There are some great posts on this subject in this thread. Thank you all for sharing.

I too have obsessive tendencies. I can spend way too much time 'ruminating' on therapy and my therapist. Some of this is productive in that I'm processing my own stuff but some of it feels like escapism and that's a pattern for me too. I ruminate about my therapist and I ruminate about my Ex.

I have mentioned this before but I'll bring it up again here. The connection I've made for myself and my own childhood is that my Family DIDN'T communicate about anything too emotional, hard, or personal and no they didn't ask me or help me with anything I was going through. I never had those mom/daughter chats about anything personal. My mother was depressed and anxious, my father was not there, and my Grandmother was over-protective and critical.

There was a lot of unspoken shame - that no one in that family really deserved, let alone me. I heard/read something somewhere that when a child is not given an explanation for trauma in the family, they fill in the gaps with their mind and will place themselves at the center of it as a way of feeling some form of control. I have come to learn how I internalized all of that as a kid and the silence - that lack of explanation or communication about any of it led me to fill in the holes with my own feeling of culpability.

I also kept to myself, tried to avoid doing anything 'wrong' or upsetting, avoided having my own emotions about things and let my own daydreams make up the void. I still do to this day. Basically, I was filling a hole in my life with my own thoughts and I think that's an instinct that carries on today in my obsessive rumination about any close relationship.

The long and short of it is this: I'm still filling in those childhood holes. Information feels like protection. Information feels like control. Occasionally it even feels like love.