Dear Ravi:

Although this thread has been mostly a correspondence between you and me, tiny buddha is a public forum. So it is a good idea to always notice who is posting a reply before assuming it is any one person.

Reading the above correspondence with Jerry is sickening to me. It really is vile. My goodness, she said nothing remotely negative about your family and you went crazy! My goodness, Ravi, you were so off from what was real in that correspondence with her. To think that such happened many times before… I have no idea why she kept contact with you as long as she did, and if she posted here, I would have advised her to cut contact with you immediately.

And at the same time I am writing this, I will also write the following while not contradicting myself: you are not a bad person now. You were a bad person at the time you exercised that bad behavior in that correspondence with Jerry and in the others.

You are troubled by your behavior and you desperately want to change it. You wanted that for a long time and failed. But you want to because finally Jerry stopped communicating with you. Finally you are suffering a painful consequence of your behavior and you want to change it.

My efforts are to help you change this behavior by gaining more insight into its origin, its birth, so to speak, by suggesting you assert yourself with all the people in your life and take charge of your life the best you can.

Regarding gaining more insight, can you think about the boy who wanted his coin back? Do you remember if you felt angry at him for wanting his coin back and giving it back to him? Your grandmother wished he would die with his coin- a very unfair, very unreasonable and extreme wish, and it reminds me of the unfair, unreasonable and extreme wishes you expressed to Jerry.

When you wrote to Jerry: “shut your filthy mouth now…Whatever ill you are wishing, may you bear the fruits of it. May your tongue rot…” This is very similar to your grandmother wishing the boy will die with his coin, an extreme, way over the top, way way over the top over-reaction. What do you think?

anita