Dear Nichole:

I am glad you felt better last night. This is what made it better for you:

1. “I managed to get out of bed and started to do things for myself”- you functioned effectively regardless of how you felt, that builds confidence in oneself and that confidence is a good feeling.

2. “I reached out to a cousin and had a good conversation”. Good social interactions make us feel better because we are.. social animals. It doesn’t have to be family we reach out to, it can be people in a support group, let’s say, who meet once a week to talk.

3. “My aunt came home in a great mood and offered me dinner”- we need the people we live with to be predictably okay, not angry, upset. Other people’s anger scares us. So when she came home in a good mood and friendly, you felt safe and safe is a good feeling.

4. “she held me while I cried and she cried herself and I held her”- that is an excellent recipe for feeling better, crying while being held. A friendly physical touch is most important (this is why support group meetings often end with members holding hands in a circle).

-“It is not easy to sit in pain… It is painful work!! Definitely not for a weak person”, true. And when you manage to do it, you experience your own strength, you build confidence in yourself being a strong person.

– “She cried tonight regarding her son. I tried to make her understand she is sometimes wrong”- some people, a lot of people, prefer to see a person hurting to admitting a wrongdoing on their part. She will cry regarding her son.. until you suggest she did something wrong.

“They are not all good, including my aunt but they have good things about them. My aunt is at the hospital with my aunt all the time.. there for her brothers and open house to me.. . None of us are perfect”- if your aunt continues to be good to your other aunt in the hospital, then it is a good thing, to use my analogy, she consistently gives her cake and no punch in the face. Otherwise, the punch in the face voids the cake.

No person is always bad, there is no such thing. The cruelest, most violent criminal is good sometimes to some people in his or her life. Do you want to associate with a violent criminal because he is sometimes good to some people, to you?

Well, there are people who are not cruel, people who’s goodness you can depend on, people who will not hurt you when they don’t feel good, people who do no harm to others no matter how distressed they feel. That kind of person makes the best family, regardless of genetics.

anita