Dear OrangeHeart:

You are welcome! You wrote in your recent post: “I just always feel like people are then offended that I’ve not asked them, like this concert, I just feel like I’m letting people down“-

– you expressed something similar on April 25, in your previous thread, in regard to relationships with men: “I just start getting put off them, possibly from spending too much time together… but then I always get a feeling that I’m being a b*** * to them.. I get a mixture of feeling not good enough for them or that I’m treating them badly”-

It looks to me like the following (and correct me where I am wrong): (1) being around people for too long, in general, stresses you out.

(2) The reason for the above may be that when you lived with your parents, as a child- being around them and witnessing their rubbish relationship (“My parents’ relationship was rubbish.. my mum is quite abusive towards my dad”) terribly stressed you out. Being your abusive mother’s target terribly stressed you out a lot too (“She done the same with my sister and I growing up”), so being stuck with the two of them really stressed you out=> you get stressed out whenever you find yourself “stuck” with someone for too long, and you want out!

You wrote regarding your father who still lives with your mother: “I wish my dad would leave her”- in a way, you do in your life what you wish your father did, leave boyfriend after boyfriend (?)

(3) Maybe you are afraid to do what you want to do (ex. go to the concert on your own) because you don’t want to be like your mother who has been “quite abusive towards my dad and brings him down to nothing at any chance she gets”- in other words, you don’t want to be a b**** (using your word). You don’t want to be like her (the abuser/ the b**** aka the aggressive female), and you don’t want to be like your father (the abused/ the passive people pleaser).

Maybe you are afraid to be like your mother, or like your father, not knowing that there is a middle ground, being neither like her nor like him.

You asked in your recent post: “How can I work on not taking on people’s feelings and putting myself first?“- find that middle ground between being like your mother and being like your father: be assertive, not aggressive; be fair to yourself and ne fair to others (not one or the other).

What do you think?

anita