It's a choice. If you attach, you open yourself to inevitable pain.

If you don't, you walk around emotionless, hollow, empty and usually fairly depressed. You operate from ideas, not feelings, and you often have no idea who or what you really are, because not only does lack of attachment mean you don't connect with others, you often don't connect with yourself either.

I think therapy involves attachment, and pain, but for me it also means that I don't feel empty so much and that when I do have my moments, instead of being lost for days, I have someone I can email or call and feel grounded again. It's not always easy, I'm not always happy, and sometimes it does suck. But it's so much better than what used to be.

It's always going to hurt when the inevitable pain comes, but the alternative is just feeling the pain of separation all the time, carrying it with you day in day out, thinking you're numb, but instead just being inured to the pain.

People seek therapy and attachment for a reason. That doesn't mean they'll have a swell time, and it doesn't mean all therapists are created equal (they're not) but it means that for some of the people, some of the time, life feels a lot more bearable and worth living than it did before.