Ophelia... we are in a time of healing for ourselves and of that which we are surrounded with.. we feel neglected, misunderstood, not heard, ignored, and it hurts... at night we dream of the fight, we imagine the hurts even while we dream, we are aware and the fight goes on, day after day... we are part of the cure, we are part of the problem.. misunderstandings within ourselves limit our abilities to do the most good against what plagues us.. sometimes we corner ourselves into positions of self defense and all the while we are defending ourselves, others and the nightmare terrors of what 'they' can do to us come haunting, leaving us tired, stressed, underfed, emotionally undernourished....

the best we can do is take care of ourselves first... i was like you and found it hard to be anywhere in public some days... i imagined all the horrible things that others must be thinking about me.. they didnt have to say a thing, i'd already done as good a job of tearing myself down as they could have, and even better.... then one day i decided i was just getting worse and worse in my own mind and no one had ever said a thing to me.. i'd imagined it all in my own little brain (not saying your brain is little)

i chose instead to imagine what those people probably really were thinking... maybe about what they should have for dinner tonight, maybe that Jr. is sick and needs his medication, maybe that the rent needs to be paid.. maybe a lot of things, but the point is, probably nothing that had anything to do with me!

in time i began to change what i thought they thought in my own mind.. i began to think that maybe they were thinking about Uncle Al and what a great guy he is, maybe about Ralph the dog and how funny and loving he is... maybe that they had seen me and instead of thinking 'what a creep' they thought 'hey, there's a guy, hope he's ok'... and i started smiling at them... i wanted them to know i wasnt having any creepy thoughts about them, that i didnt think they were selfish losers, that i thought they were good people and i was thankful for them...

it takes awhile to retrain the mind and it needs to be practiced everyday but in time, i feel a whole lot better now.... hope this can help you in some small way