Sisabel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seems to me that blaming either yourself or other people is counter-productive.
We all sometimes need other people to be a certain way to fit our needs, huh!? And they often don't fit our needs exactly.

I wonder if sometimes it's doing therapy that makes people unhappy because they expect so much from other human beings. To me life is a huge messy goldfish bowl of personalities. It's a jungle where sometimes I find food and sometimes I find tigers. Unpredictable.

I work more on acceptance and on my reactions to other people than on obsessing about my needs. Yes assertiveness is also something that I need to work on a lot. I just don't think therapy is a good model for friendship. So far as I can see friendship is a whole lot more random than the therapy hour.

I get all the nasties that people report here on PC. I got a huge nasty from someone yesterday, but I also got angry with another person when if I wasn't so tired I would have been calmer.

When I step back from my reactions, even the worst nasties can be explainable by other people's overloaded and stressful lives. Still freaks me out and makes me shake all over BUT I find total strangers out there in the world who love to laugh and be companionable.

I think like Happy Crafter says, the way forward for me is to share pleasurable things as much as I can. That gives me and other people the opportunity to balance out our reactions to unpleasant experiences.

Preach sister - laughing at myself - I woke up with "ants" in my head and now I hear myself "preaching". Sigh!

Actually, by writing this I've helped my own self to calm down and appreciate the good stuff . I'm moving home on Wednesday!

Saidso