Silly attachments

Dear Doctor,

I find it hard to know, let alone admit to myself, exactly what it means when I’m attached to somebody. But I can see the patterns that play out through these attachments again and again. What’s more, it feels like the trend is that they end in increasingly bad ways.

It seems to happen when I’m in a vulnerable place and then am understood or listened to by an older (albeit not that much) woman. I have such a long list of these ‘mother figures’ from the last 20 years and I hate myself for it. I find it really hard to talk about out loud.

As soon as I saw it coming with you, I honestly tried so hard, employing all tactics and some serious prayer to try to keep myself from attaching. But evidently I failed.

A while ago I asked Brent whether this meant I should stop seeing you (even though that would be very sad) but he said no. I will just go and attach myself to someone else and you, being a professional involved in my care, are apparently an excellent person to be attached to because we can contain it, try to get to the bottom of it and crack it once and for all. (I’m not exactly sure who ‘we’ is.)

There are many reasons why I get nervous of our appointments but I think one is that I’m not sure how much of this you are aware of and I’m scared you’ll change if you find out. Each time I talk to you, I don’t know what will come to light and that’s scary. So at least I’m getting it all out here.

I’m really sorry to be stressful and pathetic. I hope you understand a bit and don’t despise me.

One way this all manifests itself is in feeling especially sensitive to whether you like me and I keep feeling overwhelmed (mainly after phone calls which I’m generally so bad at) that you must dislike me. I’m not sure there is anything you can do to help with this though. Knowing I have to wait ages to get any kind of reassurance is hard. But that is by no means the only reason I struggle with long between appointments.

It’s also especially made hard with the fact you know people I know. That’s not your fault at all - and it’s more because it’s you, than because you’re my doctor, that I struggle with it. I can’t cope with relationships at the best of times, but this is an especially unusual one in my life. And it all is so hard to get my head round.

But this is all extra complicated as it makes it hard to distinguish my motives. For example, I wasn’t attached to you at the beginning of the year but was really upset that I couldn’t get an appointment (and was so relieved and thankful when you rang to see how I was when I wasn’t expecting it). So I know that I do (often, at least) have good reason to see you. I certainly, believe it or not, feel more in control about the whole getting better thing from seeing you. And you’re a really good doctor, as well as such an encouraging, wise and lovely lady.

Basically, I feel stuck and distressed by it all. Please help me and don’t reject me....

Laura