I want to commend Trippen for saying in a nutshell what I took up a bunch of screen space to say. Next I want to suggest to you, Eleny, that you have just done an excellent job of identifying your basic problem. You go around trying to meet other people's emotional needs because you feel guilty if you don't.

I can relate. As a child, I was groomed - to an extent - by my parents to do exactly that. Just like you will have to do, I am learning to get over that. I am learning, figuratively, to walk away from people who are suckin' the life out if me. It's awful uncomfortable at first - like anything you are not used to doing. But it gets easier. AND people start to get retrained by my new attutude into not assuming I am utterly at their disposal. It feels better and better the more I do it. And people are not as fragile as I thought. They survive getting brushed off by me quite well.