As Beth and I processed her true feelings and the origins of those feelings, I told her we could handle anything if we had two things going for us. One was she had to be real, and the second one was that we loved each other. I had already told her several times in the course of this conversation how much I loved her and how thankful I was that she was in my life. I asked her if she loved me, and with tears pouring down her face, she nodded.



One of the last things I pointed out to her was how brave and courageous she was to have risked loving again. We talked about her losses in the past, and how scary it must have been for her to “put her eggs in my basket”. We talked about how much better life was when you were in relationship with people (more on that later!) but how that very relationship made you vulnerable and able to be hurt. I explained that because she was so afraid of being abandoned or rejected yet again, she worked overtime trying to be whatever she thought I wanted her to be, rather than being who she was and trusting that I could love her for who she was.


While I know she heard me and understood at the time, I realize this is a theme we must revisit over and over and over again. It is so incredibly difficult to love this child so much and see how much pain she was in yesterday. I so want to be able to wipe those losses from her life, but I can’t. So the best we can do is deal with them together. We are not necessarily battling her intellectual understanding of how much she is loved… rather we are fighting with her inner fears that periodically raise their head and try and convince her she is unworthy of anyone’s love.


I learned many things at the conference that apply to Amy as well. More coming on that.

Photo credit to Calpsychik