Dear Cali Chica:

You are welcome. Yes this topic is relevant to me, the baseline hostility toward people. After all, that was my mother’s theme as well: people are bad. She talked at length, many, many… many times about how people hurt her, humiliate her, take advantage of her, use her and on and on and on. I will elaborate on how it affected me last evening and this very morning regarding a current event some other time, later. I will point to  one difference between our mothers regarding hostility/ friendships- yours pressured you to form and maintain friendships, focusing on it as #1 priority- mine didn’t.

Back to you, to your sister (I miss talking to her,  by the way. I was impatient with her for a while.. a bit hostile I think, last I communicated with her, and I regret that. You can share my regret with her if you think it is a good idea):

“She (B) has major mood swings, reacts poorly to alcohol and can lash out… the girl (another member of the group, I’ll call her C) backed out entirely- and acted like she never even brought up the topic”.

Your conclusion: “she (C) was acting selfish and inconsiderate and focusing on enjoying herself at the trip, and not doing the hard work”.

Let’s look at what happened: C most likely got scared. You know how powerful fear is. B lashes out at people, we are all afraid of people who lash out. Any aggression is scary and unpredictable aggression is most scary. So it is not like C was thinking in cold heart: time for me to be selfish and inconsiderate. I much prefer to enjoy myself. More likely: as she considered doing what she planned on doing, her heart beat faster, her face flustered and she backed away.

Is it good behavior, to not  follow through with what she planned to do with your sister and to not let your sister know that she is backing away? no, it is not good behavior. It is selfish.

But notice this: when you roared at your husband, wasn’t that selfish and inconsiderate? Yes. Did you do it in cold heart? No. You were suffering, under the influence of the ROAR.

Does  the ROAR justify roaring at husband? No. Does C’s fear justify her behavior? No.

But as we look at our own behaviors, we can have some empathy regarding other people who like  us, sometimes fail to do  what is right. That way, looking at ourselves when we judge others, makes us see reality more accurately. That is, other people are not the bad, cold hearted people Mother said they are.

There is more in your recent two posts, but I will wait for your reaction to what I just wrote.

anita