Dear Annie:

Congratulations for finally getting a job!

September 2017, two years ago, you wrote about you and your now ex boyfriend: “We were fine in the beginning but after almost a year we started fighting a lot. He told me sometimes when I’m like this it’s hard to be around me. But that is also when I need him the most for emotional support”-

I too used to be a very angry young woman. But I didn’t understand that when I fight with a person, that person is not going to support me. In other words, when you are angry at a person and fight with him, he is not going to feel empathy for you. Instead, he is likely to feel anger back at you. Maybe scared and then angry.

Like you I also was jealous of others who had friends while I was alone and lonely. My loneliness started very early on at home. I felt very alone and lonely in my own home which didn’t feel like a home, a place of supposed safety and warmth, meaningful conversations and empathy, understanding.

Is this your experience at home with your family: lonely, cold?

anita