oh gosh, christina, thank you so much for posting this . it scares me how much i can get people to do what i want, and then it gets me really upset sometimes when they don't. sometimes i worry that i am inadvertently manipulating people - like my pdoc, i need to stop seeing him because he is good and i am bad - but if i tell him that, then he convinces me i'm not, and it's ok to keep seeing him. but i worry that maybe he thinks i'm just saying all of that so i can hear that i'm not a bad person. maybe i'm just doing it for attention, or for an expression of caring or concern, or something.

i like him because he is nice to me, but i don't know what i do for him. i used to pay him, but now he sees me for free because i'm not working anymore. so sometimes i think i need to look pretty, or be entertaining, or do something that will make him like me. it is difficult because i'm not in control with this one, and i think you're right - manipulation is about control .

but how do you learn to parent yourself? i do understand why no one wanted to look after me, so why should i do that for myself? more than that: it's like... i want to keep in touch with reality. if there is no one in my life who thinks i'm someone of worth enough to care about, and care about in a meaningful way (not just a thought from the other side of the world kind of caring), then maybe it really is the case that i'm not someone worth caring about. i dont want to delude myself otherwise, yknow?

thank you so much for replying, though, christina . it means the world to me that someone relates to parts of what i said. and can still see me as not tainted or bad because of it .