"Empathy with no boundaries is self abandonment"
Wow those words in a random Threads post really hit me hard. I did that. I abandoned myself. After 4 divorces and failed "relationships" too numerous to mention, most of which cost a lot of money to maintain or leave, at the age of 73, I am finally realizing what I have been doing to sabotage myself. Empathy with no boundaries. I abandoned myself just as I was abandoned at 26 months by the premature birth of my brother by parents who left me in the care of a kind stranger to focus on my baby brother who in the NICU. They certainly loved me and had no ill intent at all; they didn't know what they were doing would have such a profound and negative impact on me. I now believe that after Kerry was released from the hospital that my mom was afflicted with post-partum depression and overwhelmed by the need to care for my fragile brother's health. I remember being very small and looking up at the edge of the kitchen counter while my mom stood at the sink crying and asking...