Beth, Peggiann, Sara, thank you for your posts. At this point I will say that all I intended to do was just take some time out - I found that I was losing my equilibrium and starting to take things personally & becoming hurt & very angry. Not a good way to be & certainly not fair on other people.
Believe me I have high regard for everybody here. If I did not, it all would have been like water off a ducks back. However for a while it seemed to me an inexplicable & concerted attack by people I had regarded as friends.
Sitting back and reflecting on things I consider that problems in communication were the cause. I was interpreting posts according to criteria that I am now sure were not intended by those making them. And, I think that Dawn was doing the same with mine. It has been said before, & Peggiann mentioned again, there are problems with the written word unsupported by other means to judge the nature of a comment. Also I think cultures come in to it; Australia & the US are very similar in a lot of ways, yet very different in others.
I think it is important to consider the nature of communications, and when I have sorted things in my head, will be posting in PMS regarding this (not because I feel the need to "vent" but because I don't know where else to put it.
Finishing up, Dawn I like reading your posts and have always liked, envied and respected you - I certainly never intended to hurt you. Understand that I am impulsive & proud and find it very difficult to back down from a position I have taken. Cassandra, I never thought you were attacking me - it just seemed to me that I had just received a low blow THEN the ref jumps in & says no punching. Of course the sensible thing to do would have just been to contact you and ask why and in retrospect its obvious that what you did was right & proper.
As for deleting my profile - it was the action of an instant, immediately regretted & I just did not know what then to do about it - it looked like I just flounced off like a drama queen - was not the case I was waiting till I found somebody to tell me how to fix it.
So here I am back to square one again - is a good lesson for me