Kats

I know just what you mean. I saw my Dr. last week and she has also been very caring. I was very much looking forward to the appointment. I think that for me, it is just that someone is paying attention to me and asking how I am and I don't have to pretend that everything is ok. She doesn't look at me like I'm nuts, but really listens and hears what I am saying.

Sometimes it is good to have time to think, and sometimes not so good. I have 5 more days until I see my T (but who's counting?), and every time I think of her I get a sinking feeling in my gut. One of longing and wishing I were with her. When I told her that I was disgusted with myself for being so "needy" she said that I am not needy, I just have needs. It helped me to look at it that way.

I think also that because Christmas is over and the craziness has calmed down, I am thinking more of my T and missing her. It helps me to have you and everyone else on this board to get me through.

PL

Someone please remind the next time my T takes time off to not all of a sudden start working on my marriage and therefore shaking a bunch of sh** up cuz of course I can't call her or email her or anything but I would feel a whole bunch better if I could.

It is only Sat. I have over a week to go. I thought I could at least get through a week without needing to talk to her.

At least I'll have plenty to talk about at my next session.

quote:

In some weird way I have attached myself to my Dr. She has been there for me in some really rough times lately, and I feel a caring coming from her. I believe it is a feeling that was missing in my childhood. It just seems really weird. I feel so needy.

Hey Kats, I completley missed this thread before, but I wanted to check in with you and give a reply. I believe that it is easy to feel attached to anyone who shows such care and concern for us. It can be very touching and triggering to the needs we never had met as a child. I don't think there is anything weird about it, but I know it might feel weird because it is a foreign concept to us emotionally because it is something we were never allowed to express or have fulfilled.

It is completely normal and common to have such feelings toward healthcare workers, massage therapists, friends, a friend's parent, teachers, clergy, you name it. When someone touches our lives in a warm caring way it is a pure limbic response to our needs that gets triggered. It's the way we were designed in order to promote attachment to our primary care givers, of which we often sorely lacked in our case and that is why we feel so needy. But neurologically it needs to happen in a therapeutic setting where we can get that limbic process met. In come our T's and the whole ability for the therapeutic process to work.

I hope you are doing well and not feeling so freaked out.
JM

OMG, I am such a needy person and I didn't realize how needy until today. For the last week and a half I have been holding my own not doing too bad. Today however, I go to see my Dr., it was a follow up appointment my disasterous situation a couple of weeks ago. I was so excited to go to the Dr, and couldn't wait to get there.

We had a good appointment, talked about my meds and how they were affecting me and how I made it through Christmas. I am a struggling alcoholic and this was my first sober Christmas in as long as I can remember. I made it though so that was good.

Since seeing my Dr. today she is all I can think about and how she cares, and how proud she was of me. It made me feel so good but it did make me realize how I need that caring feeling. It makes me tick so much. Something I will definitely need to address with my T.

Thanks for listening.

Sea

Being needy is ok. I don't know where it got its negative connotation, but I say, "Let's ditch that old belief!"

I am glad you had a good appt with your Doc. I think its good that she can stir some good feelings inside of you and I am sure your T will help you to understand and direct that in a positive and helpful manner. I am sure that if I had a close working relationship with my Dr. that I could develop some strong feelings too. I tend to be geared that way.

So I couldn't tell if you feel ok with it or not. I hope you do.
JM

I am not really sure if I am okay with this or not. I have never realized this feeling before, and it makes me feel weak or very vulnerable. Almost as if I am not in control. The feeling is so strong. I was pushed to be independant at a very early age and have always been, so this is new and very uncomfortable. A weakness in the armour so to speak.

Kats

Thinking about this a bit more....this needing feeling really does get to me. It stirs something in me that really triggers me to want to drink. I know this feeling as it started when I began therapy. Opening emotions that I have been trying to bury for years.

Kats

Kats... first I want to congratulate you on your first sober Christmas in a long time. That is wonderful. I am proud of you! The feeling needy...it's okay. You say you were independent at an early age... probably really before you were ready to be and so now that you have this warm supportive caring doctor it feels nice to be taken care of for a change. This does not make you needy. The book A General Theory of Love talks about how you have to first learn to and be allowed to depend on your T (or a parent/caregiver) before you can take off and be interdependent (no one is truly independent...we all need someone). Sometimes I think we feel needy because we are used to always going it alone and being afraid to ask for help with anything. So when we feel we need a bit of help or support it makes us feel uncomfortable.

Hang in there with those emotions. I do think it gets easier the more we reach out to our T's or Dr.'s and find that we CAN get our needs met and that it is perfectly OK to ask for somethiing. I have been trying to ask my T for what I need when I feel I do need something. He does tell me I'm not needy and that helps. I just emailed him after today's session which, frankly, has left me feeling scared. I need his reassurance so I asked for it. Of course, now I'm will be a wreck waiting for a response.

Hope this helps.

TN

Kats,
You are experiencing what my therapist calls "the bind." On really good days, its the hellish bind. Human beings are hard wired to seek out connection and relationships to fulfill their needs and find comfort in difficult times. But for some people moving closer when they were a kid led to bad situations: getting in trouble, being met with disapproval for being too "needy" or being told they were selfish for having needs because only the parents needs counted. So moving closer to someone became associated with danger and/or pain. Which means on a very deep implicit level your brain, especially your amygdala which assesses danger, learned that it was dangerous to move closer in relationship and you really shouldn't do it. (Much like you would react to putting your hand on a hot stove after being burnt.)

But a healthy human being has needs (not being too needy, just has natural real needs) that they have to be in relationship to get fulfilled.

So you move away and your needs go unfulfilled leaving you isolated and unhappy. Move toward relationship and your brain screams danger. When our amygdala which is really primitive says get out of here, our higher cognitive functions kick in and comes up with some kind of a rationale. IN this case, I must be too needy or if I need I'm not in control all in an effort to move away and get us out of danger. (The amygdala isn't real sophisticated. It sees something new and asks "Do I eat it? Do I run from it? Do I make love to it?" This is not a real nuanced response. Eat, run, or have sex. And the connections from the amygdala are broad and strong while the connections going from your cortex back to the amygdala are relatively weak and few. So when you're amygdala screams, you don't stop to argue. )

I fought it for two straight years and I cannot begin to tell you how many variations cropped up, and in how many different ways it manifested. But it all boiled down to get away.

The truth is that you are having a healthy normal response to your Dr's care. It's more intense than someone else's because it's kicking up unfulfilled needs (which don't go away just because they weren't met) but it's a healthy response. But somewhere along the line you learned that its dangerous to feel this way.

Most of my work in therapy has been walking through that fear so that I could experience something different enough times to lose my fear of losing closer. You do get there but it can get pretty scary and uncomfortable along the way.

The truth is that when you start experiencing your feelings after having avoided them for a long time it's uncomfortable and even feels like things are getting worse for a while. But the only way out is through. I'm sorry, Kats, I really do get how uncomfortable this is and I know all the messages that are screaming at you. But trust me, there not true. There's nothing wrong with you. You are not whiny, needy, pathetic or weak. You're a healthy human being who longs to enjoy connection.

AG

Kats -

I'm right where you're at. I have felt so vulnerable since I voiced my feelings for my son's T. I've gone between elated and miserable and I'm not enjoying the emotional roller coaster. I'm struggling with myself trying to decide whether to crawl back into my shell where it was safe, or take a chance and work through all these emotions.

It really does help me to come here and read the posts from those who seem to be a bit further along than we are.

OW

Thankyou all for your replies.

OW I am sorry that you are having such a hard time. I really don't have any advice other than hang in there, and work through it.

As much as I miss my T this whole thing with the Dr. has made me want to quit seeing my T.

For 2 weeks I was fine going back in my shell, and now all of a sudden I get someone caring about me again and I freak out.

This is frustrating, is it worth it!

Kats

Kats,

Part of the fear that wells up in me when I experience someone's kindness or caring is that it will end all too soon. It isn't always about getting hurt by them but also that my need to be cared for feels insatiable. Any one person can only do so much, there is a limit on everyone's ability to care and pay attention to someone else. Plus if you keep asking they are going to get really sick of you. But just a little attention and caring doesn't hold me over for a while it actually seems to magnify the massive emptiness that won't be filled - probably not for a long time. Kind of like getting only one potato chip, I love salt so just one isn't enough and it will make me crave more so better to not have the one and avoid fighting the craving. It is this despair that sometimes makes me want to give up trying. My T can't fill the emptiness, she can only give what's allowed within the boundaries, and sometimes it seems like it is more torturous to only get a little bit of her than to just quit therapy and get nothing at all. These were the lessons my childhood taught me: not to trust anyone and there isn't enough love & attention to go around. I am not a competitive person so I never fought for anything in my family, I just managed somehow without it.