Happy Resurection, Dan.
It just keeps raining here, the tank is full.

"someone who constantly tells you what a shitty girlfriend/boyfriend/enbyfriend you are is very likely projecting. If you were truly awful, they'd dump you. If they're always telling you how awful you are and they don't dump you? Yeah, they're awful."

Excellent insight in that parenthetical! They're also gaslighting you. Run, run away if you are with someone like that.

Sweet Dan, and it’s true. Except for the nasty one. Heavens, that person is filled with negative energy. I’ll say a OM for them.
You are a good hearted man, and you help people. Now stay away from the letters, and have a good weekend.

@2 This is so true. Lord god. But it also applies elsewhere. The single most miserable experience of my life was dealing with a sociopathic boss a few years ago. He legit gaslighted (gaslit?) me, and this coming from someone who agrees with Dan on that term being overused: "If you think that's what I meant when I said such and such, it calls into question YOUR competence, Steven." or "if you think that's what I said, you weren't paying attention, Steven" which is my actual name -- he used people's names to some weird effect when demeaning them. Gaslighting was his preferred method of manipulation and mental torture, but he also loved to remind me how much I was failing in my position. But he never fired me. I finally quit after less than a year and when I told him he went white and left the office in a rush about 40 minutes early (I like to think it was so he could start on damage control for when I approached HR or his bosses, which I didn't do.) It took me years to realize that if I was as incompetent as he said I was, he would have and should have fired me. And the fact that my quitting was so unexpected to him showed how much he thought he had control over me.

I'm nearing forty years old and my self-esteem has never recovered, and my career stalled out (and continues to sputter) even today. So yeah, abuse can come from anywhere.

@4 - Ugh, that’s awful. I once had a boss who was completely unpredicted in her demands and expectations. And once I completed something, she’d complain that it was different than what she asked for. I started to document her requests, but then she would (falsely) claim we had a conversation later where things had changed.

More than a decade and two career changes later, I worked on a one month project at a company around the corner from this job. I started having anxiety attacks going to work just being in the vicinity of the old company. My former boss wasn’t even there anymore, and had moved hundreds of miles away, but I was still having anxiety just being in the neighborhood.