stopdog, i think your T is trying to break through your steel wall you have built around your emotions, because NO child has no feelings towards horrible things that have happened to them. and hitting a child, berating a child, abusing a child...NONE of those things would make ANY child happy in any sort of way. all it would do is confuse, scare and hurt the child. children are innocent, full of feelings beings. i work with 2 year olds and what they feel comes out of them. they have no filters, and they certainly feel every emotion that is just how humans are. when a 2 year old feels absolutely TERRIBLE when they get in trouble, one can only imagine how horrible and confusing it would be when people who are supposed to protect you hurt you in ways that truly are unimaginable.

i also work with babies, and even small babies as of 5 or 6 months can get greatly attached to me--and that is as a day care worker. just this morning i had 3 or 4 babies that all came in at once that are used to solely having my attention upon them. i had to divide my attention, and it was mayhem! each one would cry and crawl up me because they are used to me holding them, playing with them, smiling at them...etc. it amazes me how strong feelings are towards other people (not even mom) as such a young age.

a little girl, 10 months just went away to Spain for 2 months over the summer. she has horrible separation anxiety, but by the time she had left she would actually smile when she saw me and was happy to be there...which was a HUGE improvement. i was so nervous when she returned because it would be like starting all over again. it took a lot of determination and hard work to get her to like me! she just came back this week, and while things have been a little shaky-she smiled at me and remembered me, at 10 months!

OK--i am rambling. the point i am trying to get across is that children display very strong feelings, positive or negative. i have yet to meet one child in all my years that doesn't feel anything. so i believe you when you don't feel anything when you recount these "incidents," because it IS normal--but i also believe your T. I am sure you were terrified, hurt, angry...etc. Like other people have said, the mind is amazing and has completely buried those emotions because having them was protecting you in a "life or death" manner. in childrens' minds, when they get in trouble/abused/hurt it is because of what THEY did--they need to keep their parents/abusers as safe people, because if they are not safe in their mind, then they will die. children are egocentric, but also very dependent. in order to not obliterate (in their minds), they need to make their abuser an ok person, and in order to do that the child needs to believe that they are bad--so any negative feelings are going to be too overwhelming for a child to cope with, therefore they go buried deep in the mind.

it all makes sense in how you think you act so irrationally and inappropriately in your adult life. all those things that you are reacting to are somehow invoking the anger/hurt/terror you felt as a kid, so you react emotionally, aka irrationally. but since the mind is so tricky, it is REALLY difficult to figure out what that trigger is and to link it up to what happened in teh past, especially if you have no conscious recollection of any of those feelings. i am the same way and i have experienced no abuse.

la la la. i'm done rambling now