Dear Seaturtle:

“To get back with him permanently, he would have to… (make) me feel seen and heard… love me correctly with.. 100% adoration“-

-You wrote the above before the quote in my first reply today, right above this one. I referred to this quote yesterday as an unrealistic expectation. I want to elaborate on this a bit: a child feels intensely (before suppressing and repressing the intensity). When a child grows up unseen, the child feels it intensely, and a strong, enduring desire is born: to be seen, but not just to be seen some, but to be seen A LOT, so to make up/ compensate for the intensity of having been unseen… to satisfy and neutralize that intense desire.

100% adoration is unsustainable, unrealistic: no person is available enough to give this to anyone, not even a parent to a child. Part of healing, following the grieving of growing up unseen, is to lower this expectation.

anita