Dear Cass:

You wrote earlier: “I have always struggled with feeling less than other people... I feel like I almost wait for someone I’m interested in to get bored or lose interest and move onto someone better”.

This started perhaps in your experience with your friend and her cousin, early in your childhood and you are currently experiencing this regarding this young man. This core belief (the italicized) will continue to affect your life until it is challenged, evaluated and changed. Best to do it in psychotherapy with a capable therapist.

It will be easy for a person to say, reading your recent post, something like: your father chose the computer over you and so you felt less than. But that would be too simple and most likely inaccurate because there is so much more to know that I do not know: the nature of the relationship between your parents, what your mother told you about your father (how she influenced your understanding of him and your relationship with him), and I know nothing about your relationship with your mother.

If you would like, share more about any of these items. It is okay with me if you choose not to.

anita