Brian I think you did more good than you expected opening this thread. You better plan on making your skinny butt at home here. You are one of us for sure.
As for your jewelry store issue. I'm in Denver right now selling gemstones to dealers here. Do you have any idea what mark up in the jewelry industry is? Nothing I sell them gets less than 400% and some up to 800%. There are other ways to get what you want and pay lots less for it...
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Jewelry, like many commodities, is priced to market, not tied to cost of production or acquisition. That pattern is visible across many industries for things as diverse as the $20 plastic cover for your cell phone (that likely costs less than a dollar to produce) to true prestige items that you would find on Rodeo Drive.
Recently several drug companies jacked up the price of their generic drugs by hundreds of percent increases. Why? Because they could. As their competition left the market, they exploited. A decade or two back a mundane drug was found to be unique in efficacious treatment of some rare disorder. The price jumped to a ridiculous level due to the willingness of people to pay, yet the cost of production had not changed a cent. Plain old price gouging.
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I was VERY LUCKY to work with a therapist who worked mainly with empaths ...she found us....
....and she gave me the tools to pretty much cure most of my anxiety....
I avoid places and people where what is happening inside someone doesn't match what is happening outwardly which was once the cause for most of my anxiety....
...no weddings or funerals...severe anxiety and not a good place for empaths....
I try to avoid hospitals as well but when I must go I work really hard to create a wall around me so I don't absorb too much...it's a lot of work....
The only time I get anxiety now regularly is on rare occasions I am standing in a long line at a store and there are bright lights....lighting is a big contributing factor. I would get it more but if the lighting is too bright I just vacate the premises but when I am stuck in line...and I need to buy whatever it is...I just talk myself through it. I try not to make eye contact with anyone when it happens so it doesn't make it worse...
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[MENTION=18508]East[/MENTION] does it help if you wear sunglasses in the brightly lit stores?
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