Budfox, you mention the death of a family member. How long ago and what relation, if you don't mind my asking? From what I have read (and my obsession with my previous T cause quite an obsession... like years long, it was bad), this kind of thing can happen when you experience a great loss of another kind. For me it was my ex-fiance. We had been in a relationship for 6 years and it was breaking up. In the midst of this breakup, I saw my old T. I immediately transferred all my loving feelings I had had for my fiance onto my T. In this way, he held me together during a great upheaval in my life and a great loss. He was my glue. I was totally fragmented and going through I psychotic break that landed me in the psych ward. He was my bridge to sanity. He was my rock and my anchor. I realize you cannot place a human in God's place, but I did. I didn't mean to. It's just that you can't see God. And this T was a physical manifestation for me of a savior, just like I had learned about (religion).

Anyways, I read somewhere, perhaps when I was researching erotic transference, or maybe it was in the memoir of a t who had been stalked by a woman who had erotic transference towards her (I can't find the book right now, I read a lot! I'll get back to you on this one when I find it)... But it said something about a loss happening, and this kind of erotic transference/obsession stepping in to fill the loss... Something like that. Sorry if this doesn't make sense, my mind is being scattered today