Hello again IG:

Several things strike me as I read this thread:

1. You get as much attention and genuine input as anyone who posts on the Forums, perhaps more than quite a few. You share authentically – and you receive back authentic feedback.

2. Your emotions seem to ping pong around quite a bit. Example:
post #125317 “Every person who's responded to this has shown that they really do care and it means a lot to me.”

A mere two hours later, you wrote, post 125350: “Should have known it was a @#$^ing mistake to come back.”

As in past cases where your emotions have pitched around, one person triggered you while many more offered support.

Now, I’m not judging you for this!!! I recognize the pattern because I am like this, too. I think all or most or a lot of us with low self-esteem challenges are like this: there can be an Hallelujah chorus of a hundred voices in the background singing our praises but we tell ourselves – Oh, that’s just because they like to sing. They are nice to everyone. They don’t really mean it. And one person in the audience coughs and leaves and we think – There, that is the one person who knows the truth about how awful I really am. We don’t know if the person left because he’s an emergency room surgeon who was called to the hospital, or because she needed a drink of water, or a hundred other explanations – it’s all about us and our faults.

I’m glad you’re back.

Surely you can’t believe that it is a mistake to return where you have so many friends and well wishers.

Also, as LMo asked in her post: “You have never answered a big question that several of us have asked, to my recollection: have you ever been evaluated for body dysmorphic disorder?

Keep coming back, IG.

(((((((((((((((((((((((Gary)))))))))))))))))))))