Dear Karina:

“do I owe her a response? Do I owe her anything?”- no.

“What’s the gracious move here?”- ignore her, do not respond to her at all, not now and not in the future.

Like I suggested to you before, this womanm(I’ll call her “w”) means to you more than the rude person that she has been to you: she activated your experience as a child with another rude woman, your own mother (I’ll call her “W”).

This is what you wrote before about W: “As a child my Mom.. was quick to point out all my flaws, often dubbed me selfish or bad and really made me feel like a horrible person… she was emotionally abusive… it never occurred to me that I don’t really see myself as a truly good person… I have always needed my mother’s approval.. I’ve stopped needing her approval”.

If you respond to w with a gracious response- I think your motivation would be to avoid more of her anger, more of her critical comments about you to others, that is, your motivation would be to pacify the angry woman (W, originally).

If w was nice I wouldn’t suggest ignoring you, but she has been rude to you, so it is fair that you don’t respond to her and it is an opportunity for you to practice courage and ignore her. I imagine it will be scary for you, fearing maybe of what will she do next. And you may fear that ignoring her means that you are selfish and a bad person (like W told you…).

– what do you think about what I wrote here so far?

anita