Dear Anita,

I am responding to the rest of your post from November 14, 2023 at 10:23

“But if the child is there all by herself (akin to an adult who is completely identified with her inner-child, no distance/ separation  between the two), the child will not make sensible choices for herself.”

I have been using this visual a lot the last couple days. However, how do you tell the voices apart at times. For example right now, N is planning to bring over dinner and spend the eve with me tonight. Some part of me wants him to come, a hug sounds nice, his smile and cuddles and eating together all sound good. Another part of me wonders if him coming over is best, if I need to be alone, I feel a little anxious that he will trigger me in some way and I just feel susceptible to that right now. Does hatchling want to tell N not to come? Or is it Seaturtle who wants to protect hatchling and tell N not to come? in other words who wants him to come for a hug and comfort, Seaturtle or hatchling? when I am conflicted in this way, are my teetering thoughts between Seaturtle and hatch or is there more at play?

“- hatchling needs to be free to be herself (to be known to herself and to others) in every context, every day. She gets to be herself when drawing, painting and acting in a play, but she needs more opportunities to be her true self.. opportunities to discover who she is (to become known to herself).”

Yes I feel this. Although I know who I am to an extent as I wrote above, I still freeze and forget who I am. Sometime I will carve to just do “something” anything! that makes me feel like me, but I freeze up and don’t know what to do. I can’t afford to go to the craft store and I am not in the mood for what I have around, I have felt this paralyzing sensation before and need more things that make me feel like my true self, discovering those things is where I feel I am now.

” If indeed, hatchling’s experience with her father is as significant to her as I believe it is, then the personal attention she needs is to be heard, to be able to tell her story as it truly is.”

Exactly, hearing her is where I am now. But As I wrote earlier about who I am, can I know who I am and still struggle to hear hatchling? Or do you need to fully be in-tuned and have a good relationship with hatchling to know who you are?

“– it may be that you are compensating your father for having a different daughter (different from F) by giving your father a similar future son-in-law  (similar to your father). It may be that you are giving yourself the freedom to be different from your father because of this exchange.”

Very possible.

“– my understanding: hatchling has been trying so hard to gain her father’s approval by behaving in ways that would gain his approval, ways that didn’t feel true to her, or didn’t yet feel true to her (hatchling needed time and opportunities to become her true, genuine self).  “

Hmm, so what if instead of picking someone who would put me in the cage like F, what if to an extent I was “trying so hard to gain her father’s (N’s) approval by behaving in ways that would gain his approval” . When I met N, I did not want to conform for someone to like me, and I was very aware of this tendency, but what if at some point I just unknowingly fell back into this pattern and tried to be what he wanted for his approval. Hm I have to think more about this idea..

“Whenever she succeeded in getting F’s (temporary, conditional) approval, she said to herself something like: he didn’t approve of the true me, he approved of the fake me. The result: even when you received his approval at any one time, you never received approval for who you truly were/ who you were yet to be.”

Very accurate.

As I was writing this final response I felt nervous that it was going to overwhelm you with how much I have written. Please don’t feel like you need to rush to respond or to too much at once. Thank you 🙂

Seaturtle and hatch