Let me begin with a note to our readers – the second word of the letter was not 5 consecutive asterisks, if you catch my drift.

Anyways, back to you So Angry (and I often comment on the appropriateness of our writers’ names – yours would appear to be pretty perfect) let’s start with the situation and what I think your (ex) girl-friend was specifically saying to you. Because at the one level, you are right, to love yourself does not mean one specific thing and it is a phrase that has been co-opted by more out-for-themselves-self-help phonies than just about any other.

The fact that you begin your description of the woman you love with a “b” says a lot. A whole lot. It says that you’ve got a lot of problems with self-control and that this is a woman whom you have a lot of strong feelings for. So number 1, from my point of view, yes you do love her or you wouldn’t have all of these intense emotions.

Number 2, why would you want to be mean to someone that you love? I know that word “mean” may seem juvenile (and my guess is that you are probably someone who judges a lot of things as juvenile or not worth your time) but the question is not. Why would you want to yell at someone whom you love? Why would you call them names?

I think that this is more what she was commenting on. And rather than be more direct with a “I don’t want you to treat me like this” she tried to approach what she views as the root cause of it – your self-perception. Her guess (and the prevailing psychological theory) would be that you treat loved ones like that because internally, you treat yourself like that. So is that true? Do you have extremely high expectations of yourself and often find yourself unhappy with your performance or situation? Do you call yourself an idiot?