The first thing that comes to mind when I think back and try to recollect all the things that were of value to me in the feedback I received, is the following:

It's not all about "What on Earth have I ever done to deserve this", it's about "All the things that I've been going through".

I knew the former was completely the wrong way of looking at things every time my mother repeated the sentence in despair, but I couldn't think of the right way to be interpreting my illness. All I could come up with, was "Maybe it's not a negative thing, maybe my illness is a reward!"

Psycho- and hypnotherapy made clear to me that it was a build up of a million dramatic happenings full of stress and horridness (in my life) that made my illness surface. What I didn't understand though, was why did it come when it came? Why, after all the horridness had all ended, did it decide to bother me just when things were starting to get nice? A psychology magazine gave me the answer in a side header to a relaxation article:

Stress suppresses illness, up until everything subsides into calmness.

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One of the most prominent things my therapist said during the consults, in conclusion to a variety of happenings I'd told her about, is that she believes that, as a child, I greatly missed acknowledgment and appreciation from grownups. And that was just exactly right. And it explains to me completely why I hung on to those few who entirely worshipped me, as if I were a goddess.

We then fine-tuned it a little: I greatly missed acknowledgment and appreciation of all that was and is within me; my abilities and potential, from grownups. I always hated being treated like a child. Even when I was a child. I liked to hang around grownups who weren't very good with children: at least they treated me like an equal. That was nice.

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I feel so