Why Do I Run?

When I was a kid I had a favorite cousin. She was soft spoken, nice, and probably a genius. She graduated college at 16 and med school at 21. She spent most of her short life doing cancer research. The radiation they used in those days probably killed her. She died at 36 from some kind of lymphoma. She gave me a medical dictionary that I have to this day. In the midst of all the noise in my house, she would sit down and talk to me, and actually listen when I answered. The thing is, every time she came to visit I would run upstairs to hide. I loved her, but I would hide. It was too much to bear. The phrase "I'm not worthy" comes to mind. What made me hide? In my child's mind I could not verbalize the feelings. Now I know. I'm just not good enough. If I feel that people really care about me, I get scared. If I really care about them I get scared. It looks bad for an adult to run and hide, but that's what I do. I hide, and then hate myself for hiding. When I finally do see these people, I try so,so, hard to please that I am exhausted. I want them to love me, but I don't want them to need anything from me. This is because deep, deep, down I feel that I am nothing. Intellectually, I tell my self otherwise, but the emotions haven't changed. That's why I fall apart. What can I hold onto within myself? Self hatred is hard to change. All the affirmations in the world offer little help for me. Well, life constantly changes, maybe I can continue to fight the current. We'll see.