>Respectfully Peter, do you honestly feel Naomi does not need to seek some kind of help? If so then stop defending her because she cannot need your help either.

There is help and help. We all need help, at times. And at times I choose to help to an extent Naomi in my way. Kevin Goff, Mike Cole and others too try to help, in their way. But not all help is appropriate or functional or effective. Perhaps that's also true for my occasional help, who knows. Whatever the truth is, Naomi is not only down at times but - as recent replies of her demonstrate - she also has much sense of humor and is quickly learning to fight back using that sense of humor.

>She has demonstrated - how can I be diplomatic - a softness - and you are doing what I believe is called enabling her to remain "soft".

The ' confrontational tone' of others here is dangerous. If one really gets upset by confronting words, someone else should (sorry, must) be present and should (sorry, must) know how to help.

>I saw nothing harsh or innappropriate in Mike Cole's post.

Mike's post was not mentioned harsh by me. I called it inappropriate. Posts of others were mentioned harsh, yes.

>If you are really Naomi's friend I think it would be approprate for you to wish and even suggest she get some kind of help. Just my two cents.

Perhaps you're hoping that my words to her have more impact on her and that you also hope that I too are of opinion that she ought to seek help. I think my words do not have more impact on her, although I'd like this to be the case.

I'm not convinced she needs help beyond that of normal neighboors, normal friends, normal co-workers, normal people. But perhaps normal New York people are not normal to my standards. Perhaps she better moves to my country. Or where she originally came from.

There may be a cultural difference here. Perhaps advicing someone in a public forum to seek counseling is acceptable (appropriate) in a society where almost everyone is said to have a counselor or shrink. Perhaps in that society there's also no image problem when searching a job. Perhaps it's even a positive thing in such a society. Perhaps the U.S. is such a society indeed. The Netherlands are not such a country and I think neither is Russia, where Naomi grew up.