I haven't dealt with that sort of abusive childhood myself. I did experience quite severe depression and anxiety as a young child and parented myself to a large degree. My T has mentioned one time, one moment when she was younger and she had to take herself away on her own, and she cried and... I forget how she worded it, but she felt like you do when you're quite depressed. Sometimes, I'm so aware of how little she understands about how hard I work and fight for life all the time. Sometimes she seems so caught up in they're just thoughts and can't hurt you mode, that I think she forgets...they do hurt me, a lot. She's also given me examples of how fantastically people with severe disabilities have gone on to live their life and make the most of what they've got...and I think, sometimes she forgets that the way I struggle is quite different from that sort of struggle, but it's still a huge struggle. So sometimes I think about what T has experienced compared to me. I know she didn't have the ideal family life herself, and so there are some things she can relate to, and that's actually quite helpful. I wish she understood what it was like to have nobody...and then to just have one person, a T who is so contained by boundaries and who you'll one day lose forever. Sorry, that was a really gloomy post and probably not very related to what you're after, Geez.

In terms of a T having experienced something similar, I think they need to have moved through the issue and done a lot of work on it themselves, before being able to help someone with something similar, so that their own issues didn't get in the way. It can be nice, I think, to have someone who really gets it though.