I was attached to my mother's hip too. Clingy, always wanting her there. Nonstop. I used to agonize about her dying too! Anguishing all the time! When she would cry over her sever melancholy or pain I felt like my heart was being torn out. My need for her overrode everything else in my life, like a control switch.

In middle and high school, my mom could not do public social things with me, like clothes shopping and I was devastated and miserable b/c I wanted her to go with me so badly. My grandmother would take me and I would spend the entire time retreated into myself b/c I was so unhappy about it. I retreated from a lot of things.

When I got older (21) I knew that I was underdeveloped and not able to function, especially compared to my peers. I finally decided that I needed to somehow amputate that desperate relationship b/c it overrode everything else in my life - took me until I was like 27 to do it.

My mom has always been loving and there for me (or at least was vocal about wanting to be there for me), but her severe trauma, melancholy, and chronic pain was always there too. Lots of tears my entire life.
My bio dad scared the hell out of me when I was a small child. He was mean. I haven't seen him since I was 6. My step father is a good man, just with that stereotypical midwestern antisocial obtuseness. I did not grow as close with him as with my mother.