Yes, partly due to her, partly through my own hard work as I researched about parenting and revised my beliefs toward how children should be raised.

We had been doing imagery exercises off and on where she was protecting my younger self, comforting my younger self, being assertive towards the perpetrators. I didn't believe in imagery and I often told her I felt it was BS, but I liked what she would say in them. So I tolerated the exercises.

She started wanting to coach me to step in as my Adult Self to protect and comfort my younger self but I felt hatred and urges to hurt my younger self every time she tried. I however did feel protectiveness, compassion and courage if I imagined the exercise to be about any other child other than myself.

Following a case study of woman who had no compassion for her younger self but plenty of compassion for her young daughter, I adopted her adaptation of metta: "May she be safe. May we be safe."

I didn't believe it still, but I kept doing it and listening to the words my therapist said whenever we did imagery... Then one day, I felt a flickering feeling of protectiveness and desire to help my younger self. With a lot of coaching, and a great deal of struggling with my wavering voice, I was able to "step in and finish" the imagery exercise with my Adult Self comforting and protecting my younger self.

She considered that a huge breakthrough. So do I.