I allow myself to be hurt

I have realized something the past few days that has been kinda hard to come to grips with, but I thought it was worth sharing.

I allow myself to be hurt by people.

Seems like a simple enough statement, but it has taken me about 3 hours to build the courage to write this blog.

I allow myself to be hurt by people.

Example on my mind:  I have always struggled with allowing myself to get close to older females.  If I psychoanalyze myself, I could say it was because my biological mom left me when I wasn't even two and I struggled when I was young to have a good relationship with my step-mom.  I would look to teachers to be more than their title required, I was looking for someone that I could attach to, and I was almost always disappointed.  Recently, I have realized that I am still following that pattern, that I take awhile to get close to an older female, and then when I do start to break the walls down, I do not vocalize my needs with them but instead get disappointed when I am not getting what I need.  For example, Dr. C.  She and I had a rocky start, I was not in a good place for most of the three months that I started to see her (October 2012) and then I was hospitalized for about a month in January 2013.  When I came out of the hospital I was in a better place, and started to allow myself to form an attachment.  We e-mailed and blogged, sometimes sending text messages if I really needed something.  Recently, when we were trying to end a REALLY rough session, and I was next to hysterical and trying to walk out of her office, she tried to hug me, and I pulled away.  Later, as I thought about it, I felt really guilty.  She was attempting to give me the very thing that I needed and honestly wanted and yet I couldn't accept it.  So, I decided to start being more open with, well, I guess with the experience.  And what I think I did was allow myself to be hurt.  After that interaction I put her on a pedestal and expected that she would be able to meet all my needs and, frankly, all my demands of her.  I have become upset if I e-mail her and don't get responses.  I get offended if our sessions only last 50 minutes, as routinely we go over the hour mark.  What I need to realize is that I have two options in this situation: I either need to tell her what I am expecting and come to a common agreement OR I need to stop going from zero to 100 in two steps.  Does that make any sense?  I feel like I go from not wanting anything to wanting it all, and that's not fair to her or me.  I need to be more realistic with myself, and have less expectations of her.

This is something that I am just starting to work on, especially since it might be what's going on right now and I am trying to work through it.  Add it to the list of all my goals for this year....