I truly met my nemesis today. Myself

I made a call and admitted I needed help. Those that know me well know that this is not something I do, since my entire persona hinges on not needing help. Ever

So now I do.

For the last few days I have been having mild panic attacks. Not the lie on the floor clutching a bag to your face panic attack, but the sudden surge of adrenalin 'I am about to be mugged' type of attack. It has not been pleasant.

Panic is not a sensation that I relate to. What I relate to is the cause. For me it seems that a semi panic attack is not caused by not coping, but the fear of not coping. A sort of no mans land between being absolutely fine and fine. It is the bit in the middle where you think you will be fine but your brain is shouting "But what if you are not going to be fine" For an emotional control freak this is dangerous and uncomfortable territory.

So I made a call and before I knew it I was spilling everything to a hypnotherapist and NLP guru. The stuff that came out was fairly toe curling uncomfortable. It seems that not only am I a woman with Prada but a woman with issues. I knew this deep down, but knowing something and addressing it are two different things. Addressing issues is notoriously uncomfortable and most of us, myself included - spend the best part of our lives avoiding them. Until we start feeling like we are about to be mugged.

It would appear that in my 'deny the reality' world, I have been denying the reality that I have a pathological aversion to being emotionally vulnerable. The fear of being vulnerable makes me numb to real feelings. This is completely logical. If I do not recognise or acknowledge my own emotional need, I cannot get hurt. If I choose people to love that have huge emotional needs, I can throw myself into meeting theirs in a bid to avoid mine. Complicated but simple. I have an issue with trusting people with my emotions. It may be irrational but believe me, it's not without good cause.

The irony - I only realised this as a result of a very short period when I thought it was safe to be vulnerable. It would seem it was not a safe place, but I didn't know that. I do not need anyone, I stopped needing anyone a very long time ago. It is not hard to learn that if you need someone and you get nothing emotionally, you get very hurt. So you switch of the need and you become in charge of your own emotions. Tis much harder to hurt yourself. Or so you think.

What I realise today is that I am right in the fact that I do not need anyone but having exposed myself to it briefly, I got a glimpse of what feeling safe felt like. It was an alien and truly fantastic feeling. It does however suck, that it was such a brief period until I realised the person I had felt safe with, was in fact emotion control freak dobble ganger. Having allowed myself to feel safe, I now feel extremely unsafe and very emotionally exposed. Stuck in the headlights, I cannot go back to feeling numb but feeling vulnerable is about as comfortable as a mohair G string

It also made me understand why chemistry is so important to me. Chemistry takes over logic and rationale. Since both of these are apparently screwed, chemistry is the only time I can truly let my guard down and feel genuine, spontaneous emotions.

So I need to do things. I need to change it. I will not spend the rest of my life with men that leave me feeling too scared to have emotional needs and I do not want to be in a place where I am too scared to recognise and express them. I do not need to be in a place where I am so scared of being judged for unkindness that I have to continue trying to understand people that are simply unkind.

Sometimes in a bid to protect ourselves from reality and responsibility, the only real person we hurt, is ourselves.