I appreciate your caring to write but your judgment that what I'm thinking is a waste of time or feeling sorry for myself is invalidation. I feel the article is very "right-on". Who are we to judge someone. I can remember someone / a stranger/ passerby saying "don't look so side" - its rather presumptious - for all they know I just lost my best friend.

I do have issues with things that occurred with my mother who was emotionally absent and or abusive. I didn't realize at the time what they were but blamed myself. To try to deal with them now is not to feel sorry for myself, I'm trying to get to a point where I can decide for myself whether I am worthwhile despite my mothers persistent almost never-ending finding fault and/or blaming me for things out of my control. If she had issues with my personality saying I would never have friends, i think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy to undermine me and make me feel insecure so I felt awkward even talking to others. I realize you don't know the "story" but that's exactly why its problematic to critique someone so that you invalidate what they are thinking or feeling since you can't know the background nor are you required to. I'm not self-centered enough, quite the opposite, to think the world revolves around me. My mother made sure that i knew the world didn't give a damn about me.

Read the link/article again if you like, i'm sure there are others who would agree with me. I am not unique in my difficulties with my mother/parent.

Feelings were not expressed or allowed at my house. After trying to suppress them most of my life - I would like to at least try now. It seems to be going badly though because my children feel as you do - that i am just feeling sorry for myself. After a lifetime of no one caring about me now you would deny me the right to care about me either. Always being expected to do and say the right thing without anyone considering how I felt was not a healthy situation. now I feel resentful that I have spent my life being sensitive to others and "giving" only to find that now that I need help no one is there for me. You would have me just smile and put on a happy face.

I think, though I cannot know since they don't talk, that what my children want is their old standby mom back who is always there and like any good chatty cathy doll, you pull the string out out comes 1 of 12 little sayings. "Hi I'm Chatty what's your name"? Or "Do you like my new dress - its pretty and red".