Dear Gavin:

You are welcome. I hope that this worst emotional pain will lessen and lessen over time.

“I am trying to come to terms with what I did and why. The therapist is helping me and also came to the same conclusions that I must have had serious trauma in childhood to cause me to act the way that I did … I think a lot of the points you make are valid about my childhood, which have shaped me as an adult. My childhood wasn’t a happy experience, with parents constantly fighting, doors being slammed and general unhappiness”-

–  We forget how we felt as young children. Young children feel very intensely and hurt (as well as the anger that often follows hurt and fear) feels raw and acute. Imagine that your current emotional pain is not “the worst emotional pain (you) have ever experienced“, that it hurt worse, when you were a child, seeing and hearing your parents fighting, slamming doors etc., day in and day out.

It is the child, the boy that you were, whose intense anger hurt your ex- and yourself. But the boy was not a bad boy.. no, he was a good boy stuck in bad circumstances, such that hurt and scared him too much, more than he was able to endure.

“… After so many months my pain, guilt and suffering do not seem to be abating. I have just learned/confirmed that my ex is now seeing someone and appears to be in love. I am happy for her, but I am totally devastated. The suffering goes on and on.”-

– look in, see the boy that is still very much a part of you. He needs your empathetic attention; he needs to be seen and heard. He wasn’t heard in the midst of slamming doors and noise. Hear him now, let him tell you (or your therapist.. or here) what he didn’t yet get a chance to tell. And listen to him with care.

It will make him/ you feel better, much better.

anita