I keep telling myself that there are lessons I must learn from all this. I just wish they weren't so hard to take, so painful, etc.
Therein lies your problem. From your description of yourself as a kid you are obviously an inherent pain avoider. Many a youngest child grows up far wilder than you did precisely because they use seeing what the eldest did or didn't get away with to actually define the outer boundaries they must try to breach. You did the opposite. This is just you, it is your personality and it is what you were born with not your foo.
If you had a kid that was weak at math you would get him a tutor to help him out (or tutor him yourself). You are the kid that is weak at dealing with emotional pain. You need to keep on exercising that muscle until it can start to take some of the strain. Emotional pain has to be faced and it has to be dealt with head on. Accept yourself Hairy, you are who you are and there is nothing wrong with that. But tutor yourself in your weak areas.
Also read Martelo's post on Lord Grenville's thread.
hugs.
Fran
if we can be sufficient to ourselves, we need fear no entangling webs Erica Jong
