Dear Aviva,
 
I will not give out my age or my gender. I merely would like to put out there that I feel under-appreciated and unloved.
 
-Itty-Bitty
 
Dear Itty-Bitty,
 
Man, you make it tough for me, leaving out all the details! (Or perhaps, “Lady”?) But that’s ok, I will use this as an opportunity to stretch my advice columnist abilities to see if I can meet this challenge that you set for me, oh friendly foe of mine…
 
And that’s exactly what life should look like for you—a friendly foe. It should be a challenge to meet goals and you should be meeting many of them. You should not be looking at life’s difficulties as a sign to throw in the towel. When the going gets tough, work harder!
 
Just wanted to make sure that you are productive and functional in general, because if you are not, it is likely that you are not appreciating yourself and that you are not loving yourself, even though you make it sound to me that you are under-appreciated by someone else. If you don’t have the self-appreciation thing going for you, no matter what others do for you, no matter how much people try to appreciate you, you will feel under-appreciated.
 
It’s like if I have a violin. This violin is my self-concept. I am not always bowing it or plucking it to make it sing, but it is always there. If someone comes over to my violin with a humming pitch-fork, one of my strings will resonate and vibrate. When the pitch-fork leaves my earshot, I am still soothed from my resonating violin string.
 
But what if my violin strings snapped? Maybe they were worn away, or maybe they were wound too tight. What happens when someone comes close to me with a humming pitch-fork? My ears perk up—Music! I am savoring every single sine and cosine of those sound waves. I am tingly all over. And then, it starts to fade, and the pitch-fork has left my surrounds. And what am I left with? Silence. Dead silence. Silence that existed before, but that I was not aware of because I did not yet have the beautiful contrast of music. And it is quite a painful silence because now that I know what music is, I also know that I cannot make music—I don’t have strings.
 
Now the nimshal: The humming pitch fork is an outsider’s compliment or show of appreciation, or even an act of love. It makes an impact on you. When it is over, you either are able to hold on to it and add to it using your own high sense of self-worth. Or, if you have no strings and cannot reenact that elusive sound, you are down and out, looking for some noise to replace it.
 
So ask yourself, does your violin have strings? If it does, that’s awesome! But now we have to figure out more.
 
Are you expressing to those who undervalue you the disappointment you feel? This should ideally be done soon after you felt neglected. If I were to ask the people close to you, “Does Itty-Bitty feel like you love and appreciate Itty-Bitty?” Would they say “Totally!”? If so, then you have to start learning how to recognize signs of feeling the disappointment (resentment is a sign that you’ve been disappointed for a few minutes). Once you know that you were let down and how you were let down, you need to assert yourself in a non-aggressive, non-attacking manner. If you don’t feel safe to, try telling the people close to you, “I want to tell you how I feel, but I don’t feel safe telling you.” That let’s a lion’s claws retract and will at least help the person be aware that you are more fragile than he/she thinks.
 
Make it clear that you need the person to say or do x. Clarifying your needs boosts the likelihood of having them met.
 
Finally, if you feel like you are constantly trying to accommodate and please a particular person, but you objectively do not get positive feedback, you may be in an unhealthy relationship with the person. If you can never do anything right, you’re being played.
 
So play your own music.
 
-Aviva