Mark,

I was going to say something ,

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Hey Bitter Guy! You are soooooo baaaaadd. [does he like hearing that?] Tell us your dream world for malign. We can take it.

He isn't trying to be bad. He's trying to take care of me by "keeping me realistic". Basically trying to make sure I know what my flaws are, so that they don't get out of hand. He doesn't enjoy being insulting; he just thinks it's necessary.

His dream world isn't that hard to imagine. He wants me to be safe and capable of taking care of myself. He's just really irritated that I'm not.

His bitterness is about you?

Maybe.

It's about having a thankless and impossible job that the rest of me is always trying to thwart.

How does he feel about humaness?

He's not wild about it. :-)

It's the source of so much of our troubles, isn't it?

Keep in mind that, as a defender, he isn't interested in the beneficial aspects of ... well, anything, really.

Only how it could be used against me, how it could hurt me.

you mean, like taunting you that you can't have the good things, you don't deserve them?

What is he defending then?

Well, first, I never said he's doing it all correctly.

Telling me not to expect good things keeps me from being disappointed. Plus, it may be his genuine experience of things; remember, he doesn't see the good things that happen. Those don't matter to him. He just sees the times that I fail, that I get hurt, when he has to step in to fix things. His narrowness of focus pretty much prevents him from making balanced decisions.

I think I am picking up on who he hates the most....

He's not really conscious of hating anyone.

If he hates anything, it's change, risk, those things.

alright, let me ask this. How does he feel about childhood?

An entirely appropriate phase of existence, intended for the young. :-)

And if there is a part of you that is in the learning and developing phase, is that permissible?

I don't mean to hound you, malign. I think many people here can relate to this driven side of you. Mark D says I have some perfectionism with my struggles over work. It's a part of me I can't seem to help, that I am powerless before. We survived up to this point by the graces of these parts of us.

Well, he's definitely uncomfortable with the concept of not knowing everything, of having to change and try something new. All of that is scary.

The difficult part, of course, is parts that had survival value at one time, but need to be adjusted now. I know you know this; I'm just clarifying.