When I feel low, I want people to give me presents. Heck, I'm even happy when I receive a "present" I've ordered for myself: I lurve the UPS driver, the FedEX driver, ... basically whoever hands me the "present."
And yes, my family frequently used material things to say I love you. We hugged and kissed and said I love you, but there was just enough gift-as-love/affection to make it into my psyche for a lifetime. So when I feel depressed or lonely or even just blue, I want to receive presents.
I have no books due to come to me until January (Ms. Lucy March!). My apartment is too messy to even contemplate buying a tree and decorating it ... or decorating anything. I've got to stop buying ice cream as a present to myself. And I told my friends not to give me anything for xmas when I go stay with them all up in Seattle. So ... sigh ... no presents are due.
This is an issue. This is an issue I need to work on and I have achieved a lot of progress (like, I am aware of it and can often sidetrack it). But, given how things have been lately, and even, hell, for the past couple of years or so, my love-basin is feeling quite empty and dry (kind of like most of the lakes, rivers, and bayous in Texas, as a matter of fact). So it's a lot more difficult to sidetrack that presents = ♥ feeling.
I don't have any ideas that I'm sure will work. Distraction, the old stand-by, of course. I have tons of yarn and crochet thread, so I can work on a project to give myself. And I do have to buy a few things for myself, which will at least fulfill a retail-therapy aspect.
That should help. I hope it does. It will be so humiliating to ask the people I know to "give me this book/ring/knicknack and pretend it's a gift from you to me."
