Hello Anita,

Alessa let me know that you had left a message for me here.

This will be very personal. I would send it to you by an e-mail, but I don’t have it. I will write to you how a sensitive stranger with deep emotional world like me can perceive you in this forum. Please, do not read this as criticism but as a part of your analysis of people – there are people like me out there online and in the real life and you might understand them better now.

I thought it was a bit strange that you had posted in every single thread and that there were many threads which weren’t yours and you started your conversation with somebody else in them. It is against the guidelines, but nobody seemed to care, so I thought it was okay. After some time it started to feel a bit “suffocating”. I sometimes feel that other members are discouraged to take part in the forums by your constant presence because majority of threads become your conversation with one other member. For a sensitive person, it feels that this forum is controlled by you and a space for others is limited by it.

When we started conversation, after some time, I realized that I had been afraid of you, Anita. But I supressed it because everyone appeared to respect you here and as I wrote above it seemed that you are in charge and for me it is a bit scary. I noticed that it was very easy to make you feel uncomfortable and you emphasized the topic of trauma a lot. I noticed that you got suddenly cold when I wrote something you probably didn’t like (and I didn’t understand why because I was new in this forum). It influenced me A LOT. I sometimes felt a need to write something different especially in connection to mothers, but I didn’t because I was very afraid of your reaction. I was afraid that I would without any intention to do so hurt you by my different opinion and you would get upset.

Even though you did help me to reach internal validation (together with Alessa), I with my sensitive brain felt a bit pressured by your analytical approach and your convinction that there must be bad influence on my current problems coming from my mother. I do understand, but it is not always that case. I felt as if you insisted on it and because you are in charge and respected by everyone, I felt you must be right.

Imagine that I was so influenced that I even wrote to Lori if I was allowed to write about my parents because I knew you read everything and I was afraid that my nice words for them and my need to reconnect with my mom more when she is now old and ill would trigger you… This is how big influence you have on somebody who is new here, very sensitive to what is happening and moreover with problems (submissive, low self-esteem, fear …) when they see you here as the one who is in control.

When you wrote to Tommy in another thread about some old conflict, I started to search older threads trying to find the original thread. I found some posts where you were very impolite… actually really rude. I am still quite new. I didn’t know a lot about the history of this forum. And I was shocked… searching more and more, already troubled by my fear of you I thought: “This is Anita’s forum. Her personal space where she can do whatever she pleases and others must be careful and very nice to her.”

You asked me about anger. I am calm and slow. I experience anger more as irritation which comes and goes… but when I saw how you lectured Tommy for his rudeness making him feel bad and at the same time I saw your own rude words here in older threads, I was honestly angry with you, Anita. And thank to Alessa who helped me by email, I processed it and let it go. I am not angry but I still feel a sense of unfairness…

As a sensitive person, I feel that you as a person for a passion for analysis only need my problems to have something to analyze, which is in your words something you love to do. But actually I do not matter at all… Analysis goes over feelings…

I do respect this. It is interesting to know people with different mindset. I know you love analyzing. It is okay. I think that even others love it (most of them)… but I just wanted to let you know that you will never really understand the person behind the problems with this approach. You cannot (and shouldn’t) put people into boxes by analyzing their words because your conclusions from your analysis weren’t always right… but some people like me get overwhelmed by it and before they process it, they might make a mistake…

Please, do not respond. I only wanted to let you know what influence and feelings you can create in some people in reality. I thought that you didn’t realize this. I hope we both will learn a lesson from this

You can analyse your feelings and emotions, of course. It is a part of self-compassion.

But try not to analyse others. If we analyse others, we can actually demean their truth and experience. Because when we analyse others, we do it through our own lenses. We project our truth and experience on them. While in reality… we don’t really feel and understand them…

Isn’t it compassion to accept people as they are without trying to fix them?

Knowledge does not equal understanding (when we speak about people’s psyche).

Life’s experiences, feelings and mental formations and how people experience them are completely different. We shouldn’t try to analyse others and try to explain what they feel. If we do it, we don’t understand them on a deeper level. And without this kind of understanding, there is no compassion.

🤗 😇

Please, go ahead. Tell your story. ❤️ I haven’t been uncomfortable with any topics you started. It is your way to self-compassion. And it is accepted and understood by me. No fixing.

Please, respect that this thread is about self-compassion.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I wonder. When I am in presence of too dominant people, I also freeze. But I am not sure what the source is… I connect this to my introversion and slow thinking.

I call “dominant people” those people who are loud, agressive in speech/act, very moody and always in the mood of attacking (gossiping, judging, you say “A” and they have to say “B” just only to have a reason to oppose and argue…)