I feel intensely creepy about it. When I get an fp, it’s always a woman an age that could be my mother. I fantasize, never sexually, about being held. About them taking me home and caring for me as if I’m a child (even as an adult now). I absolutely regress when I speak with them, and even when I think about them. 

I was a behavioral health nightmare dealing trauma when I was young . Juvie, hospitalizations, court, residential stint, in and out of alt-schooling. Had my first FP at 11 on a female teacher, then a female guidance counselor, then a principal and then a therapist. Anyone that would look past my behaviors to try to understand me to still offer me support, I became instantly bonded to. I kept replacing them as I aged. But, the last one I had in high school, I still obsess over. I’m still in contact with her in my 20s, and am constantly reminding myself to stay away from her so that I don’t cross a boundary so she doesn’t leave me. 

I see so many people with FPs in romantic relationships. I know the experience is painful regardless of who it is. But, part of me feels jealousy wishing that I could  break this cycle of obsession over mother-like figures- I wish I could obsess over someone my age or a boyfriend instead. I wish I could pick an FP that I could actually talk to on an every day basis and not feel shameful or weird about it.