Dear Karina:

“who isn’t a little selfish and naughty as a child?”- interesting, I heard if said about children but I learned later on in life that children are eager to please, needing the parent’s approval as if it was oxygen needed to breathe. When a child is naughty, it is when the child was disapproved of for too long, angry and in pain. But even angry and in pain, the child still reached out to that absent approval, and does so into adulthood.

So I figure, the reason you have been so affected by this “adult friendship” is that it activated your childhood experience. It hurt so much to be treated the way you were treated by this woman, because it brought up the deep hurt you experienced being treated (way worse) by your mother.

As adults we forget how deeply it hurt at the time, when feelings were raw and so very powerful. We forget and make peace with the past best we can. I suppose the past is in less of a hurry to make peace with us.

anita