Dear noname:

You are very welcome and thank you for expressing your appreciation.

You wrote that in your dreams, the most prevalent theme is “trying to earn love in one way or another”. Very recently, I am thinking about what love of a parent for a child means, and I figure it means that the parent values the child in practice- not as an object, or a toy, or as company so the parent is not alone, or someone to show off or brag about and so forth- but as a three dimensional human being with thoughts and emotions and needs, as worthy as any human of any age, anywhere.

To value a child in practice would mean to never mistreat the child, to always be respectful to the child, to ask him questions and listen attentively and with curiosity, wanting to know more.

When the child is not valued, the child tries to earn being valued in all kinds of ways. I think that after trying so many times to earn it, over a long, long time, and failing to earn it, the child gets depressed.

When a parent doesn’t value a young child, before he is able to accomplish anything, it is because the parent does not value children. Maybe the parent values rich people or powerful business people and their children are neither one of these things. The achievements of a child in little league or grammar school may not be enough for a parent. Or a parent may use these achievements so to brag to her peers, which is using the child, not valuing the child.

“I have a sense as if there’s some serious grief that needs to be accessed”- maybe it is the grief of not having been valued by your parents. To be valued by one’s parents is a fundamental need of a child. It hurts so deeply to not be valued by the people the child values most highly, his/ her parents. The child needs his parents to value him. When this need is dissatisfied, it doesn’t go away and it cannot be satisfied by professional and material achievements or be experienced for long, if at all,  with romantic partners, not without enough emotional healing.

“I want nothing more than to be close to that boy again.. he is the portal to my joy.. I hope I can figure out how to find him?”

You said it so well, the portal to your joy. To find him, we can start with what brought you joy, and still does, skateboarding. You wrote that you were four when you got your first board, that you cherished that board so much, and “couldn’t wait to get out of school to go skate”- do you remember who bought you that board and if one of your parents taught you to skateboard or encouraged you to skateboard.. in other words, did any of your parents (or any adult) value you skateboarding?

anita