Hi Purplefins,

No, i am not offended. Don't worry about that!

I do have a very dependent side to my personality, and it's the part i struggle with the most. Normally, i am not a needy person in my 3D life. I don't talk to people in 3D about my problems, and i absolutely never ask for emotional support from anyone but my h and my t. So i have this persona to most people of being adultlike and capable and able to take care of myself. And most of the time i feel that way!! But the problem comes in when i get triggere or reminded of things that happened to me as a child. Then it is like something in me changes, and i feel like i have become that child all over again. In my body, i will actually feel all of the same fear and anxiety and helplessness as i did back when the event was actually happening and i had nobody to help me. And that's where that feeling of needing to be rescued comes in, of needing to be protected and kept safe and cared for. . .even though I'm not really re-living the past, it feels that way. Once i come out of it and am back to my usual adult self, then i feel embarrassed for being that way. But i can't seem to help it when it happens. Therapy is where it mostly happens to me because that's where i talk about my traumas.

Another part of the problem is that i just never learned how to handle feeling my emotions. My family of upbringing never talks about how they feel. They don't express emotions. And when i had fear and pain or worry as a child, they pretty much just overlooked it, and I was left by myself all filled up with that anxiety and worry. I never knew how to deal with it. While my mom ignored it, my dad seemed to enjoy ramping it up, so he'd tease and taunt me, sometimes until i cried, and he would then laugh at me. I can remember being in my room after one of these episodes, sitting on my bed and rocking back and forth, just trying to get the feelings to stop. I also learned how to go to sleep to escape the feelings.

By the time i was a young adult, I'd learned how to deny negative feelings almost completely. I learned to ignore them so much that i didn't think i even felt them. And then one day. . .i just cracked. I fell into a major clinical depression. Since then, all of my old turmoil of emotions from childhood are suddenly back! They flood through me now, and i feel just as anxious and off-guard by them as i did as a child. I try my best to stay in control and not feel the emotions. But i am unable to deny or ignore them like i did for decades. When they come up, it feels very frightening to me. I am actually very afraid of feeling my feelings! I feel scared and not safe. And again, that's when i feel such a strong need for somebody to comfort/help me. I just can't explain how scary it is to feel emotions that i have kept pushed away for decades.

Sometimes, i think that all i really need from my t is for her to sit next to me at those times when i get triggered into the past, or when the old emotions rush through me -- and just hold my hand and remind me that i am safe and everything will be fine. I know you said that, as adults, it's our job to do that for ourselves, and i understand that. And when i'm in my normal adult mode, i don't have problems with it. It is when i get triggered into the past that i become very scared and needy. My t is trying to get me to hang onto my adult frame of mind at those times, and to rescue myself, but it is very hard to do because it is like being both adult and child at the same time -- the rescuer and the victim.

I'm not sure I'm explaining it right. But I'm trying to say that i don't want to be overly dependent and needy with my t. But i don't know how to prevent it because our work brings out that scared emotional child side of me.