BPDFamily.com

Hi dear friends,

It's been a while that I had posted here. I am currently going to a therapist twice a month, and I have recently topped the medication for anxiety after almost 10 years on it. My doctor, therapist and I agreed it was a good moment to try that, and I am doing well I think. Feeling somewhat blue all the time, but nothing that stops me from doing the things I like, or work, or enjoy the good things.

I WAS also doing well "managing" my relationship with my uBPD mother. I am LC with her for a year - I call her every other week and go with my husband to my parents to have lunch every other month. We do live close (10 min by car) but fortunately she doesn't show up at my home if not invited.
She seems to notice that we only go to see her to maintain a minimum relationship. And that is because I like to have a relationship with my father, and I feel the social pressure to have a relationship with my mother, even a toxic one.

Something happened today and I am pretty much overwhelmed. My brother came to visit us with his wife and my nephew. My parents also came. It was suppose to be a nice day, have lunch together, spent some nice time. I can see that my mother had her "bucket full" (that's how I call when she is just about to have a crisis) wanted to pick a fight, from the beginning. We had lunch together, everything was fine, everyone socializing, and she was quiet, walking around the house, didn't stay next to us because we were not making her the center of attention. Well, she suddenly asks my husband if she could move to the condo close to ours. She asked with a little smile like she was "joking". Both my husband and I answered "Of course No... .no living so close that you can come in flip-flops and so far that you have to take an airplane (I actually wish she was living on another planet). She immediately escalated the conversation, saying to everyone "you see that, I knew it!". We were all making jokes about it because we all knew this was not going to end well. We knew what she was doing - picking a fight, ruining a happy moment because she can't deal with seeing other people happy - not even her daughter and son. She continued with "you can't stop me from buying the apartment... .you have to respect me... .I will not come to places where I am not welcome anymore... .you all don't appreciate me, I know that, stop pretending".

Some background: at ANY moment we said something that could trigger her, or make her ask that kind of question. I could see crystal clear what she was doing, the tone of her voice, the way she was moving.

I can't say that I didn't saw it coming... .it's the holidays, she knows we are a broken family, she is indeed not welcome neither at my hours or my brother's but we do invite to maintain some relationship. What she was saying is TRUE, but we all try our best to have a nice time even when she is around.

Now she will give us the silent treatment. We won't celebrate Christmas together, my parents will be all alone during the holidays. I know this is HER CHOICE, this is what she built for her, but I feel exhausted and hopeless. I have set clear boundaries which she has been testing and I am being strong to keep them. I have been in therapy. I have been working on myself. I have a wonderful husband. I have some good friends. But some days, well... .some days are too much. Sometimes NC seems the only option. She is ageing, she is getting worse, she refuses any help/treatment.  She is getting more toxic. But at the same time, I don't feel prepared for NC. Thank you for reading this long message.

So sorry this happened. I know how hard it can be to deal with family at Christmas. Its ok to take a time out and re-evaluate later. You don't have to make a decision written in stone.

Thank you for your comments hope2727. It is time to re-evaluate indeed. The way things will be from now on, I really don't know... but there is one thing I am certain: I will set a new boundary with her and this will be the most important one: if you want to have a relationship with me again, you have to get help for yourself first.
But I have to say I am in circles thinking if she will understand what I am telling her. In her mind, it will be like "get help for me? I am not the problem, I am not crazy, I don't need any help, you all are the problem , you all never liked me, you're all against me".

Has anyone else set that boundary? And how did you communicate that to the BPD? All comments and suggestions are truly welcome. 

The title of your post: " When you don't feel ready for NC but are exhausted and can't see any other option", could have been written by so many of us in this group. Possibly you are struggling with fully going NC and/or maintaining low contact because any way you look at it, there is considerable pain and ongoing problems with your family. We can't just cut out a family member or go low contact, especially with a parent, without feeling some of the distress that this relationship has caused and continues to cause us in our lives. Our mother in particular is our role model for learning how to manage emotions, so that we do not become overwhelmed by them. A mother with BPD generally has one up on making her adult children feel badly because they were children when the abuse began and unable to defend themselves. It is especially painful and infuriating how other family members enable the person with BPD. I too have a mother with BPD and two siblings with BPD, and it has taken a large emotional toll on me, though through years of therapy and posting in this group on a regular basis, I am in the best place I could be right now under the circumstances. Know that expressing your feelings on a regular basis is probably the key to being less affected by how your family treats you. A typical cycle for me is that for awhile I am okay, and then the family pulls some horrible stunt to hurt me to my very core. I spend at least nearly 30-60 minutes every day observing my feelings, and this allows for no feeling to overwhelm me, and as time goes on I am less emotionally overwhelmed by my family's mean behaviors. We are here to support and help in any way we can. Keep us posted and let us how we can be the most supportive and helpful.

If this is going to be your boundary, I don't see it helping your relationship at all.  Boundaries are best when they are based on our values and are about us.  By that I mean the boundary is most successful when it governs how we will respond and what we will do in response to someones else's behavior.  Boundaries are about protecting us, not governing another persons behavior.

What you are suggesting here is rule based.  You have a right to set rules but your mom is in no way obligated to follow them.  Chances are she will be upset and offended when you say this.  

Can you think of an alternative way of being able to maintain a relationship with her that allows you to protect yourself?  

I’m so sorry, Vanilla Sky. I can envision my own uBPD mother’s face  as she “jokes” about some loaded topic, and my heart goes out to you... .you know what’s coming if you answer honestly, but you are no longer choosing to lie to try to anticipate and head off her feeling something uncomfortable. You were true to yourself and defended your boundaries—good job!

I also ended up in an unplanned NC situation with my mother earlier this year, where my honest answer as she was raging to why I don’t call her more often (“Because I’m scared you will do *this*”) led to her proclaiming that fine,  she just wasn’t going to call me anymore. As with your mother, this was 100% her choice. And I am sad that this means even less time with my dad (not BPD, but certainly enabling), but he has also made his choices. I have my bouts of feeling unbearably sad, but the time away has also been a gift. I get to feel my own uncomfortable feelings now (!), rather than watching out for landmines and feeling guilty about her uncomfortable feelings. I also get to enjoy my joyful feelings without having my parent reliably burst my bubble.

As for encouraging her to get help... .it’s so tricky. I know I’ve learned a lot about rules vs boundaries in my relatively brief time on these boards, but Harri has some great advice here about rules being less helpful than boundaries. I wrote my mother after a month or two of NC, indicating that I was finding therapy helpful and encouraging her to pursue it as well. The emphasis was on breaking out of our bad patterns and seeking healthier relationship dynamics. I really tried to emphasize that this is not an accusation of her, but something I am accepting my own role in as well (I accept that she may see my role differently than I do). It was not an ultimatum, but it did help me consider my own boundaries. At this point I would find it difficult to reopen communication with her until either I feel a lot more confident in my own therapy progress, but that’s something for me to hold in my own heart and mind rather than something I am openly communicating to her.

Yes, I think that is what I am struggling most right now. I have been her caretaker for so long, and being trapped in FOG has made me look at the chaos that she creates as a "ok, this thing happened now, I just need to do this and we will all be fine again". She has made suicide threats in the past and I was so afraid to feel responsible if something happened. After seeking support, going to therapy and working on myself to my best, I was able to stay in LC with her. It made me come back to life again. My energy was all being spent on trying to make her feel less miserable.  During this year of LC she was constantly telling me that "you don't come here anymore, why?", "you don't like my food", "me and your father are always alone, poor us", "I just need to see you to feel good", "what kind of daughter are you". Then she started with the health stuff "I think I have cancer here and there", "I think I broke my finger". She talks about one problem 10 times on the same day until she gets attention. It is draining all of us. I have my doubts if she can handle NC or if we will eventually go NC, cut me off and put herself as the victim.

Hi Harri, thank you. Your comments have made me to read more about rules and boundaries and review the ones I established so far. I can see now that I haven't done a good job setting boundaries. I was still expecting her to change her behaviour based on rules. After a long session with my T, and have been discussing the situation with my husband, now it's probably best to stay away for a while. For all of us. My T thinks that my mother is not getting worse, it's our tolerance that is lower. My husband, which knows her for 15 years and have seen many of her behaviours, thinks that this crisis was different, that she was acting like a crazy person, even the way she was looking at us was weird. My T suggested reading about psychopathy and its degrees before our next session, she thinks there could be more than borderline disorder because of the lack of empathy. I haven't found any good articles about it yet.

Regarding the ways to maintain a relationship with her... Well, I think that NC would be my last resource, so I will still try to find what kind of LC I can have with her and protect myself and my family. I have work to do with setting boundaries and work on my co-dependency issue. I feel sad and hopeless and can't enjoy my life when I know she is feeling miserable. Even if I set boundaries and are able to maintain a LC relationship with her, I won't be ok if I can't live a happy life regardless what she does with her life.

My father just called me now, saying that "your mother is hurt and the only way to RESOLVE this is if you and your husband go to our house to apologize to her for what happened. Even though I know you didn't cause it. If that doesn't happen, the silent treatment will be veeeery long this time". He was saying all that with a loving voice. I can understand now that he is trying to make us go back to what we were so it's not so hard on him. He hopes that things will be normal one day. She is used to giving me the silent treatment. One time it only ended 8 months when I called her. She gave my brother the silent treatment for 4 years. Again, it only ended when my brother called her to apologize for things that he wasn't responsible for. I explained my reasons to my father, I was very open and clear. He did respond "ohhhh my, I didn't know that, I understand you".

So I guess I am NC now. It wasn't my choice. I think I have never felt so overwhelmed. I know in my heart that I just can't apologize for what she does anymore. I feel that I have been beaten to the degree that I could handle. I am feeling anxious and worried for the holidays, as my father will go away from her (he will probably go camp or something for 2-3 days for new years - and she will be all alone and I am afraid she can do something to herself. Even though she is in crisis, she is still high-functioning to others, which means if I call an ambulance or something, she will act like a normal person to not hospitalized. I can't think of no one that could "take care" of her during those days, and I just can't do that as well. I feel trapped.

It is obvious why you feel you have to go NC for now, though if it were up to you you would choose to heal your relationship with your family, and you can't because they are unwilling to take any responsibility for their part in the toxic dynamics. You have done everything you can to have a healthy relationship with your family. Your biggest challenge now is perhaps to stay present with your feelings as much as possible so no feeling becomes too overwhelming and  you can continue the healing process. I have found it helpful to regularly post here, not only when in crisis and also when things are going better, as I remake my life with as little contact as possible with my mother and siblings with BPD and NPD. How are you planning on handling their attempts to stay in contact with you?

Hi zachira, thank you for your words. The last 2 days I've been doing my best to stay present with my feelings. I feel that in the past I have always minimized the effects of her behaviour on me to just "go through this one" and come back to "normal". This time I  allowed myself to feel what I was feeling, and it was hard for me. I don't think I ever felt so sad as I did these 2 days, it feels like that everything I was keeping locked inside myself is hitting me now, but I know that I had to let it come and to go through this to make real changes for myself.

Regarding how I plan to handle their attempts to stay in contact: My mother will not try to make any contact with me, not even on Christmas day. This is based on her history of giving me the silent treatment and never reaching out no matter what happens or how long has passed. She spends her days ruminating and telling others how she is a victim of her ungrateful children (my father told me this years ago). My father and I keep talking. He sometimes come to my house without my mother knowing it. I do feel more prepared to deal with my father attempts to "make things better" now that I can see he has always been an enabler and he will try to put me back in the caretaking role.
(Sorry, English isn’t my first language).

I hear you when you talk about how hard it is to stay present with your feelings. Allowing yourself to feel sad for two days is difficult, yet I can assure you in the long run this practice will really give you more control over how much you are affected by the family's attempt to make you feel bad. People that come from healthy families regularly have their feelings validated. In dysfunctional families feelings are ignored and distorted because the other members of the family can't deal with their own feelings. It is so uncomfortable to stay present with our feelings when we have been invalidated for so long, because there is a whole pile of unprocessed feelings, so it can just feel too painful and overwhelming at times, to feel the feelings. As you practice being more present with your feelings, overtime you will start to feel more joy, and will be less and less overwhelmed by the latest family drama.
What is your native tongue? Mine is English, and I speak several languages. I often feel frustrated that there are certain things I cannot express well in English. So many other languages are more feelings focused than English. Your English is excellent, and better than many native speakers.

These are hard days, but it also feels this is the best Christmas gift I could give to myself - to be able to see things more clearly, to allow myself to feel it and grieve it. I am feeling deeply sad, but grateful.


Portuguese. Unfortunately, there aren't many books about the subject and I haven't found any online support groups like this in portuguese. I am happy to be able to communicate with you and other members here

I admire your bravery and integrity in allowing yourself to feel your emotions and am so glad you are feeling grateful for this gift. I regularly read books in Portuguese, so if I find anything about BPD in Portuguese, online group, etc., I will let you know. Which country are you from? I know that Brazil is pretty advanced in some areas of treatment for psychological disorders, and that they are using bioenergetics to treat trauma. So if there is an awareness of what trauma is, there must be some Brazilian mental health practitioners that are doing some good work in treating BPD.

Hi sklamath, thank you for replying here and I am sorry to hear about the situation with your mother. What you said about getting to feel your own feelings now instead of walking on eggshells all the time with her does a lot of sense to me, I feel the same right now.


I am sorry for that again, NC is not easy. I have been terrified of the silent treatment since very young. When I was a teenager I saw my mother give my brother the silent treatment for 4 years, and I was too afraid of that, so I made everything I could to avoid that "punishment" or to end it in the first week by apologizing to her. The funny thing is that when I was apologizing I don't even know what I was talking about, I would just say "I am sorry I did that (?), I don't want to hurt you". And that was it. I didn't even have to make sense, I just needed to say those words and she would break the silent treatment.  Having recently learned that this is a form of abuse I can respond to by protecting myself from that abuse. I will take this time as a period of NC that I am actually choosing to have. I will take the time to heal myself, overcome the co-dependency I think I have with her and have a real life of my own.

Hi zachira, I am from Brazil. I didn't know about the treatment options for trauma, I will take a look into that, thank you. I think I have never seen some of my issues as maybe results of trauma, but I think they could be. I hope to get to that point with my T.
I will be posting here again today or tomorrow with more details, but I just wanted to start writing about my recent learning so I can also keep it as a journal to myself. On the last session with my T we talked about my mother's lack of empathy based on her behaviours. I read a little about Sociopathy as recommended by my T, but ended up reading some articles and watching youtube videos about Narcissistic personality disorder and it felt like I was waking up from a terrible dream state to wakefulness. I will post more here. Thank you.

Thanks for the kind words. I relate to this so hard. The apologizing for nebulous-something was so ingrained that when I first moved away from home to start college, I had a friend who noticed I apologized whenever she disagreed with me, and told me to "stop apologizing for existing!" I remember being really taken aback by that! But it also put me on the road to learning not to automatically apologize, defer, or assume that someone else in the room had more power than I did--and thank goodness, because that's critical in both personal and professional situations. I suspect that things coming to a head (and NC) this year had a lot to do with me forgetting the norms of home and conducting myself with self-confidence in front of my family.

I, too, am exhausted. I think my uBPDm IS getting worse, although I do think that I am not as willing to tolerate her toxic behavior. In my situation, going NC from the BPD Mom means little to no contact with my other FOO members since we are all local. That, to me, has been a very challenging situation. I feel compelled to have LC in order for my young adult kids to maintain some type of contact with the FOO. It is very complicated, has many layers, and I am working hard to re visit how to set and maintain healthy boundaries. I think the aging process is wreaking havoc on just about everyone who comes in contact with her. What I am finding helpful is to maintain a healthy lifestyle with lots of self care, and I don't answer the phone until I have had my morning coffee, exercise and breakfast!

It sounds like things are going better, as you learn more about the different types of human interactions and how we can be affected by them. As you learn and understand more, keep expressing your feelings, no matter how insignificant they may seem in the moment, because this is what allows for long term healing and moving forward. As we feel our sorrow and anger about the past, we put the painful memories into a normal memory file, that allows us to access these memories when we choose, and are no longer as overwhelmed by these memories on the spur of the moment. Journaling, therapy, learning everything you can about why things are the way they are and how to heal from trauma, and posting on this site, are all great ways to process memories, as long as you do it in a mindful state so that the memories can indeed be filed away in a safe place. Keep up the good work, and let us know how you are doing when you can!

Hi zachira and everyone that is posting in this thread. I wanted to thank you all for being part of my healing journey. I am still at the very beginning of the journey. I am looking back at my childhood and adolescence and finding signs that my mother might be both BPD and NPD. However, I  I think I have some sort of amnesia because I can only go so far remembering things from my relationship with her. Every little thing I can remember I am writing down as I wait for the next appointment with my T. Sharing those memories here and hearing your thoughts will help me understand if it could be considered abuse or not. Is that ok if I post them here to have your feedback? I read that people that have been emotionally/psychologically abused can have a hard time to recognize it as abuse or even name it as abuse, especially when the abuse came from our parents.

You are more than welcome to post any thoughts, feelings, and memories that come up.  There are many people who have posted on this site for years, and have worked out their challenges with having family members with BPD and NPD, to the point that they are leading happy lives and not overwhelmed by what has occurred or is occurring with their family members with BPD and NPD. It takes times to unravel all that has happened. In a normal family, a child has their feelings validated. In a dysfunctional family, the child learns to stuff their feelings. When our feelings are stuffed for years on end, there is a lot to uncover. As we remember one painful incident and process it, then another one comes up. It seems like the chain of painful memories never ends, and it does as there are less and less stored memories to process. The more you feel the feelings that you had to stuff in the past, the more your mind and body will open up to feeling joy. We can not feel joy without feeling our pain and anger. Right now you are somewhat apologetic about posting here. This is a normal feeling, as we have often been so invalidated by our family members, that expressing our feelings can be scary. This too will pass with time as you know who you can trust and feel more comfortable in your own skin. Always good to hear from you. Keep us up to date on how things are going, and how we can be the most helpful.

Hello Vanilla Sky  :hi:

I am sorry your mother is giving you the silent treatment.
It's good that you consider this a Christmas present. Because it is.
My parents broke off contact with me - but if they hadn't, I probably would have done it, since I couln't cope with their behavior anymore.

Presuming your mother would try to initiate contact again ... what would you do ?

Of course you can post any question here. If it's a new subject it can be a good idea to open a new thread with a new title on it.

Thank you zachira and Fie, I will definitely come back to this post with some memories from my childhood so I can reprocess it for what it was: abuse or not. I appreciate the help as this processing is something that I don't think I have the clarity to do on my own. After being raised by a uBPD/uNpd mother and believing in what she tells including who I am according to her, makes me doubt myself very often. Even when my body is trying to tell me something: I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and have skin problems, headaches, bruxism, I still minimize a lot the impact of her behaviours on me.


There is something that keeps bothering me. After her outburst in December (first post in this thread), which by the way was just a silly discussion and escalated to my uNpd mother raging at my husband and leaving my house crying, we are NC. Before she left my house, she came to me crying and said "I knew it. I was testing your husband. I knew it." My response to her was "I did not like what you did here today. I didn't like it at all". Then she left my house. We haven't spoken since then. I didn't call her on Christmas and she didn't call me. No text messages, nothing.
I know she is giving me the silent treatment because she wanted me to support her in front of everyone and against my husband, which I didn't do. I am not talking to her because I know that to break this silent treatment I would have to apologize to her and I am not willing to do that again - apologize for the chaos that she creates. She has given me the silent treatment so many times and I always made everything to break it but I was just showing her that she can do that and she will get what she wants from me. So I am not willing to that. What bothers me is that I keep asking myself: Am I the one giving her the silent treatment? Is it the right way to go - leave it as it is, she is giving the silent treatment to punish me as for me I am choosing to be NC so I can work on myself? I don't feel I am punishing her, I know that I can't go on like that anymore for my own health and relationship with my husband, so I have to be NC for some time. I see other members that decided to go NC so they can work on themselves and sometimes they let the other person know they needed a break. Should I let her know that I need some space? Does it matter what she is thinking about this silence?

If it will give you peace of mind to let your mother know you will be taking a break from her, than by all means do so. If you were to do this, how would you contact her? It might work to write her a letter, or do some kind of communication that does not subject you to her in person immediate response. As much as you would like, she is probably not going to respond in any way that will make it easier for you. Do you have a specific time frame in mind?  It can help to say something like that you need some time to yourself for a certain period of time, say a month, and ask her not to contact you.

It would give me some peace of mind. If I am temporarily cutting off contact with someone, I feel that I am being fair by letting that person know. I can understand when you say that most likely she will not respond in a way that will make it easier for me. I'm almost sure that she won't respond at all or will rage or put a guilt-trip on me. It would be a text message. I don't have a specific time frame in mind yet, but it will not be a short time, maybe a year. I think I am on the "REMEMBERING" phase of the Survivor to thriver program from this website. I will have a session with my T in two weeks from now and I want to talk about the next steps and maybe I will have some idea of the timeframe. I'm thinking to ask my T to help me write that message so my uNPDm doesn't feel invalidated or being punished.

Sounds good. Exploring with your therapist about the time frame and how to tell your mother are healthy steps. We all have to do NC in a way that works best for us, and it is different for each one of us.

I know the feeling !
My parents started giving me the silent treatment when they noticed I started to have boundaries. They didn't want to have contact with 'healthy me'.

Back then I was in the same process that you seem to be in : wondering if NC wouldn't be better for me for a while, just to learn how to be less anxious, etc.

I remember writing on these boards that I went NC with my parents. But than soon after I realized : wait a minute, I didn't choose the NC, they did ! It just came at the same time that I wanted to have more boundaries - boundaries that they couldn't respect. So ... .if they would not have given me the silent treatment, maybe NC is something that I would have chosen if I'd seen that they kept on not respecting me.

No idea why I was so confused upon who initiated the NC ... .but I recognize this in your story ! My explanation is that I am used to take the blame ... so maybe that's what I was doing ... if you have another explanation, please  let me know and shed some clarity on my thoughts  :-)

You were asking whether you should let your mother know that you want NC. If you'd ask me, I'd say no, better not. I know the feeling of wanting to communicate clearly though. So if this really makes you feel better than yes, sure, go ahead. But your mother will probably see this as baiting, wanting to pick a fight. On top of it, it's a reason to later on be able to say that you were the one wanting NC. While no, it's her starting the silent treatment. If she would be acting 'normal', you would never want any form of NC I suppose. It's an ideal opportunity for her to shift the blame towards you.
Also for me it feels like some form of 'jade'ing. Having to explain yourself. It's what I constantly had to do as a child (and of course no explanation ever was good enough ... it always made matters worse - as we all know).

Now I have learned to appreciate the great feeling that I don't need to explain myself. I can even ignore messages and just not respond ! I don't even mean messages from my parents, just, in general, people wanting to pick a fight or anything. Actually around Christmas my mother broke her NC sending me an email - with a new accusation in it. I was relieved to notice that I did *not* get anxious this time - I just had a feeling of 'whatever - let's ignore this'.
I didn't respond, and I'm proud of myself. It's a major step for me.

I relate to so many of these posts. And I would echo Fie's recent post about a text explaining might suggest JADE, which is something I did for so many years, and still catch myself reverting to. I also felt so confused about who started the NC and silent treatments and would "make sure" my siblings knew it was Mom that stopped talking to me, "she started it"; when I type this out it sounds so juvenile doesn't it? Part of my journey into health is not having to justify constantly, and yes, sometimes I "take a break" for my own health. But of course, these breaks result from one of Mom's rages or silent treatments. But I feel more in control, and less guilty. My biggest fear is that something catastrophic could happen during one of the NC periods, as my Mom is elderly. That is now the driving force behind keeping me in the game, I think if she and I were both younger, I might feel more inclined to pull away and have an estrangement (like my Mom did with her Mother). It really is personal, specific and fluid. Sounds like you are making good progress.

Hi Fie  :hi:


Yes, exactly... .same here. It's like staying in a job that we hate but we don't quit, and then we get fired and that's the best thing that could happen.


Oh my... .it sounds like you read my mind. As I explained to zachira in the previous comments, I feel that letting my mother know would be the right thing to do, but it is not like dealing with a "normal" person. I don't think she would read anything different than this no matter the message: "who do you think you are? what have I done to you to make you need a break? you are so ungrateful and now I am the one that doesn't want anything with you anymore. When I die you will regret."


Not getting anxious at your mother's message is a huge step. It's your mind and body responding in a better way. It shows a lot of progress on your healing journey. I am not there yet, but reading yours and other people posts give me hope.

Next week I'll be talking to my T about messaging or not my mother, I'll come back here to update everyone. Thank you.

Hi Vanilla Sky, I will be looking forward to your update.   

Fie wrote:  "Actually around Christmas my mother broke her NC sending me an email - with a new accusation in it. I was relieved to notice that I did *not* get anxious this time - I just had a feeling of 'whatever - let's ignore this'.
I didn't respond, and I'm proud of myself. It's a major step for me."

That is great and shows the work you have done on detaching!  I am grinning from ear to ear for you.   

Thanks Harri !

For 'normal' people this would be a given, I guess.
To me this is 'Huh ? Is this me ?'

I didn't get anxious ! I didn't get anxious !

I felt indifferent. How about that.
I'm glad you understand. I feel like throwing a party for it. Of course you are all invited  :-)