To attach or not to attach

Another week another place in my personality that needs attention .  For what ever reason 'attaching to my therapist' has become a big deal.  I think I've been keeping my desire to attach to her pushed under water for months, but in the last few weeks the need, the desire to feel something emotional about her has escaped from the depths and floated audaciously to the surface.

After 12 years of therapy with someone who I readily,desperately attached to and who ultimately left me through dying (a selfish spin on that fact I know but I'm talking about young parts of me here who only see it that way) I have been trying just as desperately to make no attachment at all to my current therapist.  It has worked a bit. She's easy to get along with, very reliable, consistent and nonthreatening and not prone to push me into intimacy I can't cope with. All very helpful until 2 weeks ago when this need the size and consistency of a beach ball refused to remain pushed under water any longer and came flying out. It all started when we began talking about shame and i talked about repressed feelings that I had. There's a link I know between shame and my desire to need other people.

But with her it's as though i would only be happy if I was her only client, if I consumed her thoughts, if she found me the most interesting, the most intelligent, the most wonderful survivor she's ever come across. Arrgggh!!  It makes me so angry that I feel like that. it's so stupid!! I have spent so much energy on pretending I don't feel those things, trying to hide them from her that actually the connection we have feels to me like we are no more connected than two pieces of paper laid on top of each other. One blast of air and they would separate and fall away.  I don't feel safe, I don't feel held even though I'm sure she would like to offer those experiences to me - metaphorically of course. She once told me she wouldn't touch me and even that feels like a betrayal at the moment. Which leads me right back to angry again. When she said it I felt safe, now I feel betrayed by it? Why???

I hate this!! I hate this part of me that wants others to break the rules for me. A part of me that only believes she is worth something if she's treated as 'special'. It disgusts me because I know exactly where it comes from.

fucking hell - this all hurts.