I got very attuned as a child to sensing hostility in others, I had no choice. I had to be one step ahead of my abuser. I could feel it coming, see my aunt come home from church and slam things around the house. Always bewildered I never knew when she would lash out, but I thought by hyervigilance I'd be safer.

The anxiety was worse than the physical battering and the verbal humiliation and abuse. So I developed a strategy to 'pop' my aunt into hitting me so that there would be some ease and resolution.

I prefer a smackdown over undercurrents of hostility. That's why I'm always trying to make someone come out with the truth. I can handle it when someone says "I just don't like you".

I can take that. Really.

But I'm also looking at a pattern of bonding to people who don't have my best interests at heart. That is very hard to look at.

I take anti-anxiety medication, and I take an anti-depressant, and I am in psychotherapy and doing EMDR but anxiety is something I go to sleep with, dream of and wake up with every day.

What are your thoughts?