How do you deal with neighbors who are always telling you what to do?

This busybody, about a year later, I got into it with her husband and ended up hitting him in front of police. I got a restraining order after that so there hasn’t been much communication there. There are two others that I war constantly with. They are some immigrants that pile into these houses, though. I put up “Don’t Tread on Me” flags up all around our house even though I’m not Republican. I got them because I know the one next door (not the one I hit - the other one) hates snakes. Granted, these two are pretty darn bad neighbors. The one was sued by the HOA, I found out. I can take it a little over the top, though. I absolutely hate Muslims so that HAS to be what moves around us.

Neighbors never try to tell me what to do because I’m crazy as hell. This busybody one next door, who is on the HOA, approached me when I was painting my house. She complimented the color then asked, BTW did you get it approved by the HOA? I just gave her an ice cold stare. She said that she’d try her best to “shepherd it through” then awkwardly walked away. Sure enough, now we have a seafoam green house, probably the only one in all of the midwest (I’ll be on the beach someday.). I sweated that because husband had looked it up and didn’t see anything about color changes needing permission. I’m sure I’ve threatened every member of the HOA at one time or other (without even knowing who’s on it) so I don’t know why I was worried.

When you’re growing up, you never expect that at 43 years of age, you’ll have a police sergeant at your house telling you that he’s proud of you because your name hasn’t shown up on any police reports lately, and there haven’t been any calls about you.

I’m wondering about attachment and transference with the therapist and the idea of escape and fantasy? How much do you think your strong feelings, constant thoughts, desires to be with your therapist are a way to escape from your present life? I wonder if the transference serves another purpose than to show us our wounds and/or past experiences, but is a present coping strategy for managing what we don’t want to face (even if unconsciously) in the present—-current relationships, life circumstances, etc. Can anyone relate to this concept of escape in relation to their therapy relationship? How does this play out for you?