Craving that attention

Why do I constantly crave Ts attention? She gives me plenty, she’s always there when I need her, yet I always want more. I want to do something stupid so that I’ll get negative attention because negative attention feels better. That’s so dumb. Why does my brain think this way?

I used to feel the same. I just started telling my T straight up how I felt. That I wanted her attention even if it was bad. It helped me learn to ask for things that I need when I need them. Mostly, for me, I need reassurance. Telling her that clearly, allows her to be able to meet those needs without me acting out. It's one of the reasons I've been SH free for over 3 years.

That’s awesome! Congrats on being self harm free for so long! That’s good advice, too. I actually had started doing that with my last T before she left, once I got comfortable with her, it was easier. This T I’ve been seeing for about 3.5 months now and I’m still not totally at the point where I’m comfortable with her. I create a bit of a distance between us to protect myself. I feel awkward telling her that, but I write journals and she reads them, so maybe a good place to start is to write it in my journal and even outright say that I feel awkward and uncomfortable telling her that. With my previous T, I managed to only self harm twice in the entire year she was seeing me (as opposed to almost daily before that). With this new T, things have been different...frequent relapses...I feel so bad about myself. I’m trying to figure out why such a sudden change with the change in Ts.

I use to say I feel like a bucket full of holes. No matter what T puts in, it falls through.
T said thats because you missed so much as a child. That feeling of not enough is a result of not having got enough. Not of not getting enough now.
I feel now that most of them holes have been blocked up now.

Same, I almost feel like I want her 24/7 attention like a baby. When I left the session today I immediately missed her

I'm guessing you didn't receive this enough from your own parents. As a dependent child, no attention at all really is worse than negative attention. Or maybe you feel like you don't deserve positive attention? I'm not sure.

Any negativity from my T would crush me, but sometimes I want to act out or make myself worse so that she'll worry about me more often and give me more attention and care. I control myself but the desire is still there.

Even adults need attention, as we're social beings. Nothing wrong with that. But I wonder if because you have your therapy set up to reward your negative behavior with negative attention (T's stern voice and what have you), could both of you be unconsciously encouraging it? Could you experiment with this, perhaps have your "negative attention" be pre-emptive, like a negative warning not to do the negative things?

I think most human behavior is rational, if we understand what we're getting out of even what looks like suffering. My son once told me that he wanted to be sick more often because I pay such good attention to him. Yikes, so I tried to devote myself more to him when he wasn't sick, then he told me to back off. Haha. There's parenting in a nutshell.

That’s a really good point. I think that has a lot to do with it. I think no matter how much attention she gives me, I’m not going to feel like it’s enough. Hopefully I can figure out how to block up those holes.

Yeah, I really didn’t receive enough attention from my parents. My dad left my mom/my family when I was 7, and never looked back. My mom was so depressed about it for years, so I kinda had to fend for myself a lot in there. And, that was right around the time I got very sick (I have a rare autoimmune disorder), so I needed extra attention and maybe I felt like I never got enough there. I also really feel like I don’t deserve positive attention. I don’t feel like I deserve positive things in general. I have a very low opinion of myself.
I think positive attention to me feels not genuine and like T doesn’t actually care when she does that, negative attention makes me feel like she cares about me, probably because that’s all that I’m used to.

It’s possible we’re both subconsciously encouraging it. I wonder how I’d go about bringing that up to have negative attention be pre-emptive. I kinda did get to that point with my last T, where she knew to be on my case early on if she saw me slipping, letting me know where she saw me going and that the behavior was not okay.
I understand that feeling of wanting to be sick for more attention...that’s almost what it frequently feels like in therapy...she’ll pay more attention to me if I’m more sick...

I think I mentioned this in a different thread?, but one of my biggest fears is T leaving me. I thought if I got better, that would be the end of therapy. That's what happened before, and everyone left. I hit rock bottom. I told my T about this, and she said she won't leave me even if I improve. She said we will distance out sessions, but she won't leave. That has helped me a ton. And she's proven herself to me. We tapered down to once every 3-4 weeks, but when I need her more frequently, she's there. She trusts me to be honest whether it's truly a need or just a want. If it's just a want, she will acknowledge my feelings and desires and help me with them. If it's a need, she fits me into her schedule.

This is why people often give the response "talk to your T". I even got that on my thread, hehe. Your T is supposed to help guide you through this. This IS a main part of therapy: learning how to get your needs met. Don't be ashamed about it. Everyone needs to learn this at some point. It's good that you recognize it. If your T is a good T, she'll help you through this.

I love this. I wish my T beileved this, or saw therapy this way.

I agree with Scarlet. If I needed attention or wanted attention from my T, I just started asking. It really helped.


P.S. Scarlet great job on the 3 years!

I really like your Ts mentality on this. Unfortunately, I’ve not had a T yet that is able to do this with me, because they all have left in a year or less because of promotions, moving, etc.. (or I left them, because I moved or something). I have some serious T-related abandonment issues going on right now, and she knows this. Right now I’m at a treatment program, where you basically go as often as you need. When I started there, I was going 5 days a week, pretty much all day, and now I just go for session once a week and one group once a week. Because this is a program, though, and considered a “higher level of care,” I can’t stay there forever. T said she doesn’t want me to, either. That her job is to work herself out of a job, and she doesn’t want me to need to be there for more than another year. That hurts a lot. I know that means she wants what is best for me, and isn’t being selfish in wanting me to stay there just so she can be the one to help me (I had that happen with a T once...it was bad...). So I have this fear of getting better and all of the sudden being told “well, you’re doing well enough on your own now, looks like you don’t need us. Bye!” That’s a real possibility. As it is, I’m in jeopardy of getting kicked out of the program, because I can barely attend my groups due to my classes in school. They have to justify to insurance every 3 months why I still need to be there, and that gets harder to do if I get better...Right now, she agreed that I still need them, though, because although I don’t really need groups, I do need contact with her outside of session pretty frequently, more than many therapists would be able to handle. I just feel so insecure there, like I’m gonna get thrown to the curb in the middle of the year in med school, and I can’t handle that. She knows I have these concerns, but there’s not a lot she can do about it because of logistics. So I find myself in a constant push and pull within myself of “I have to cling and try to talk to her as much as possible” and “i have to keep my distance so that I don’t get hurt.” It’s mentally exhausting.