Dear Elizabeth:

Having read all your recent posts in this thread, in your new thread and replies to other members, I am  impressed by your courage and strength of character,  going on your journey of self-discovery and reclaiming yourself.. for yourself, as you put it. This very journey plus doing your best to be a decent human being is admirable, and you deserve to walk off with your head held high, just as you wrote in a reply to another member (“.. done your best to be a decent human being walk off with your head held high“). In my mind’s eye, I see you walking with your head held high and I feel respect for you.

You wrote about your recent therapy session and your self-discovery journey: “I don’t think I have ever truly confronted my own discomfort and myself head-on like this before. This is truly unnerving. I don’t know what to do with all these feelings that I am feeling right now“- there will be discomfort, times of elation and times of sadness and discouragement. Persist in your journey regardless of how you feel at any particular moment. In difficult moments, ask yourself: what can I learn in this very moment? I find the journey of self-discovery a journey of learning, and as long as I am learning, it is interesting. The interesting factor keeps me going through difficult moments.

I am so sorry that your sister got infected with HIV, had AIDS and died. It is so sad that a person once full of life, “very ambitious and a good girl.. coming into her own” didn’t have a better and longer life.

In regard to Christopher wearing an “Everyone likes me, everyone thinks am nice” mask, while under the mask he is selfish, arrogant, deceitful and “capable of cutting someone who is already down and broken“- all your honesty and all the love you ever felt for him..  can not convince him to remove his mask, to go on his own self-discovery and be a decent human being. Neither will your anger convince him. There is nothing for you to do but to indeed make that last exchange you had with him “the VERY last time” that you try to make him understand anything about .. anything.

People with heavy duty masks will not take them off because it is easier and profitable to keep their masks on, at least on the short-term. People tend to do what is Easier-Now, which is very different from what a self-discovery journey and being a decent human being is about!

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by .