This is a lovely poem WB - and its had quite an impact.

I found the poem a little triggering - much of it I related to, right up until the yearning. I just don't get that. Therapy has really (and recently) highlighted how I don't want relationships. At all. With anyone. And although I can now see how I experienced a different childhood to most, I certainly don't yearn for any kind of positive reparenting experience. I guess that is at least in part because I just can't picture what a positive parental experience would look / feel like.

Your poem, and the responses to it, highlighted again how different I am. Sometimes I get so resentful of my T - like he thinks i 'should' want lots of healthy relationships and 'should' be using T to encourage better and more of them. I just have no interest in that. Sure Id like to get a grip on my social anxiety and be able to function in the outside world better. But relationships? Nurturing? Mother / father figures? No thank you!

But after reading your poem I got all angsty. Why am I so different? Am I a psychopath? Is that why I just don't feel those feelings? Why I don't yearn? Why I don't feel the need for any other people in my life? I really don't want to be yearning for anything. It doesn't sound healthy, fun, or progressive to me at all.

But as the days since you posted have passed, I have realised something. When I have a hard day at work, or something bad has happened - thats the only time I yearn for another person. For comfort. I wish someone would comfort me. Thats the only time I ever wish I had someone else in my life. And then I realised that a major source of an ongoing rupture with T, was because I thought he had promised comfort when needed, but in the end provided none.

My mum suffers from a lack of empathy and problems controlling her temper. Comfort is something she just doesn't know how to give. So maybe, albeit on a lesser scale, I do yearn. Maybe I don't necessarily need a reparenting experience, but I do need to acknowledge that a lack of comfort - and seeking comfort - is a massive part of my psychie. Thats quite a big revelation for me. Not sure whether to curse you or thank you for that - but it sure was a good poem!