As much as this is foreign to me, I don't think you should call it pathetic. Perhaps the fact that I can not fathom seeing myself as a child is pathetic? Maybe we just both need to work from where we are, and not worry about where we are along in the journey.

Ah yes "that perfect person" that doesn't exist no matter how hard and long the search...and yet the search continues....I often ask myself why do I search and then I wonder if that search is the hope that's kept me going through the deep, over-whelming pain of a non-existent self....even if that hope is misplaced and misguided. Obviously these feeling aren't about your therapist, or that one situation although perhaps it has been 'easier' in the past to focus on it that way as it gives a possibility of 'fixing' it....maybe "that person" is us but we're too scared to know it?!

Perhaps the radical acceptance is that it sucks? It genuinely does. It really sucks to lose someone that felt for a brief period of time like everything...even if they're still technically there in some cases!

Sometimes I wonder if our Self is ageless...I wonder if it feels non-existent and weak simply because it is sitting in the background waiting to be discovered beneath all the emotions and noise? Like the moment between breaths.

I don't know. But I am sorry that you are hurting.