Gift Giving and Keeping Score Yesterday, I went to work and we had a baby shower for a co-worker. The food was excellent, the decorations beautiful, and a table was full of gifts. No matter if it's a baby shower, a bridal shower, Christmas, or a birthday party, I can't help but feel that your gift gets entered into a silent competition in the minds of everyone watching. It's as if each gift goes through a rating system. A score is given for the level of creativity, thoughtfulness, expense, quantity, and quality for the gift itself as well as how it is wrapped. And somehow the overall score given to your gift correlates to how much you love that person, or even worse, how you rate as a person on a scale of worth.

I have bad dreams pretty much every night. They take place in different locations, with different people, but the nightmare is always the same. I am desperately trying to get people from my past to accept and love me. Despite my best attempts, I am always rejected. Everyone always hates me and I feel completely worthless and unworthy to be around anyone. When I wake up, I feel sad and depressed. Not my favorite way to start the day.