My point is this Anita- If one is determined to find a flaw in someone’s love, one can find 100 flaws in even the perfect love. So if start ripping apart every action that my parents did, I will find one or two things that were not right in my opinion but I can’t cling to that and claim it to be the reason and justification for my emotional neediness. They have loved me more than what I saw all over in my surroundings, but every slip-up that they may have had, I am sensitive to that and this is my fault, I feel, not theirs. I am sure that if someone made me stand on a platform everyday where I have to constantly keep assuring her/him of my love and keep walking on eggshells out of fear of doing something that may make them feel unloved, even I will not be able to do it. So I think, for this thing, I can’t point fingers at my parents. I have had good parents and if people around me with actually dysfuncional families are able to be emotionally independent and happy, then why not me who has got her good share of parental love?

Dear Anita and GL,

Thanks so much for you inputs.

//To begin, it seems that your parents were really concerned for you in your childhood that they revolved the family life around your sister and you. Good and all, but it seems that they didn’t really let you face many difficult problems alone, or at least let you try to solve it for yourself first, or really gave you the space to self soothed your own emotional hurt. From the above, it seems that whenever you had a problem, they were ready to drop everything to help you solve it. So they had good intentions, but they also indirectly taught you that problems are meant to be solved externally, not internally, e g that loving validation come from the people around you. That didn’t help you create an independent stance that you CAN solve things on your own (that you can love yourself irregardless if other people love you) and help is a bonus feature from family and friends. Rather, your parents had let you depend on them which created a certain heavy dependency on them. There is also no healthy boundaries between you and your parents, e g your mom doesn’t stop you from calling her while she is out with friends, dropping her problems to help you with your problems.

So you being needy is probably due to, in part, the fact that you are heavily depended on your parents’ affections and that they let you be. But at some point in your life, your subconscious probably understood that being depended on others’ affections to validate anything about you is chockful of uncertainties and it is terribly exhausting. Because such dependency means that you will always try to test their sincerity and affections and of course, it’ll back fire on you since you’ll doubt it even when they have shown up for you. Uncertainties tend to create panic which tend to lead people to try to control their situation in some way. So you’ll never feel secure in your attachment towards your parents because you need them to love you to prove something; of course, it’ll always be a limbo of “they love me, but…”//

– THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS. It feels like you’ve put into words my exact thoughts that I just couldn’t put together. With a lot of thinking, the only conclusion I always came to was that mom dad have loved me so much since childhood that I never learnt to be emotionally independent. Also, I remember, once when I was hurt about something mom did/didn’t do that made me feel unloved(I don’t remember what it was) and I expressed to her how I felt bad, she actually felt really guilty and told me that it seems like she’s still proving her love to me after so many years and that she’s not enough and that is actually true. Thank you so much for putting in perspective what was like jumbled thoughts in my head.

I really want to get out of this thinking because I’m no longer a teenager who can afford to surround herself with her family who will put up with my unreasonable expectations of love. I worry that tomorrow I’ll have a family of my own, I’ll have a partner and if I don’t learn to love with space and boundaries, I’ll make both him and me miserable, I don’t want to do that. Can you help me with how can I develop emotional independence?

I do say positive things to myself, when something happens that traditionally makes me feel bad, I tell myself that there’s nothing to feel bad about, like I said, I try and filter my thoughts. I tell myself that I am loved. But why do those thoughts exist in the first place? How do I reach a place where I don’t have to keep checking myself, keep restraining my thoughts, where I don’t need that much external validation and love?

Any advice will be welcome, Anita and GL. Again Thank you, for the advice so far.

Dear Anita and Tanya,

Thank you for your inputs.

Anita, it makes sense. My mother definitely has a more service-oriented way of loving as compared to me whose needs are more of verbal and physical love.
Tanya, I’ve felt that too, that  is one thing that is helping me, positive thought, unlike earlier times when I’d feel so sad that I’d just say whatever hurt me every single time, now I try and reason out and think positively and am able to sort it out in my head. Thoughts are very powerful, yes.

So in this very moment, I am going through a typical example of what this thread is all about and I would love to share here, to give an idea of what my problem is and to also get opinion.
I’ve come to stay for a while with my parents in COVID. It’s been lovely. We play games and have fun and everything. I am also working from home. Now today, I woke up perfectly happy, no bitter feelings, nothing. I had panned morning exercise for my parents because they are getting older and I’m worried for my father’s weight issues. We woke up in the morning and I went to my parents room calling them for exercise. Both were like yeah, just 10 minutes, the gardener is here, just some garden work then exercise. I was like okay. They went about doing the gardening work while I waited. I called out to them a few times. Mom every time politely said just 5 minutes, just a little while. After waiting for around 30 minutes, I gave up and went for a shower and then had my breakfast. I was annoyed. Then as I sat in my room for my work from home, I could hear mom in the adjacent room, she was back in her room, she was speaking on the phone, then she was going around the house but not once did she come to my room to say that oh, we couldn’t do exercise today or just say let’s go now. It was as if she’d just forgotten it. I don’t know why I got more annoyed. What was the result? I couldn’t focus on my work and I’m here writing this down. So, my entire first half went down the drain because of my feelings over something mom/dad didn’t do. I’m telling myself it’s okay, mom is busy, she usually doesn’t do this, maybe she has forgotten, it’s not personal etc. etc but I’m still having to put energy in those thoughts, and now I’m too drained to be as fresh as I could have been for my work had this not happened. So this is a typical example of how things play out. And today it’s just my parents because they are the closest, when I had a bf, same problems existed there too.

I am most annoyed with myself. I had a nice productive day planned out and I’ve just wasted a quarter of it because of something so stupid. I’m literally regretting even planning this exercise things but then I am thinking that the problem is not exercise, the problem is me being so affected by mom dad’s attitude. Why am I so touchy? Why couldn’t I be okay with them not willing to do it and go about my day as I had planned. Why did this little issue overpower my day. This is what always happens. something miniscule will trigger me and there goes my productive day, and who is the only person affected? Me. Why? because I am annoyed. Why am I annoyed? because my parents didn’t respond to something that I was doing for them only. What a terrible reason to have a spoilt day it is. I really want to get out of it.

I am happy I have worked on myself a lot and it’s showing, Had this been a year ago, by this time I would have said what I’m annoyed about, would gave created an argument or even if I stayed quiet my facial expressions would have given it away. but today none of that. I havent said one complaning word and I am calm on the outside. It’s only the internal part that is now left but its so hard.
Please help. Whatever it was that caused me to be this way, I can’t keep looking back and blaming it. I want to get out of it irrespective of why I am this way. Sometimes all this makes me feel chuck it, I won’t do anything for anyone but then I feel what’s the point of life and relationships then, I feel happy when I am doing something for my loved ones and I try now doing it without expectations but once in a while something small just hurts and then all the previous times when I’d let the expectation go come flying back to me and I feel I shouldn’t do anything for anyone or love anyone this much.

Please help me-

1. Learn to be actually, really, emotionally happy by myself. Currently, I force myself to find happiness by myself, if I had it my way, I would spend every second with a loved one, my alone time is not a choice. Help me feel emotionally fulfilled alone such that relations are only a bonus and not the core of my life. I don’t want to live life like this where I feel I’m constantly controlling my emotional needs to be with a person, I want to make myself and myself alone my only emotional need so that its natural not forced. I am willing to take in all help.
2. Learn to not let emotions linger and to not let little things like today’s example get to me. I know life cannot be jolly all the time. there will be irritants, there will be things here and there but I want to inculcate resilience so that I feel bad for a few minutes, reason it out in my head and then it’s done, I go about my day or at least I can keep my emotions away from affecting my daily life productivity.

If I’d I master these two things, my life will be good. I am ready to take any advice. Please help. I am doing positive thoughts but it helps me not let my emotions lead to emotional actions but now I need something to stop me from even needing that much emotional attention internally and from letting emotions affect my mind so much.

Any help will be appreciated.