The parents who don't know real love because they want all the power and control and they are insecure and fear abandonment need to hook their children, violate boundaries, and make deals for love but its not love its hooks and deals.

And...

The friends who don't know real authentic love because they want all the power and control and they are insecure and fear abandonment. So they need to hook their friends, violate boundaries to exert control, and make deals for love but its not love its hooks and deals and attempts to exert power.

Years ago when my clothes burned in a fire in North Carolina and I was 22, I moved back to RI. My mother offered to buy me a coat. I just wanted a down coat like I previously had (my brother's hand me down). She picked out a Michelin tire looking lady coat disgusting mauve color made of puffy down and it was long, to the ankles. I said no thanks. She said, "forget it, unless you get this one, I won't buy you a coat." So I had no coat for a long time and I finally went to the thrift store and found a magnificent vintage tweed-lined long men's coat that I wore through the harsh Providence RI winters while riding my bicycle  in the snow. I've kept it all of these years, and my husband Bill now wears on freezing windy days.

Perhaps this is why I find my clothes in the gutters and garbage piles to this day. As if that is all I deserve.

My pal Marge, the 13th child in a huge Armenian family, told me her grandmother, who was raising her, threatened to suffocate her in her sleep. "So that's why you are an insomniac!" I said.

"Absolutely, and also why I am strong,and why I'm crazy!" she said.

"And isn't it funny that you found a job where you need to be awakened in the night?"

"Yes, very funny!" she said laughing. This is why I adore her. She sees the humor in the tragedy.