Particle only plays when Selected in the Hierarchy Window

This took me forever to figure out, but long story short.. I have a particle that is attached to a character where I am animating the Rate at different times for different animations. The issue, is that when I DONT have the particle selected in the Hierarchy window.. the particle simply plays all the time no matter what, ignoring my animation curves I created in the Animation window to control the RATE. BUT... If I simply select the particle in the Hierarchy window.. and then hit play.. everything works great, the Particle turns off and on when it should based on the curves/keys I animated in the Animation window. On the particle, I have.. Culling Type set to ALWAYS ANIMATE and PLAY AUTOMATICALLY is OFF I really dont know what else to do.. Its just nuts that it plays great when the particle is simply highlighted in the Hierarchy window.. but if I select something else and hit play it ignores my curves and just emits nonstop. Thanks in advance for any help.