Curve balls? Heck, I don't even play softball!!!

[In_Shock]

val, i've read your post several times. You are such an emotionally connected person --- damn, that must be what W has said I'm missing....!!! (remember, that was a big complaint that I'm always in my head, that I'm not emotionally connected....) I've tried SOOOO effin' hard to make sense of the whole emotional realm --- and I've grown, yes, hard growth but I've grown. YOU - Val- my friend are a guru for this stuff....thanks for taking the time to give me the insight.

Yes, sometimes I really do think I'm sabotaging myself -- perhaps subconsciously --- But I'm recognizing it--- and dammit that's more than I did before, so that's progress. Maybe somewhere inside --- deep--- i realize this R isn't right for me? Maybe I KNOW that internally but I'm hanging on for--- what??? Perhaps the idea of the R how it 'should' be? I'm just thinking now... kind of a Virginia Woolf stream of consciousness thing going for me...

And I'm continuing to read about codependence. I think it fits. I think I'm afraid to be alone. I think I don't feel WHOLE when I'm alone. I know from the get go that my parents weren't ever emotionally 'there' for me -- i don't think they ever *much like i was* even understood the concept. He@@, they were from another generation that had REAL problems like oh, WWII and the Depression. Emotional connection--- to them I'm sure it sounded like so much namby pamby nonsense. W tells me she feels that I was (emotionally) raised by wolves. OK, I get it. I'm in my freakin' head. But I've gotten better and that's all anyone can ask -- right? If I didn't really want to connect/to try, I would have just ignored her. But when she mentioned emotional connectivity --- well, perhaps I did it the wrong way by reading books, looking up websites, etc... I wanted to change so W would feel the emotional connection that I (wrongly) thought we already had. My IC once told me it was a loving thing to try to change for someone, but not to get LOST in the other person's needs/demands. Now I 'get' what he meant.

I know that i DO definitely look to the external world for my self worth. Hence the many higher degrees I have, my job (I get to talk all day from a 'pedestal' to students who for the most part adore me LOL), and my constant need for approval from W. I feel in control in my classroom, at work, in academia. In my personal life, I feel as if I've become a quivering, quaking, mass of protoplasm or something!!