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Jul 02, 2011, 07:25 PM
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Member Since: Apr 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 2,302
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Dear T,
You tell me I am a healthy, independent, well-adjusted and high functioning grown-up. I think you are wrong. I may look put-together on the outside but, inside, I am still the needy, obsessive, and pathetic adolescent I always was. This is extremely embarrassing to admit but, almost every day, I play this game called “talk to T in my head.” Basically, I have silent conversations with myself and pretend you are there listening. I think of questions I would like you to ask me, and then I answer them myself, pretending you are there to hear them. I fully realize you are not actually there but, for whatever reason, it makes me feel comforted to pretend you are there. I do this more than I care to admit. Is this obsessive behavior? Am I obsessed with therapy? Am I obsessed with you? I worry that it is and that I am. You know my maternal stuff comes up with you, but I don’t think you realize how strong it is. I’ve tried to tell you, but I don’t think you get it. You see, I want nothing more than for you to hold me, kiss my cheek, and tell me that you’ll give me all the things I never got as a child. I fully realize this will never happen—it’s not within the boundaries of the therapy relationship—but I want it nonetheless. I’ve told you before that there are times when I feel like a kid and I want to cuddle up to you. You’ve told me it’s normal to feel that way. But you didn’t say: “You know, Scorpio, I can’t hold you the way you want me to. That’s beyond our boundaries. However, I can do X, Y, Z instead.” Because you didn’t bring me down to reality and tell me I CAN’T have what I want, it gives me the hope of “well, maybe, just maybe, someday, you will actually hold me and comfort me the way a mother does.” You see, my irrational, childlike self still fights with my rational, grown-up self. As much as I can push aside my childlike yearnings, comply with therapy rules, and function successfully in my professional life, I can’t make my neediness, my clinginess, or my pathetic-ness go away. I can’t seem to outgrow them, to move past them, or to release them. I worry that they will always be a part of me. I worry that I will end up married, with my own children, and then grandchildren, and STILL feel like a little girl who wants to be held and taken care of. I worry I will always attach myself to the nearest adult who seems like, just maybe, she will give me some of what I am looking for. I worry that this pattern will repeat itself, over and over, without end.
Well, T, it looks like you got your work cut out for you.
Oh yeah—and I’m sorry that I am a weirdo who wants to cuddle with you. 
Love,
ScorpioSis
P.S. We didn’t even address the fact that I spend time reading and posting on online psychotherapy message boards.
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