Absolutely. For one thing, I don't have an internet connection at home (PC, but no phone line to save $$) so I can only do it at work. Thus, I can't always get on or spend the kind of time I'd like.
Often I'd like to be able to respond, but due to these time issues the best I can do is try to read what I can. There are still people here whom I'd like to respond to and never have -- James, you being one of them -- and it's hard to do because of these restrictions.
A lot of the time I want to say something but don't know what. Honestly, my heart is there but I just don't know what to say. I hear so much pain and sadness, and although my family experience was hard, most of yours seems so much harder. I know it must be if you had an N for a parent or relative. I just had a brief (if horrendous) encounter.
And, I have struggled my whole life with feeling that I have something valid to say. I still feel that way. If nothing else it has really held me back in my career. But everywhere. I went on another -- ta da!!!! -- date this weekend, and although the guy was a little neurotic, he actually was very sweet, sort of innocent underneath; I could see that. He talked a lot, and he admitted that -- but a few times he explained that, since he'd married his high school sweetheart, he never had the chance to meet different kinds of women and see who he liked. Since I'm a listener, not a talker, he told me that I was depriving him of the privilege of knowing who I am. He's so right! That was better feedback than I could possibly have told him. (But still I couldn't talk. I'm good at responding but not at independently revealing. I just have to know someone before I can do that.)
Well, that doesn't seem to cogent. So yes, I struggle with this all the time and in all sorts of ways. I really carry so many of your struggles with me through the week, and it's hard to let you know that.
xoxo,
LC
