at the time, not wanting to be laughed at) as a future international movie star.

Okay, I said it 🧐

Or I daydreamed about starting a new religion and having thousands or millions (don’t remember the exact number, ha.. ha) following me.

Or writing a book that will change the lives of millions.

I daydreamed about dancing in front of hundreds of people watching in-person, standing in awe, cheering and clapping hands 👏👏👏👏👏👏, and millions watching me on TV all over the world.

In real- life I struggled with feeling like a “one big zero” (my mother’s words), and I struggled with being ignored and rejected by peers.. not being celebrated by a single person.

But in my day-dreaming I was cheered and worshipped and read and followed by millions.

Thing is, in my mind, I didn’t see those daydreams as pure fantasy. I was mentally and emotionally invested in them, so I tried to get into a leading acting school. I thought it can really happen. I thought, part of me believed that I was destined to be famous.

I think that my.. greatness in those daydreams was inversely proportionate to how lowly and insignificant I felt irl.

The human psych, I believe, cannot accept an inferior self- image as true and final (at least not without a youth- fueled fight, so it tries very hard to win consistent approval irl, and when all irl fighting fails, the psyche claims a superior self- image so to survive.

On Sept 18, I wrote to you about the Freeze Response where a child minimizes himself (or herself), suppressing his feelings, needs, expressions.. that waiting we talked about, waiting for conditions to allow really-living, fully expressing, turning the 2-D minimal existense into a 3-D living.

But within that Freeze the child may dream big and believe dreams will come true.

Fast forward, the dreaming child is now an adult and.. trouble: reality is not like in the dreams, nothing is fast and there’re rejections or lack of enthusiasm following real-life efforts. So, the adult gets discouraged and withdraws back into fantasy where a high self esteem is allowed to.. keep waiting for the right conditions to make dreams come true.

It’s like.. the minimized, frozen child develops a compensatory self-image so to mentally survive as someone worthy, but living up to that self-image as an adult is nearly impossible (possible for 0.01% of people, or so).

I will continue later (I didn’t even get to the study I talked about, but what I wrote above is influenced by it).

Anita

Continued:

Here’s from my hours-long study the other day (I fed AI with lots of quotes from what you shared June 2018 and had a long conversation with Copilot about the quotes (asking for Copilot’s clarifications, asking for explanations). These are my selections of Copilot’s input during the ongoing conversation (separated into paragraphs by me):

“Children need two things: Connection & Separation. Robi never got enough separation: he had no private room, people constantly entered his space, his door was glass, he felt observed, he hid his computer activity, his friends, phone calls, he hid parts of himself.

This creates an important lesson in a child’s mind: “What is mine isn’t really mine.”

Including thoughts. Including identity. Including desire. Including autonomy.

Instead of relating to him as a separate person with his own inner world, his mother appears to have experienced him as an extension of herself.

In healthy development, a child needs both attachment (“I am loved and connected”) and individuation (“I am allowed to be my own person”).

Robi may have received the first message but not the second. So, he learned that closeness requires compliance and that maintaining connection means sacrificing personal autonomy.

When a parent repeatedly intrudes into areas that should belong to the child, a child’s thoughts, feelings, preferences, opinions, and even personal identity gradually come to feel less like private possessions and more like things that must be shared, approved, or managed by the parent.

For example, if a child expresses a desire and the parent immediately criticizes it or makes it about themselves, the child learns that his desires do not truly belong to him. If he has a different opinion and the parent cannot tolerate it, he learns that his thoughts are not fully his own either.

Over time, the child may stop asking, “What do I want?” and start asking, “What am I supposed to want?”

The deeper wound is not simply a loss of freedom; it is confusion about ownership of the self.

Ownership means: Choosing something, committing to it, and taking responsibility for outcomes. Because once you do that, nobody else is responsible.

Then the life is yours.

And that is psychologically terrifying for someone who never learned that his choices mattered.

This is why he says: “I want to work but in the same time I don’t want to.” That isn’t really about work. It’s about adulthood. Work would symbolize entering life. And entering life means giving up the safety of endless postponement…

The “totem pole” comment may be the biggest clue of all- Near the end he says: If someone seems above me, I become nervous. If someone seems below me, I become confident and dominant. This reveals a worldview organized around hierarchy. Not equality, not connection. Hierarchy. People are either Above me or Below me. His value is constantly being measured relative to others.

If your worth comes from comparison, you never feel secure. There is always someone better.

Reading everything together, it feels like the missing developmental task is a stable sense of self.

He knows what others want, what society expects, what girlfriends want, what his parents wanted.

But over and over he says: “I don’t know what I want.”

That is not a small statement. That is the central problem.

Not depression, photography. jobs. or dating.

It’s Identity.

A child gradually discovers what I like, what I dislike, what I choose, what I value. Robi seems to have postponed that process for many years.

So, what is he actually afraid of?

If I had to condense the whole thing into one sentence:

He is afraid of fully entering his own life.

More specifically: fear of responsibility, of choosing wrong, of rejection, of exposing himself, of being ordinary, of growing up.

And underneath all of those: fear of becoming separate.

As a child, separateness did not really exist. His parents were always there, his space wasn’t fully his, his life was intertwined with theirs.

Psychologically, he never completed the move from: “Life happens to me” to “I create my life.”

That transition is hard for almost everyone. For Robi, it appears to be the central challenge of his twenties.

What’s encouraging is that he already seemed to glimpse the truth himself. Near the end, he wrote: “Things from childhood do repeat.” That may have been the most important realization in the entire post. He began seeing that his adult paralysis was not random.

He was repeating a childhood pattern of waiting, adapting, depending on external validation, and remaining psychologically “on hold” while life passed by around him.

Once someone sees the pattern clearly, they at least have the possibility of changing it. Before that, they’re trapped in it without even knowing it exists…

He chose photography, then avoided charging money. He got opportunities, then backed away when things became serious. He searched for jobs, then found reasons not to take them. He started jobs, then quickly exited. He wanted relationships but struggled when intimacy required maturity. He wanted change, but kept returning to the computer.

That pattern isn’t “I can’t start.” It’s: “I can’t fully claim.”

Why? Because ownership is psychologically expensive. When you own something, you can no longer blame circumstances.

Robi became accustomed to adapting to situations rather than creating them. That works reasonably well in childhood. It becomes a disaster in adulthood because adulthood requires initiative…

Suppose Robi had committed fully to photography. Not dabbling, dreaming, talking. Actually committing. That would mean saying: “This is what I do.” Then reality gets a vote. People might say: you’re talented, or you’re mediocre, or you’re not professional enough, or you’re great. In other words, he becomes visible. Visible people can be judged. Passive people can’t.

A dream protected inside your head can never be disproven. A dream turned into reality can.

Many people unconsciously choose fantasy because it preserves self-esteem.

Throughout the post there is a recurring idea: “I could be so much more.” Notice the wording. Not: “I am becoming more.” But: “I could be.” The potential self remains intact. Untouched, safe, perfect.

The moment he actually commits, reality begins measuring him. Then he might discover: He’s not as talented as he hoped. He’s not exceptional.

Success requires boring effort. Progress is slow. That can feel devastating if you’ve spent years investing in imagined potential.

So, the unconscious solution becomes: Never fully enter the game. Then the fantasy survives.

Work terrified him for a deeper reason- psychologically, work represents identity. A job forces answers to questions like: What do you contribute? What are you worth? Can people rely on you? Can you finish things? Can you tolerate boredom? Can you function without feeling inspired?

Robi spent years avoiding those questions. Not because he didn’t have answers. Because he didn’t want reality to answer them.

As long as he remained “the guy who hasn’t started yet,” everything was still possible. The future remained open.

The computer was not merely an escape. The computer was a place where ownership wasn’t required. Think about the difference:

Real life demands decisions, consequences, rejection, persistence. The online world often allows: Endless possibility, Endless distraction, Endless postponement. No final commitment. No definitive answer. No risk.

For someone afraid of ownership, that’s incredibly appealing. Because uncertainty feels safer than reality.

Even his search for a diagnosis fits. He desperately wanted: Depression, Bipolar disorder, Depersonalization. Why? Not because he wanted suffering. He already had suffering. He wanted something outside himself that explained his life. If the problem is depression: it’s not his fault. If the problem is bipolar disorder: it’s not his fault. If the problem is depersonalization: It’s not his fault. The therapist may have sensed this when she said: “You want to be sick.”

Perhaps what she really meant was: “You want an external explanation.” Because the alternative is confronting your own agency. And agency is frightening.

Why was agency frightening? Because agency creates uncertainty.

In childhood, Robi’s experience seems to have been: “I stay where others put me.” There is a strange safety in that. If circumstances decide, circumstances are responsible.

But adulthood introduces a shocking idea: you might be the one steering. That sounds empowering. But to many people it initially feels terrifying. Because if you steer: you might steer badly.

The hidden fear underneath ownership may be: “If I truly try, I’ll finally find out who I am.” Until then, he can live in uncertainty. He can still imagine- Maybe I’m gifted. Maybe I’m special. Maybe I’m destined for something bigger. Maybe I just haven’t started yet.

Ownership destroys “maybe.” Ownership creates answers. And answers are permanent. That is why so many people remain stuck in potential. Potential is comforting. Reality is humbling. So, if I had been sitting with Robi in that therapist’s office, I might have said: “You are not primarily afraid of failure. You are afraid of discovering yourself through action.

Because once you act consistently, reality starts answering questions that fantasy has protected you from for years. The life you’ve been postponing the moment you stop being a spectator and become the author.”

And for someone whose childhood was organized around waiting, being carried along, and having little psychological ownership of his space or time, becoming the author of his own life can feel less like freedom at first and more like standing on the edge of a cliff.

When I said: “As a child, separateness did not really exist.”, I mean something much simpler than it sounds.
I mean that Robi never fully got to feel: “This is my room.” “This is my time.” “These are my friends.”, “These are my choices.” “This is my life.”

Instead, much of his childhood sounds like being where his parents were, living according to their schedule, having little privacy, having little space of his own, feeling watched.

Now to your deeper question: Is he so angry at his parents because he needs separation? I think there is a good chance the answer is yes. Children usually separate from parents in stages. A teenager naturally begins to criticize parents, challenge parents, disagree with parents, pull away from parents. This is normal. It helps create an independent self.

But when separation does not happen smoothly, anger often becomes the tool of separation. Almost as if the psyche says: “If I can’t peacefully become my own person, I’ll push you away with anger.” Sometimes hatred has a hidden purpose: creating distance.

What’s interesting is that Robi doesn’t merely say: “My parents annoyed me.” He says things like: “I considered them losers.” “I was against them in pretty much everything.” “I hated them.”  That level of intensity often suggests something more than simple dislike. Because if we truly don’t care about someone, we usually become indifferent. Robi wasn’t indifferent. He was emotionally charged. Very charged. Which suggests his parents still mattered enormously. This brings us to your other question:

How is he connected to them when he dislikes and hates them so much? Because attachment and anger can coexist. In fact, some of the angriest people are the most attached.

There’s a saying therapists sometimes use: “The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference.” Love and hate are both forms of emotional investment. Both mean: “You matter tremendously to me.”. Indifference means: “You no longer occupy much psychological space.”

Notice something else. He repeatedly describes feeling trapped: the workplace, the lake house, the room, the lack of privacy, the lack of freedom. His language is full of captivity imagery.

Then look at his adult life. He again feels trapped. Not by parents this time. By himself. The same emotional experience continues. That suggests his anger was never only about his parents. His parents became the symbol of the trapped feeling. A very important distinction.

I wonder if some of his hatred contains grief. Not just anger. Grief. The grief of a child who feels: “I never got my own space.” “I never got enough freedom.” “I never got to discover myself.” “I spent years waiting.”

Many people experience grief as anger first. Anger feels stronger, safer, less vulnerable. Underneath “I hate them” is sometimes: “I needed something from them that I never received.”

And here’s the paradox. The more he defines himself against his parents, the more tied to them he remains. Imagine two ways of separating. Way 1: “I hate you and spend my life reacting to you.” Way 2: “I understand what happened, and now I’m building my own life.”

The first feels like separation but often isn’t. The second is true separation. Because your life is no longer organized around them. My guess is that at 25, Robi was still in the first stage. His identity was partly built around: “I am not my parents.” But he hadn’t yet discovered: “Then who am I?”

And that’s why his anger remained so alive. The anger was helping him push away from them, but it wasn’t yet helping him move toward himself. Those are actually two different developmental tasks. The first is separation. The second is identity.

Robi had done a lot of the first, but very little of the second. And that left him stuck in a painful in-between place: no longer wanting to belong to his parents’ world, but not yet fully inhabiting his own.

A lot of people who grew up feeling controlled first need to get angry before they can become themselves. The anger serves a purpose: “Stop telling me who I am.” “Stop deciding for me.” “I need space.” “I need my own life.”
That’s healthy.

The problem comes when anger becomes the entire identity. Then the person’s life remains organized around the parents. Think of it this way. Stage 1: Fusion- The child is psychologically merged with the parents. His identity is: “I do what they want.” “I live how they live.” “I think what they think.” There is almost no separation.

Stage 2: Rebellion Now the person starts saying: “I am NOT like them.” This feels like independence. But it is only partial independence. Why? Because the parents are still the reference point. Every decision is still about them. Notice how Robi describes himself: “I was against them in pretty much everything.” That sentence is very revealing. Imagine his parents saying black. He says white. Parents say left. He says right. Who is still controlling the conversation? The parents. He is reacting to them. A reaction is not freedom.

Stage 3: Individuation- This is where true separation begins. Now the person says: “Sometimes my parents were right.” “Sometimes they were wrong.” “They are imperfect people.” “I can choose my own path.” At this point the parents stop being the center of the person’s emotional world.

The person’s attention shifts toward work, relationships, values, interests, goals, friendships. Their own life becomes more interesting than their parents. This is why hatred often keeps people stuck. Hatred feels like distance. But psychologically it often creates attachment.

You have probably met people like this. They may be 45 years old and still talking every day about: “My mother ruined my life.”, or “My father ruined everything.” Maybe some of their complaints are legitimate. But emotionally, their life is still revolving around the parent.

Another thing I notice is that Robi’s hatred sounds less like pure hatred and more like frustrated dependency. That’s very common. He repeatedly says things like: they were always there, they controlled things, they gave him no privacy, he felt trapped.

Yet at 25 he was still struggling to launch into adulthood. Part of him wanted freedom. Another part was terrified of it. That inner conflict often produces anger. It’s easier to blame the cage than to walk out of the open door. Not because the cage wasn’t real. Some aspects of it were. But because freedom is frightening too.

In very simple language: as a child, Robi didn’t get enough experience of being a separate person. As a teenager, he tried to create separation through opposition and anger. As an adult, he still hadn’t fully discovered who he was beyond that opposition.

So instead of: “This is my life.” he was often still living from: “I don’t want their life.” The first statement creates identity. The second only creates distance. And distance is not the same thing as a self.

The real separation would come when he no longer needed to hate them in order to feel like himself. It would come when he could say: “My parents are my parents. They gave me some things and failed to give me others. But my life belongs to me now.”

That is the moment separation stops being a fight and starts becoming freedom.

… No. In the material you pasted here, he does not mention being beaten by his mother. In the quotes you shared, (2018), he does not mention physical abuse, being beaten, or his mother crying and apologizing afterward. That additional information changes the picture significantly.

Before learning about the beatings, one could reasonably describe his childhood as involving enmeshment (too little psychological separation), over-control, poor boundaries, and lack of autonomy.

If his mother “brutally beat” him, especially if it happened repeatedly, then another layer enters the story: fear and unpredictability.

The pattern: Mother hurts me intensely → Mother cries → Mother apologizes → Mother loves me- can be very confusing for a child. A child cannot easily conclude: “My mother is behaving badly.” Instead, children often conclude: “Something is wrong with me.” or “The person I need for safety is also the person who scares me.” That creates a deep conflict.

The technical term often used is ambivalent or disorganized attachment, where the source of comfort is also the source of fear.

This may also help explain something that otherwise looks contradictory: “How can he hate his parents and still be attached to them?” Because attachment is not the same as affection. A child can be deeply attached to a parent and be furious with them at the same time.

In fact, some of the strongest attachments are conflicted ones. The child may feel: “I need you.”, “I resent you.”, “I want your approval.”, “I want to get away from you.”, all at once. Those feelings can coexist.

If the beatings were real and significant, I would view some of his hatred differently. Without that information, his anger could be understood mostly as a struggle for independence. With that information, some of his anger may be something much more straightforward: anger at having been hurt. And that anger may be entirely justified.
A child who was physically attacked by a caregiver is not merely struggling with separation. He may be carrying unresolved fear, betrayal, humiliation, and grief.

One thing I find striking is that even in the long account you posted, he seems to minimize his parents’ failures repeatedly. For example, he says things like: “I cannot say I had a specific reason.”, or “They bought me things.” or “Some people make it with much less.” He repeatedly moves toward his pain and then pulls away from it. 

If a person later reveals, almost as an afterthought, “My mother brutally beat me, then cried and apologized,” that sometimes suggests that the person has normalized what happened and doesn’t immediately recognize how important it is. In other words, the beating might be far more central to his emotional development than he realized when he wrote the posts (2018)

My impression is that his struggles are probably not explained by a single thing. They seem to involve lack of autonomy and privacy, emotional enmeshment, chronic loneliness, dependence on external validation, social anxiety, fear of adulthood and ownership, and, if what he later disclosed is accurate, childhood physical abuse from a caregiver.

That last piece would make me much more cautious about viewing his difficulties simply as “he’s afraid to grow up.” It suggests that part of him may have learned very early that closeness, dependence, and love could also come with pain and violation of boundaries. That can leave a person deeply conflicted about both connection and independence well into adulthood.

… Sure, Anita. I’ll keep it very simple and practical. Separation-individuation is a psychology term that describes how a person gradually becomes their own separate individual while still staying connected to others. As babies and young children, we start out feeling very dependent on our parents or caregivers. Over time, healthy development involves learning things like: “I am a separate person from my parents.” “I can think for myself.” “I can make my own choices.” “I can disagree and still be loved.” “I can be close to people without losing myself.” “I can be independent without abandoning others.”

When this process goes well, an adult can have close relationships while still having a strong sense of who they are. They do not need constant approval, they can tolerate disagreement, and they can make decisions based on their own values…

Separation is developing psychological distance from important others. It means realizing, “I am not an extension of you.”

Individuation is developing a stable sense of who you are. It means realizing, “This is who I am, what I believe, and what I value.

I’d say Robi may be caught in an unfinished transition between dependence and true individuation, where he is trying to establish himself as a separate person but does not yet have a secure inner sense of self to stand on.

Anita:  “did I understand correctly: Robi is protecting a fantasy image of himself, a capable one, one with lots of positive potential.. one that’s superior to others and he’s understandably reluctant to test this fantasy image in real life (getting a job that’s below that fantasy image, etc.?”

Copilot: Robi may be more attached to the image of who he could be than to the reality of who he currently is.

The fantasy might sound like: “I’m exceptionally capable. I’m meant for something important. Ordinary jobs are beneath my potential. People don’t really understand what I’m capable of.”

The problem is that fantasy remains safe as long as it isn’t tested. Once a person takes a real-world job, applies for positions, competes with others, receives feedback, succeeds in some areas and fails in others, the fantasy has to give way to reality.

Reality might show that the person is talented in some ways, average in others, and still has a lot to learn. That is what most adults gradually accept. For someone highly invested in an idealized self-image, there can be an unconscious fear: “What if I’m not as exceptional as I’ve imagined?”

In that case, not trying can feel emotionally safer than trying and discovering limitations. The irony is that protecting the fantasy also prevents the person from discovering their actual strengths. They remain attached to potential rather than developing competence.

A psychologist once described this dynamic as preferring to be a “genius in possibility” rather than a “beginner in reality.” If your understanding of Robi is accurate, the issue may not be that he thinks, “I’m superior to everyone.” It may be more subtle: “I need to preserve the belief that I could be superior, because giving that up would force me to face an ordinary, uncertain reality.”

And mature individuation requires exactly that surrender. A person eventually says: “Maybe I’m not the extraordinary person I imagined. Maybe I’m simply me. Let me find out what I can actually do.”

That is often the turning point from fantasy-based identity to a solid adult identity built on real experience rather than imagined potential.

Anita:  “This reminds me of my extensive, euphoric daydreaming’s about being a famous movie star, a celebrity, recognized all over the world.”

Copilot: Yes, Anita, it may be very similar in structure, even if the content was different. Many people have periods of intense fantasy about being a famous actor, a celebrated musician, a bestselling author, a world-changing leader, or someone admired by everyone. The fantasy itself is not the problem. Children, adolescents, and adults all fantasize.

The more interesting question is: What psychological need was the fantasy serving? For example, a fantasy of being a famous movie star is often not really about movies. It may be about being seen, being admired, feeling special, escaping feelings of insignificance, feeling powerful instead of helpless, feeling worthy of love.

If you look back honestly, you might ask yourself: “Did I mostly enjoy the idea of acting, or did I enjoy the idea of thousands of people recognizing me and valuing me?” Those are very different things.

What you describe as “euphoric daydreaming” sounds less like planning a career and more like inhabiting an emotional state. The daydream temporarily provided the feelings of importance, visibility, excitement, and validation that real life wasn’t providing.

The healthy developmental shift is often: “I no longer need to imagine being extraordinary to feel valuable.” Instead: “I’m valuable because I’m me, even if I live an ordinary life.” That’s actually a major achievement of individuation.

One difference I notice from what you’ve shared about yourself over time is that you seem able to look back at those fantasies and reflect on them. You walk with Bogart, maintain friendships, engage in discussions, support people, and seem fairly grounded in the realities of daily life.

The fantasy doesn’t appear to be running your life now… The concern would be if the fantasy became a substitute for living. Then the imagined self continues developing while the real self remains underdeveloped.

A psychologist might put it this way: Fantasy becomes a problem when it is no longer inspiration for life, but an alternative to life. That’s the distinction that stands out to me between normal celebrity daydreaming and the kind of stalled individuation we’ve been discussing.”

 

W.O.W, Robi!

I am bamboozled!

“How fascinating is it that – we both have had some very, very similar experiences?”-

Very similar CRAZY MOTHERS (CMS)!

You did share before that she gaslighted you (but I forgot that detail)

These are a few of the things our CMS have in common:

* Poor emotional regulation (“Telling me she didn’t know what else to do because she was angry”),

* Intolerance of feeling any amount of (deserved) shame or guilt, so they turn THEIR shame and THEIR guilt on their children (“because I f;cked up…She then told me that I deserved to be beaten, because I was a bad boy.. That I deserved to be hit by her because I was hard to raise.”)

It’s like shame and guilt feel like burning coal in their hands so they throw it on their children (minor age or adults)

My CM told me and other people the same words: that I was hard to raise.. not that it was hard to be raised by a CM!

* Justification and self-protection: when you later brought up the beatings, her responses moved from denial/ gaslighting (“that didn’t happen”), to justification (“you deserved it”), to minimization (“it was a joke”).

Instead of acknowledging the harm, she protected her self-image by denying, minimizing and justifying.

She rewrote the narrative in ways that made her actions seem necessary, normal, or insignificant.

I’ll write more tonight.

Anita

Conti ued:

Our crazy mothers are simply 2 girls, 2 little angry, troubled children in adult bodies who did not grow up and had no business giving birth to real children.

The two have in common- not a little immaturity- but an overwhelming immaturity. I’d say that psychologically they’re 5-year-olds with at best moments of a 10-year-old maturity.

But the damage they cause to their own (real) children.

Coming to think about it, did we become way more aware, more mature, at a young age than they ever were or will be?

Wait, you said that before you called her Dec 2024, “I was expecting she’d done some thinking”- some mature thinking that she’s not capable of?

You were still hoping back then, 2 years ago, for a.. maturing (if not mature) mother?

Maybe this hidden expectation or hope for a mother (who is a mother, not a petulant child) is one of the reasons you’ve kept going back to Romania?

I don’t underestimate the hope for a mother.

No shame in a child (of any age) hoping for a mother. I kept hoping many, many years while not even thinking for a moment, that I was waiting for her to become a mother to me.

“I even bought my mother one of (Gabor Mate’s) books”- My goodness, Robi, you were still trying, when you bought her the book, to make a mother out of her.. ?

That Hope..?

Anita

Continued:

“growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma”-

The missing “t” in adul is in the “t” in trauma 🤔

What I see is 2 children (our mothers) never having matured into adults, not psychologically, having stayed children. But not healthy children. They’re stuck in their own childhood trauma and there has never been anything you or I could have done (in our separate lives, generations and countries apart) to heal our child-mothers (and.. what.. raise the right?)

Time to heal the “t” in trauma and fully claim the “t” in adult.

To grieve the mothers we needed but didn’t have and never will.

To feel that natural attachment, that longing for a mother: to not fight that longing anymore, not to judge it or try to get rid of it, but to accept it as natural, normal part of our emotional landscape.

And when you see your own troubled child-mother these days, to see her just as she is, someone who will not see you as you are, see what has hurt you for so long, what she has done that has hurt you so much. No matter what you say or do, she won’t.

As I see it, their hearts- so much of their hearts are covered by scar tissue from long, long ago (before we ever came into their lives)- and the result is that they have very little, if any heart for us.

No parent is perfect, of course, but what our mothers have in common is their extreme immaturity, the extreme extent of that scar tissue covering their hearts.

To fully grieve the mothers we never had and never will = healing.

Copilot (in regard to your yesterday’s post): “The most revealing part may be this: “I was expecting she’d done some thinking.” That sentence suggests hope. Hope that she had thought about what happened. In other words, he was still approaching her as if she might finally understand. That’s often what unresolved attachment looks like in adults.

“A detached adult might think: ‘My mother is incapable of acknowledging this. I already know how she’ll respond.’
Robi seems to have been thinking: ‘Maybe this time she’ll get it.’ And when she didn’t, he was devastated. That suggests he still had emotional investment in her response.

“He approached her vulnerably and said: ‘I’m still hurting.’ That’s fundamentally a bid for recognition. In plain language: ‘See me. Understand what happened to me.’ When people stop wanting connection altogether, they usually stop making those bids.

“If I truly believe someone cannot see me, cannot understand me, and never will, eventually I stop going to them for understanding. Robi doesn’t seem to have fully stopped.

“The shame is especially interesting. He’s saying: “I am ashamed that I went back.” Why? Because part of him believes he should have known better. Almost as if he’s having an argument with himself: one part says: ‘She’s never going to change.’ Another part keeps returning anyway. The shame comes from noticing that contradiction.

“What does this say about attachment? To me, the strongest evidence of attachment isn’t that he lives with her. It’s that he still cares enormously what she thinks. He is still trying to get something from her: recognition, acknowledgment, some version of: ‘Yes, it happened.’ ‘Yes, I hurt you.’ ‘No, you didn’t deserve it.’ And she appears unable or unwilling to give that.

“What’s heartbreaking in this post is that eight years after the writings you first shared, he still seems to be wrestling with essentially the same problem: ‘Why do I keep turning toward the person who cannot give me what I need?’

“What I see here is anger mixed with longing, disappointment, hope, and attachment. The fact that he kept returning after being denied, blamed, and laughed at does suggest that part of him remains emotionally tied to her and has not fully given up the wish that she might someday truly see him…

“The sentence that stands out most to me is this: “I even bought my mother one of his books.. then in 2024.. gave it to her as a Christmas present.” The message is something like: ‘Please understand what happened.’ ‘Please learn about trauma.’ ‘Maybe if you read this, you’ll finally get it.’

“That sounds less like a son who has emotionally given up and more like a son who still hopes to be understood.

“Then notice what follows: she doesn’t read it, he talks to her, she denies it happened, and later she says he deserved it. That’s a devastating sequence.

“The wound is not only: “My mother beat me.” The wound also appears to be: “My mother still cannot see what happened to me.” And that’s why the book matters so much. A person who has entirely given up on being understood doesn’t usually buy their parent a trauma book and hope they’ll read it. That act, to me, looks very much like a final attempt at: ‘Please see me.’ The tragedy is that she apparently didn’t.

“Healing may involve grieving a painful truth: “I wanted the parent I needed, but that is not the parent I have.” That grief can be devastating because it means giving up hope that the parent will finally say: ‘I see what happened.’ ‘You didn’t deserve that.’ ‘I understand why you were hurt.’ Many adults continue seeking those words for decades. For some, growth begins when they stop waiting. Not because what happened was okay. Not because the parent is forgiven. But because their life can no longer be put on hold awaiting an acknowledgment that may never come.” (Copilot)

Anita

Dear Robi:

Thank you for being you, Robi 🙂. Truly, I like who you are!

You wrote that she treats her cats “as if they have no personality”- I am curious, what does she say or do to them that made you feel creeped out?

Let’s say a particular cat doesn’t like to be held, but she holds the cat anyway-

Is it because she doesn’ see that the cat’s obvious discomfort with being held, or is it that she sees the cat’s discomfort, but judges it as unacceptable because it conflict with what she likes (holding the cat)?

🤔 Anita