When you're two and three years old, Miguel's mom, it's not likely that any child of that age is going to grasp the full nature of not being loved unconditionally. That's what this thread started out to be, but is somehow being sidetracked into later years of family abuse. I did not know at 2 years of age that sibling rivalry had a lot to do with the problem, nor did I know that my mother was not a woman who ever wanted children. Those things do influence little ones unconsciously more than many realize.

I suppose your difficulty affected you in your own way, too, and I'm glad that you took care to see that your child was reared with love and knowledge. Your answer that your parents "screwed up ... life" for you is sufficient to say that you were aware at some point of the injuries you sustained, whether you knew it in very early childhood or not may be questionable based on your answer.

By 4 years of age, most children are able to grasp more maturely what's happening in their treatment, and much younger than that they do not grasp fully the depth of the problem, in my view. For example, I can remember my sister's throwing a cup of hot coffee in my face at the table for breakfast when I was still in my highchair. I remember my mother's disciplining her, but not much more about it except that I wondered what the #$%^ was wrong with her that made her do that.

I respected my mother and father, despite their lack of knowledge about how to rear children. They were not uneducated people, and they did the best they knew how, in my view, and I loved them; in fact, I took care of my mother during the last years of her life following a stroke. But that is not to say that I did not suffer (as all children do to some extent from childhood mistakes in discipline, nurturing, understanding and patience). They are overcome by being made conscious and aware and working on them, according to most people in-the-know about handling the psychic hurts of young childhood.

I suspect that a large part of healing in psychotherapy relates to the work done on
the little child within.

I agree that all people have good things about them--some more than others, however. And some have far more problems in life than we have experienced in our
childhood years. Nevertheless, those impressions in childhood do have a bearing on
our mature years, and often psychotherapy is helpful in resolving them. Depression
is in large part due to unmet needs of childhood that are emerging.