Hello Kane,

That is a great statement. Saying you love learning. I have found that the way to learn is to suspend one’s own beliefs and take on what is being presented by others. Take it in and digest it. Roll it around and play with it. Then apply your own knowledge to what is presented. Do they work together? Is it something that would help you? If not then move away from it. Try not to dismiss the person due to the things being said. Time to move forward.

It is good to hear that you are so much better now. Whatever the transformation, it seems that you are happier. And usually that is as much as we can expect from life. (For others, they may leave a legacy of sorts. Extreme wealth like the Rockefellers. Or extreme intelligence like Einstein or Newton. Or enduring companies like Microsoft or IBM or Samsung.) There are people who search for things and reasons. Some are religious. Some are not. Some becomes sages and Buddhas. Most are just regular people. So, for me, a little happiness.

My purpose or goal in life? I guess that would be just sitting and finding that perfect stillness or emptiness. Finding I am not separate from the world. Being consciousness and awake. It isn’t a lofty goal like opening a hospital or school. And some might find it downright selfish. But, if I don’t take care of myself then who will?

Dear Kane:

In your yesterday’s post, you shared (at the age of only 19 or 20) that experiences—good and bad—have shaped you. They hurt you, but they also taught you that everyone deserves love, guidance, and the chance to grow.

Your challenges taught you how to pursue your purpose better and how to stay steady while doing it. Your hardships broke you down but also built you up.

Now you feel more real, more yourself. You’ve regained a lot mentally and emotionally, and you’re still growing.

You still carry your past and your scars, but you no longer let them hold you back. You feel in control again—like you did as a child, but with the maturity of an adult. You want people to know that the fight is worth it. You offered support to anyone who needs advice and you thanked everyone who supported you before.

Thank you for sharing all this and offering support and guidance to others. I am glad to read about your progress!

In your first thread on Nov 1, 2024 (at the age of 18), you shared that you learned early on to shut down your feelings so effectively that you barely felt anything unless you forced yourself to, that your childhood situation pushed you to grow up fast. There, you learned extreme emotional suppression as a coping mechanism, that you tried to explain every feeling logically, to understand every cause and effect.

You described your emotions at the time as chaotic: wanting to laugh, cry, scream, hurt yourself, hurt others, disappear, and you didn’t know what to do with those feelings.

Your family situation was a major source of pain. You said you loved them, that you wanted to leave them, that they’re dysfunctional, that arguments hurt you deeply, and that you can’t live with them or without them. You were considering letting yourself feel anger fully for the first time, because you thought it might break the emotional “freeze” you were stuck in.

In further posts you shared that the negativity in your home was “10 to 1” part of daily life, you had to tune it out to survive. You said you couldn’t handle emotional pain, so, you tried to understand the reasons behind your family’s behavior. You became “undecidedly obsessed” with analyzing everything.

You cared too much and felt responsible for everyone’s happiness. You cared more than anyone else in the family. You felt you couldn’t be happy unless they were. You shared that when you tried to express emotions, your body flooded with stress, your thoughts became “crazed and rushed”, and you feared you might do something you’d regret. So, you built your “system” (Mechanical Morality) to contain it.

You added detail about what your home life was actually like: the arguing was originally between your parents, and then they spread to everyone in the family. Your father was aggressive and cursed a lot, was in and out of the family home, and for much of the time, you grew up in a single‑parent (your mother) household with 7 kids. It was “a sole parent and her kids (7, me included)” Grandparents raised them early on but not during adolescence.

Your mother didn’t know how to handle the situation and didn’t know what to do to be effective. Your family members didn’t reflect on their actions, didn’t understand consequences and had let problems grow for years.

You felt forced to care for them more than they cared for themselves. You said that you didn’t choose to care this much but you did and it held your life back and adapted by becoming numb until the arguing didn’t hurt anymore and your “standard of living became like them… unconscious”, feeling like a spectator in your own life.

You wrote about your family situation: “no one to watch over, no one to teach, no one to listen”- which is what you offered readers in these forums back in your Nov 27, 2024, thread titled “Advice; Here to give it” as well as in your 5th thread yesterday.

My input today:

*** You adapted to a stressful, chaotic, unsafe home by becoming numb and analytical (same as I did). The two- numb & analytical- are connected. When someone grows up in a stressful or emotionally unsafe environment, the mind tries to protect itself. It has two main tools: shutting down feelings and thinking harder. Those two can end up working together in a loop:

1. Numbness/dissociation is the body’s emergency brake. When emotions become too overwhelming, the brain can turn down the intensity of feelings, disconnect from the moment and “freezes”. This isn’t a conscious choice. It’s a survival response.

If a child grows up around conflict, unpredictability, or emotional pain, this can become a habit. The brain learns: “Feeling is dangerous. Better to shut it off.”

2. Over‑analysis becomes the replacement for emotion. Once emotions are muted, the mind still needs a way to make sense of the world. So, it switches to the tool that feels safer: thinking.

Over‑analysis becomes a way to predict danger, a way to understand people’s behavior, a way to feel in control and a way to avoid feeling helpless.

For someone who grew up in chaos, analysis becomes a shield: if you can explain everything, you don’t have to feel it.

3. The two reinforce each other. This is the loop:

Pain → numbness → analysis → more numbness → more analysis

Why? Because the more you analyze, the less you feel; the less you feel, the more you rely on analysis to navigate life.

4. Why this happens in childhood? Because kids don’t have adult coping skills. If they can’t escape or fix the situation, they survive by shutting down emotions, becoming hyper‑aware and trying to understand everything.

A child in a chaotic home often becomes: the “observer”, the “problem‑solver”, the “little adult”

5. The cost: in adulthood (when you’re away from your family of origin) this leads to emotional numbness, difficulty knowing what you feel, overthinking everything, feeling disconnected from yourself, burnout, intrusive thoughts and a sense of being “mechanical”.

It’s not a flaw — it’s a survival strategy that outlived its environment.

*** Enmeshment and emotional numbness/over‑analysis fit together almost perfectly, like two pieces of the same puzzle:

1. Enmeshment forms when a child becomes emotionally responsible for the family. In an enmeshed family, the child learns: “Their emotions are my responsibility.”, “If they fall apart, I fall apart.”, “I have to hold everything together.”, “I don’t exist separately from them.”

This creates a deep emotional bond that isn’t healthy — it’s built on fear, obligation, and survival, not choice.

For you, Kane (and for me) this started very young. You felt you had to protect everyone, understand everyone, and absorb all the pain in the house.

2. Anger becomes dangerous in an enmeshed system. When a child is enmeshed, anger feels like betrayal. Or something that will be heavily punished. So, even though the family hurts the child, the child thinks: “If I get angry, I’ll lose them.”, “If I pull away, they’ll fall apart.”, etc.

So, the anger gets pushed down. But it doesn’t disappear — it turns inward or leaks out as intrusive thoughts, resentment, or emotional overload.

3. Emotional numbness becomes a survival strategy. When you can’t express anger, can’t leave, and can’t change the situation, the mind protects itself by going numb.

4. Enmeshment creates a painful contradiction: “I’m furious at them for hurting me.”, “I can’t leave them because they’re all I have.” This creates guilt, confusion, self‑blame, emotional overload, fear of abandonment, fear of independence, fear of losing control.

So, the person becomes stuck — unable to pull away, unable to stay without suffering, and the child never learned to exist as a separate person

How are you doing at this point, Kane, in regard to enmeshment (or any of the topics I brought up right above that you’d like to share about)?

Anita

How are you,Kane. I would like to read more about the progress you’ve been making, quite impressive given 👏 your young age.