Dear caroline:

Thank you for your encouragement and support (the first few lines of your recent post).

I understand why you would think that “people secretly don’t like me and feel burdened when they are in contact with me”: you wrote only a post ago that your family members “talk about each other and not completely honest”. Every person who lies or misstates the truth much of the times, tells the truth sometimes. So it is confusing and one is left wondering: when is she telling the truth, when is he not telling he truth. And I suppose you feel that you are a burden because this is what your parents communicated to you, the rolling of the eyes may be such a communication.

You asked if I would rather you stopped writing to me. My answer is: no, I wouldn’t rather you stopped writing to me. I would rather you continue to write to me for a long, long time, for as long as you wish. I want to read more from you; I want to know more about you and your life.

About you asking your sister to look after your cat. You asked me if I think it was wrong of you to ask her. My answer is: no, I don’t think it was wrong of you to ask her that. She answered your question with “don’t put this on me”. Well, you didn’t put it on her. You asked.

What this interaction with her tells me is that she does not know the difference between being asked and being … well, burdened with, being forced into doing something. This is consistent with her upbringing. What I would do in the future, if I was you, would be to not ask her anything other than the trivial will-you-pass-the-salt kind of asking. Now you know that if you ask her for anything more significant, that she hears something different from a request. She hears a forceful attempt to make her do something she doesn’t want to do.

If you ask me something, and you can do so for the sake of practice, I may respond with a no, a simple, non aggressive no. No punishment to follow, no negative consequence to you or to our communication. In the past (and I am still sometimes feel this way before I correct myself), I too felt forced to say Yes, and I felt fear and anger for feeling that I had to say Yes, but I can now say No, and be okay with it.

anita