Dear Sammie: I will read and reply in about 12 hours from now.

anita

Dear Helcat:

It’s okay, the delay in responding, and you are very welcome! I am sorry you had a rough day and I hope that hormones and sleep improve greatly for you! Thank you for your kindness and support!😊

anita

Dear Shandrea:

“Connecting with people in a positive way I’m going to remember this… I’m not a fan of loneliness. I have a pet cat“- can you tell me about the ways you are connecting with your pet cat that are positive?

Are there ways you are connecting with your cat that are negative?

You wrote yesterday, “I have trust issues“- tell me about it, if you will (you never have to answer my questions, it’s always okay for you to not answer).

Personally, I grew up largely disconnected from people, alone (too little companionship and interactions with peers, particularly of the positive kind), and very lonely: my mother was in my close proximity a whole lot, but I felt very lonely in her presence and wished to be away from her.

I didn’t trust her, other adults, or my peers. Trust and Loneliness are connected. Like you, I google words a lot: “Loneliness”=>  “sadness because one has no friends or company”.

“The connection between loneliness and trust issues” => “Lonely people show reduced activity and connectivity in brain areas involved in trust formation”, “Reduced trust is both a cause and a consequence of loneliness”. What do you think about this connection?

anita

Dear Lola:

“my boss was flirting with me on our Xmas party, he was arm in arm with me, gave me a long hug before I got into the cab, staring into my eyes and telling me I am doing great and he was so happy with me. My husband had come to pick me up and saw us and got very upset“- your boss was walking you to a cab arm in arm, and before you got into the cab, he gave you a hug, telling you that he appreciates your work. He did all that in public, in front of the other attendees of the Xmas party. Your husband did not know that a cab was ordered for you and came to pick you up, seeing you and your boss walking arm in arm, and/ or he saw the hug.

Wikipedia defines flirting as “a social and sexual behavior involving body language, or spoken or written communication between humans”. In your description above, I personally do not see the sexual element. I can’t tell what your former boss felt when he hugged you, but you did not mention any sexual response or behavior on his part.

“he (your husband) fought with me for months, still hates me for it today even though I quit. It also became physical and I was hurt trying to apologize, I didn’t cheat and felt so depressed“- your husband fought with you for months and hit you (or caused you physical harm otherwise). This is an abusive overreaction to the Xmas party scene above.

You told your boss about your husband fighting with you. At first, he was sympathetic, then he started ignoring you, and then your manager (a woman) “started to show hate and micromanage me and load me with so much work it was impossible to do it all to her expectations…  then placed me on a performance improvement plan which was impossible to achieve“. Next, knowing you were about to get fired, you quit the job.

You’ve been looking for a new job, having had 5 interviews. About one of the interviewer, you wrote: “the interviewer hugged me at the end and promised she would follow up in a week, she didn’t… she ghosted me, I feel terrible and rejected“- it seems strange to me that an interviewer in a professional setting will hug the interviewed (unless the two know each other as friends from before the interview..?)

I am not suggesting it was a flirting behavior on her part, as in a sexual element being involved, and you didn’t mention such, perhaps (?) because unlike your former boss, the interviewer was a woman.

“I’m so depressed now that I have no job, no income, and all my interviews have been unsuccessful… my husband is trying to be supportive and has been paying all the bills“- your husband is trying to be supportive, but he still hates you today (“still hates me for it today even though I quit“, you wrote earlier).

“My husband and I are trying for a baby“- while he hates you?

“I am physically very attractive (been told this) and all men try to flirt with me at some point even though I am strict with morals and would never cheat“- this suggests to me that you expect men to try to flirt with you simply because all men have tried to flirt with you. Perhaps at times, you misinterpret men’s gestures and behaviors to mean that they are flirting with you when they are not.

“I feel suicidal most days and have vivid dreams of death and sometimes working in a good job… my brain is unable to cope with this development and low in my life, especially since I was doing well in my career, I wonder if it’s just me, or has anyone else been through this, defeated and broken…  I cant bear this happened to me… and feel so lonely… I don’t have friends“- sometime while I was typing this reply, you deactivated your account and appear as Anonymous. It happened before that members deactivated their accounts and returned to their threads under a different account. I hope that this will be the case with you!

You wrote that you feel so lonely and that you don’t have friends. If you return to your thread, I would like to be your friend (in the context of your thread): not because you are physically very attractive, but because you are emotionally in pain. I would like to read from you more, talk with you more, share with you.

“please help/advice me on what I can do.“- please return to your thread. There is a quote I like: “The only way out is through“- let me walk with you through and out of your depression and loneliness..?

anita

Be back to you Wed morning (Tues 9:45 pm here, Wed 12:45 am where you are, I believe). Good night for the two of us, Shandrea!

anita

Dear Lola:

It is Tues night here and I would like to thoroughly read your post and reply Wed morning. But for now, I was wondering regarding the beginning of your post: “I recently quit a great job. I had no choice but to quit, my boss was flirting with me on our Xmas party, he was arm in arm with me, gave me a long hug before I got into the cab staring into my eyes and telling me I am doing great and he was so happy with me“-

– is it possible that after a few alcoholic drinks during the Xmas party (if drinking was involved; it most often is), like many tipsy people, he became the.. loving-kind of (bit) of a drunk, not flirty, just loving/ affectionate, something that can or should be forgiven?

I am asking because sometimes when I am tipsy, I feel this child-like love for people (men and women), nothing flirty, I assure you!

anita

Dear Meg:

“For most of my life I’ve kept my mouth shut when people hurt me“- same here, except that much of the time, although I was hurting, I couldn’t tell if someone was hurting me, or if I was hurt because something was terribly wrong with me.

“no matter the way I word it, I get told that the way I express my hurt is too much and comes off mean“- I wish I could see/ hear you in such a circumstance and figure for myself if you sound mean (very angry, punishing).. or just hurt.

“me constantly feeling angry or mad about his words. They spin on repeat and I either sob or get really angry or both“- how can anyone not get really angry hearing one’s SO gossip about them, revealing medical secrets etc.?

“in the heat of arguments“- what do you say and do when really angry, in the heat of arguments?

anita

Dear Elais:

Thank you! About your family checking on you, you wrote: “they didn’t and they don’t. I know that they love me“- they don’t love you enough to check on you 🥹

“And by the way yeah, some part of me feels like I have to join others in suffering.. Some part of me is like afraid that my friends or family will do some extreme action in pain, like suicide, if I don’t keep track on them. It’s extreme I know.”- it amazes me how much we have in common. I was terribly afraid as a child, a teenager, and onward that my mother will commit suicide (she said she will). I used to pray to the stars in the night sky: please keep my mother alive!

I believed that I was one of the people causing her so much pain, so much pain that she wanted to kill herself (well, she said it), so I felt that I had to suffer because I was a bad person (and maybe if I suffer enough.. I’ll become a good person..?)

I was always focused on her, my life taken hostage by the fear that she will die any day, any time. What a waste of my life!

These days, whenever I find myself suffering because someone else is suffering, I say to myself: (1) my suffering is not helping the other person, there’s no benefit to anyone that I suffer, and (2) I want the other person to not suffer: why not wanting myself to not suffer? I mean, I matter too, I am as important as the other person, not less!

anita