It's happened again and I'm still confused, hurt and embarrassed. I'm embarrassed because I didn't handle a major button of mine being pushed in a way that it didn't upset many people. I'm confused because what happened with me is part and parcel of my illness and it went unrecognized; and I'm hurt because, in my perspective, very few of my friends here caught on to what was happening or they just withdrew completely from me.

It's a known fact, especially to me, that I come across very harsh in my writing. I've said it before and I'll say it again; I've studied my writing, tried to change the wording so that it doesn't sound so harsh, but to no avail. My son has the same writing style and it causes us a lot of unnecessary upset, but he and I have made a pact to not take things so seriously, accept the fact that this is the way it is. I know that doesn't cut any ice in a public place like this, but so help me, I don't know how to fix it. Maybe it's just that I tell it like it is, or better yet, I tell it like I see it; two different things. Maybe it's because I try to ignore things that bother me but I can only do it for so long and then it comes spewing forth in all it's glory. I don't know.

For what it's worth, as a way of explanation, I was having some problems in my personal life that I had been repressing. I wrote about them once but I don't remember getting any responses on it. I'm probably wrong about that, but "oh, well." I kept coming on to the board, in retrospect, in search of something to grab on to that would help what my subconscious was looking for. I needed something, but I didn't even know I was having a problem at the time. What came out later was that I was loosing control in my personal life. But because I was repressing the feelings of frustration and anger, I didn't know what I was looking for, much less was able to express it. I'm not even sure that the majority here would have had a solution... I'm not sure that anyone would have had the intestinal fortitude to shake me up a bit to get my eyes open. Keep in mind that what I'm posting are my "feelings," not "facts," ok?

However, there was one person that had me in her thoughts after this happened on the board and contacted me by PM asking me if I was okay and was I willing to discuss it with her. She intuitively knew that I had more than just a passing anger issue. For this, I'll be eternally grateful to her. She took my hand and pulled me out of a hole I didn't even know I was in at the time. I wish I could be more like her. I would tell you who my heroine is, but I haven't passed it by her yet and I don't want to embarrass her, so I'll save it until a later time, unless of course, she wants to accept her "metal of valor" on her own.

Anyway, I miss you all and I want to come back if you'll have me. (That is really, really difficult for me to say, BTW.)

And for the record: I've said before that if I am criticized about something, I'll check it out to see if there is any truth in it. Here's one result:

<TABLE WIDTH="300" BGCOLOR="" BORDER="0"><TR><TD><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans Serif" SIZE="4" COLOR="">Level III: You Display Certain Narcissistic Traits
</FONT><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, Sans Serif" SIZE="2" COLOR="">Congratulations, you clearly have some Narcissistic traits. The good news is that you're spending your time taking tests like this to find out what's wrong with you. If you're young and are willing to really work at it, you might one day be able to develop into full blown NPD.</FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD VALIGN=TOP ALIGN=right bgcolor="white"><FONT FACE="verdana, helvetica, arial" COLOR=darkblue SIZE=1>"personality assessment" is available here
***starXtest v2.0***</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well, I'm certainly not young and my road leads upward, so thank God I won't be developing full blown Narcissist Personalty Disorder. In fact, I'm going to do research on the subject and see how I can remove those tendencies in my personality.

<font color=blue>"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt" --Shakespeare</font color=blue>