Dear Dandan:

Inspired by TeaK’s recent post (and having the time, it being very slow on the forums), I went back and read through your thread. I highly recommend that you re-read all of TeaK’s very intelligent, insightful, detailed and thorough posts. Read them slowly, attentively, a bit at a time (not in one sitting). Read them at times when you feel relatively relaxed, so that you can take in and consider what she kindly posted for you.

I will resist my inclination to submit another long post. There really is no need to repeat what is already in your thread, so let’s see if I can make it short, here it is:

In regard to your mother, you wrote: “My mom still loves me a lot… But I don’t know I couldn’t handle too much love… she was needy…  I felt so heavy inside, it was too much for me… it makes me very weak, and I feel like crying“.

You wrote too much, and very weak. I think that your mother needed you too much, and that you therefore confused her excessive need with love. In your mind, something of the following association was made, which extended to your romantic experiences: a woman loves me => she needs me too much = she takes too much out of me=> I become so heavy and very weak.

In regard to your first girlfriend, you wrote: “She loved me a lot and I did too. But whenever we were too close… I used to feel something weird, as in something too much“- here is too much again.

The problem is not that your mother loved you too much, it’s that she needed you too much. Her excessive need for you (an unhealthy need for a child who is naturally not strong enough to handle an adult’s heavy-duty emotional needs) burdened you terribly, made you heavy and very weak. Fast forward, you escape such a terrible burden with potential romantic partners.

anita