Thank you so much for your insights.

I guess I ask this because I'm really having a lot of trouble figuring out what kind of parenting I had. Going back pretty far (like maybe age 10) I've had maternal attachments to adult women (and a few men too) that were anywhere from quite strong to absolutely overwhelming. I've always been really ashamed of these feelings because I couldn't understand or cope with their intensity. As I got older, I thought of them as crushes but they were very different from the crushes I had on people my own age. I wouldn't say that I experienced a deep yearning for the attention and affection of someone my own age. I wanted them to like me, I wanted to hang out with them, I wanted to have sex with them but I didn't just long for their attention and love -- and as disappointed as I was if they didn't like me back, I usually moved on pretty fast. The maternal attachments OTOH were all-consuming and felt unbearable.

The maternal attachments sometimes also felt sexual which also felt very shameful to me. I remember being so overwhelmed by my shame about my feelings for my guidance counsellor (I saw her for weekly therapy) that I couldn't write them in my regular journal. I had to write them on random sheets of paper and then shred them and flush them or burn them. (I even thought about eating them but I never actually did that--lucky cause I can be pretty long-winded so that's a lot of paper!) I even felt like she was in my head and could read my thoughts at all times so I'd try to control my thoughts to block her out. It was hellish.

I think she was inappropriate with me (but not sexually) and encouraged that dependence until me and my SI and my adolescent craziness became too much for her and without warning she called my parents in for a meeting and told them about the SI (which they had been pretending not to see) and some other stuff I'd told her. The shame was unmanageable. I went and overdosed hoping never to have to see any of them again but luckily I didn't take that much and mostly just threw up and had stomach pains.

Twenty-some years later I have pretty intense maternal transference with my T and though I find it very uncomfortable and unpleasant at times, it's not as bad as it was with my guidance counsellor. It also doesn't seem to be sexual, which is a big relief.

But my parents... My parents weren't so bad. And that part is puzzling to me. They more than provided for my physical needs. They loved me, they spent time with me, they read me bedtime stories. I felt like my mother truly enjoyed my company most of the time. There was no sexual abuse, no physical abuse (apart from the rare spanking which was considered okay at the time) and while they sometimes said mean things, I don't know if I would call it emotional abuse.

But there was a kind of emotional neglect. I wasn't allowed to have certain feelings. When I disappointed them (especially my mom, my dad was often kind of aloof) it was like I really just sucked. And when I became increasingly mentally ill and depressed and self-injuring in my teens, they kind of stopped taking care of me. They didn't kick me out or stop providing for me, they still said they loved me, they tried sometimes to help me but I always felt alone. They sometimes had the impulse to try to understand what I was going through but more often they ignored me or shamed me for cutting and not doing well. Basically, they tended to ignore anything that was threatening, worrisome, unpleasant or uncomfortable about me. So I felt like they didn't really know me.

I guess I always craved the kind of love that didn't stop if I wasn't perfect. And maybe that's what the intense attachments are about. I'm not sure.