Dear Danielle Louise:

Reads to me that as a young child, you were confident, as children are, not self conscious. But your natural expression of your confidence, and your natural assertion, your natural anger were treated as bad things, by a parent, perhaps. You were accused of being showy for being confident, maybe; accused of being wrong or bad when angry, rude when assertive. You were accused of these things and rejected for these things.

So you are now afraid to appear confident, to assert yourself, to express any anger whatsoever. Afraid of rejection, which in your work life means being fired.

Trying to overcompensate means something like: from now on I will be good, never angry, always nice, always kind, perfectly non reject-able.

What do you  think?

anita