Dear Nekoshema:

You are welcome. Emotions cannot be forced, as you know, can’t feel this or that because logic says we should. (“I should feel happier… I should be excited”)

The reason I mentioned the physical abuse by your mother as a possibility when she visits you next is because you wrote that if you are not careful about what you say to her, she may hit you (not that she may verbally abuse you).

Reads to me that the reason you felt dread about the possible promotion is that you are afraid of the promotion “being taken away“. I imagine that as a child, sometimes good things happened to you, and you felt happy and excited, but then: BOOM, your mother emotionally abused you and you felt bad again, she took away the happy excited feelings from you. Over time, as this dynamic repeated itself (with your mother and other people), you didn’t want to experience that falling-down sensation anymore, falling down from the high of happy-and-excited, so you stay low (not feeling happy and excited).

Does that make sense to you?

anita