Your T sounds smart. She’s saying what I was saying about context. We all lived in a certain context that set the stage for our personalities, our emotions, our thoughts, our actions. Context matters.

I remember when I finally developed empathy for myself. I was in a group and realized how much I understood and deeply empathized with others who had gone through very similar experiences as I had. It finally struck me that I would never have blamed them or called them bad. They were kids and just living and responding and behaving in the context of the life they had been dealt. Not having that same level of empathy for myself as the child I was, living in my own context, honestly made no rational sense. I finally started forgiving myself, not that I really needed anyone else’s forgiveness, but it was time to let that child off the hook. It was unreasonable for the adult me to keep holding the child me to my adult standards.