Dear Lisa:

As to your first comment in your most recent post, that you lost a couple of people because you didn’t respond to them fast enough: not necessarily so. Often, here on these very forums, when original posters do respond very quickly to people posting on their threads (respondents), the respondents do not post again to the original poster.

Regarding  “If someone treats me less I am imagining it, if someone bullies me I am misinterpreting their meaning”- we do move the information from our environment through our brains, through our prior life experiences. A child does not have prior experience, so her understanding of the environment is accurate. Adults’ understandings is subject to the prior experience.

At times you are treated disrespectfully, as less than. At other times you are misinterpreting people’s actions to mean that they treat you as less than. At times you are being bullies; at other times you are misinterpreting.

The key is to discern at what times you are really treated as less than, and then respond accordingly and at what times you were treated fine and misinterpreted it as being treated less than, and then respond- or not- according to what it is, in reality.

Almost everyone misinterprets others’ behaviors. Some more than others. Let’s say, as an example, that you feel that I think less of you because of something I wrote, that I treated you as less than. You can ask me: what did you mean by (what I wrote). Did you mean (what you interpreted)- and I will answer you honestly. You can check, at least with some people, their intent or motivation in having written or said this or that. That way you check the accuracy- or lack of accuracy- of your interpretation.

Hope you feel better soon. Post anytime.

anita