I certainly did do that, always, with all types of people as a kid, until I realised that there was no way in this world that anyone would ever love me, take care of me, look out for me, bother with me, teach me etc. I shut that need away in a box and threw away the key. Got on with being a functioning adult as best I could. Finding my way in the world. I trampled on and ended up hating those child parts who had been so needy.

Until my Mum died and BOOOOOOOOM. Everything exploded. Wow. I thought that need had gone but turned out it hadn't. Turned out it was now back in my face full force. I started to see a counsellor, but it was all surface level stuff, it wasn't addressing the root cause of the issues. Two things. One I can't talk about still and haven't finished (started?!?) working on really, and one was this deep seated need to feel loved by a mother figure. To be held as I learnt how to feel. To be taught about the world as I should have been when I was younger.

I knew it was now or never, if I didn't open up to my counsellor about this I was going to end up back on drugs and destroying my life again. I had to try. Luckily, she was amazing. I didn't think this was possible, I thought I was asking for something that was unthinkable, but apparently she said that this type of therapy, while uncommon, is out there, and she stayed with me until I found the right person to do this work with me.

My (now Ex) T did have children, yes. Five children, some the same age as me. It was important to me that she have experience with children, but actually I didn't know she had them at the time. I chose someone who worked with children, so I knew she would understand that age group.

How did I feel about that? Good question. I tried not to think about it too much. I felt glad that she had them, as it meant that she might relate to me in some way? I felt some jealousy, but not a crazy amount. I just tried to be happy for them that they had her in their lives. I wished I could have been the sixth child, but then I know I got to see parts of my T that were reserved just for therapy, so if I had been her child I wouldn't have had that.

The one thing I tried to do all along, is to keep my adult self in the present throughout the work, even though I did regress a LOT in therapy. I had to really go to that inner child place with her in the room, but outside, I needed my adult self to help me rationalise everything. To help me overcome the limitations of it, the jealousy etc. Sometimes this was difficult, and sometimes the lines blurred a lot, but I just tried to hold on to it as best I could.

It was HARD when she went on holidays, especially at first. We used transition objects, she would write a card and give it to me to open half way through, she always told me where she was going if I asked so that I didn't feel I had lost her, could imagine where she was, if that makes sense. She also once said that she would think of me when she looked at the moon, and that became our thing. That still is our thing. Something I have never had said to me, and something she said she has never said to anyone else.

Right now, things are difficult, because she had to abruptly stop working. And I am hurting and confused about that. I don't know what the future holds, and so am just trying to hold on to all of the amazing work that we have done together. Trying to hold on to the T that I know is in there somewhere.

Deep down, I honestly do think that part of me has been settled. That that part of me is safe and secure now, and I am able to take over that role from my therapist. I don't think I will search for a mother figure again, not in the same way, because I have learnt that every person in my life (there are people in my life now, whereas before there were not) can give me a tiny bit of themselves, that combined with what I give myself, and combined with what my T has given me, will add up to near as damn it a whole.

I don't know if that makes any sense at all???

That doesn't mean I'm not sad I didn't have that growing up, that I'm not sad about not having had that relationship with my Mum, but it's different now.

I have the memories of my therapist and that is what I look back on. She has become my inner guide, maybe in the same way that people who have healthy parental relationships learn from their parents and internalise them, I learnt from my T and internalised her.

It took me being incredibly vulnerable to reach those inner child places with her because like you say, we are adults now, and our inner critics may well be dismissing of it all, but in a way, I was lucky. I had nothing left to lose at that point, or so it seemed. I had just lost my Mum, my marriage was falling apart, I had no friends, no hobbies, no family I would let near me. The only good thing in my life at that point was my job, and I knew I would lose that if I ended up back on the drugs, so it was a leap I had to take, and I was lucky that my therapist was there to catch me.

It's hard work though, not for the faint hearted, but then, I don't think counselling ever is!!