Ruby, we went deeply into this with you. It was thoroughly explained to you by your therapist why you were "officially prohibited" from being around someone. It hurts to be rejected. I know because I have been too. It is frustrating to be told that some way we act is unacceptable. That has happened to me to. I lost a job over it. That was traumatic for me. At first, I felt I didn't deserve what happened to me. Then I asked myself, "Rose, is the world just out to pick on me, or do I have an approach to people that I need to look at?" I decided that there was no cloud over my head that contained a sign saying, "Hey people, be mean to Rose!" When the same criticism came to me from different people who didn't even know each other, I had to ask what they were seeing in me that I didn't see in myself. That's a hard thing to do. Some people will absolutely never, ever do it.

But I thought, "I'm not scum. I mean well most of the time. I should be able to see a fault in myself without that making me hate myself." You don't have to get a real low opinion of yourself and think that you're just garbage. That's not what having a behavior problem means. At my job, I was tending to argue a lot. I was standing up for things I believed I was right about. I probably was right. But I was getting on people's nerves. Folks just won't keep putting up with that.

When we keep getting negative feedback, we have to get honest with ourselves.