Altamira
I have had this card on my mind a lot in the past year. And I must confirm it has come up consistently for me to depict a person who is too absorbed by his real-life practical worries to be able to open up to anything else.
However looking back the situations involved were different to one another.
I have had it come up for a crash resulting from drug use. "Crash" not as a car accident but crash as the comedown from a drug-induced high.
I have had it come up for someone struggling with sobriety. Not failing at sobriety, just struggling, fighting not to relapse.
I have had it come up for financial worries, big ones.
Also, and I think this is more relevant, I have had it come up as someone who experiences helplessness not because of actual circumstances but because she or he has felt that way either all his life or for a very long period of time.
In other words it's someone who has felt helpless because of real reasons for so long that even when those reasons no longer exist the feeling remains. Does this make sense?
All these scenarios too make sense when you look at the image in the Raider Waite. It's not that there is nowhere they can go it's that they are too absorbed in their helplessness to even see it.
It's not the self-absorption of the four of cups, these are legitimate reasons to not see the better possibility, but just as the four of cups it can be a temporary psychological state.
As no substance abuse is relevant to any of us, the financial hardship is the most likely interpretation. He does know that I have financial worries; a bit sad if they way he sees me is reduced down to this! Thank you for your help!