Dear Dave:

Welcome back to your thread! “I get very attached quite quickly…. I get attached to romantic partners quickly… I am searching to be loved and wanted, if that makes sense?“- yes, it makes sense. You get attached so quickly because of an old, strong, unmet need to not be alone, to have someone there with you, someone to love you.  A child alone for too long becomes a desperate child. This desperation carries on to adulthood.

Here is an imagery: a tree in dry ground grows longer and longer roots, trying to reach water. Its roots are much longer than they would be if there was enough water in the ground. Similarly, a child who is alone for too long, not having a parent present, physically or emotionally, reaches out to the parent, trying very hard to get the parent’s attention and love, “searching to be loved and wanted“.

Back in June you wrote: “I have always been so close with my mother“- applying the tree imagery to this sentence: as a child, you grew very long roots trying to reach/ be close to your mother.

But what can this understanding do for you now, at 31 years old? Answering my own question: I think that it will take some counseling/ psychotherapy for you to connect to this love thirsty part of you: the inner child. The inner child is not a real child, but the emotional experience of the child that you were, an experience stored and maintained in your brain. Without this connection, your understanding of your childhood etc., is too intellectual, and not accurate or emotional enough.

You don’t remember your childhood accurately. An example of the inaccuracy I am referring to is in your very first description of your parents: “a mother who was very comforting and loving, and a father who was very distant emotionally and tough on me” (June 3, 2021)”-

– do you see dichotomy (the contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different)? This kind of thought distortion is natural for children. It is called black and white thinking or all or nothing thinking.

In reality, your mother was often absent because she worked a lot, and when present, she was less likely to be “very comforting and loving“(June 3, 2021), and more likely to come to you for comfort: “she was more likely to come to me for comfort“, Nov 11, 2021.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is about correcting thought distortions. In combination with other types of therapy, you can gain an accurate and an emotional understanding of your early emotional experience of life, and how it carries on to adulthood. With such understanding and with quality professional guidance, you can change your same-old, same-old emotional experience and discover a different, way better kind of life experience.

anita