Well my mother was emotionally unavailable to me as a child so I have an unmet need of wanting to connect with other people. As a child I responded by telling myself I didn't need anyone and preoccupied myself with books and anime and fantasy. At 18 I realized I actually needed people and got really depressed. But I had such little self-worth at that time that I didn't dare to talk about myself.

Talking about myself is a new thing. After I got into counseling I started working on my self-esteem and I guess I started overcompensating by now saying that everyone has to take care of me, instead of saying that I don't deserve to be taken care of. That didn't work for me either obviously but I think it was a stage I had to go through.

You're right, I don't feel self-fulfilled and I rely on others' approval. I've always told myself that the reason why I feel so bad is because I haven't had fulfilling relationships, and if I only had fulfilling relationships I wouldn't feel bad. But this whole situation has forced me to challenge the idea that relationships alone will make me happy.

No I never wanted my friends to fix my problems. I would get mad when they gave me advice actually. I just wanted someone to listen and know what I was feeling. Some of it comes from abandonment issues too - wanting to have someone be concerned for me when I'm in trouble.

Unfortunately I've already damaged a lot of my friendships. I know now I was using my talking about my problems as a way to get attention and as a form of denial (I can't help my behavior, I'm damaged). But unfortunately unlike alcohol or drugs which you quit altogether, I can't quit talking altogether. I don't want to neglect my real human need for interaction and sharing either.

A lot of this acting out was due to the fact that I'm going through withdrawal after my latest love addiction ended. I was even more needy than usual because my old abandonment trauma was brought up when that rejection happened. And I lashed out at the people in my life but it was really misdirected anger (anger at my person of addiction and original abandoners).

I'm just afraid of being left with a bunch of shallow surface level relationships....