You got that right. What was she thinking?

@Betty As I know, sadly, from personal experiences, loneliness can cause us to make errors and mistakes that we must later learn to live with and regret as well.
I TRY, and sometimes forget as well, the old adage of, "Angry was for I had no shoes until the day I met an man with no feet."

@Triphid I was brought up to believe that no matter how bad things get there are others who are worse off. I appreciate what I have and what I had and hopefully what is to come.

@Betty My Dad used to tell me this saying any time I started complaining about what others had and did not have, "{ Sad was I because I had NO shoe, until the day I met a man who had NO feet."
That has become my kind of mantra and I use it regularly when counselling clients as it gets them to think and hopefully see that no matter how bad things seem to you, there IS always someone who is far, far worse off.
Which, I might add is the PRIME reason behind my openly NON-sympathetic answering/treatment with the member who was, in my opinion, enjoying wallowing away in his own self-pity.
As a Psychologist we taught that there times when one MUST be cruel to be kind, we just need to survey the situation and person, etc, etc, and then take the decision.
Which, btw, was EXACTLY what I did with @Nerdy_Tarheel.

@Triphid Your Dad and my Mom had the same kind of thinking. My mom made sure I understood that there were kids far, far worse off than me. My left eye was removed when I was two and I was bullied because of it, and each time I cried I was reminded how lucky I was to be alive.
I also understand the 'to be cruel to be kind' can be helpful. I also know you need to know the person and their history for it to have a chance to work. This platform is not ideal for that since you can't gage their reaction and then address it.

@Betty On the gauging side of things I beg to differ since after years of dealing with people, plus the decade plus of being a Psychologist I have learned well to both read faces and between the lines of written comments, etc, etc.
And between you and I have also dealt with far more than my " fair share" of "Pretender Clients" , i.e. those who merely seek psychological counselling because to them it is a way of either doing something "trendy" or a way to get noticed.

@Triphid You may be correct, I don't have the luxury of your experience. Given that, I would rather err on the side of caution. I can't be cruel, it's just not in me.

@Betty As my Mentor, Teacher and Tutor in Psy7chology tried his darnedest to instil in to us all time after time, " There are and always will cases where you WILL need to be Cruel to kind."

@Triphid I get what you are telling me. I am not a trained phycologist and I can't make that judgement. To break someone down emotionally also means showing them how to build themselves back up in a healthy way. I don't have that training or experience.

@Betty Old saying out here in the Outback of Australia " the tough get to live and teach the next generation to be just as tough and strong or they wimp out, die and the crows get to dine on their corpses."

@Triphid There are different kinds of tough as you are well aware. The pioneers had to be tough to survive. Some people don't have the emotional equipment to deal with their issues. If everyone could then there would be no need for psychologists and counselors.

And then some.

And, though one should NOT do so, may the shit around stack even higher and higher still.