[ScarletPimpernel]

Question: How are you supposed to get your child needs met as an adult?

L meets a lot of my needs. Sometimes she'll even meet my mothering and nurturing needs. Sometimes, not. Part of me feels like she withholds it from me, but I'm pretty sure she isn't because that's not like her. Maybe my needs are just too big?

I feel hopeless. The neglect from my childhood really affected my whole life. I feel more like a child than an adult. I wish I had a child's body because maybe then L would wrap me in her arms and protect me from the world. Well, that's the fantasy at least.

I just feel so deprived of mothering and nurturing. I crave it. And I just don't think it will ever go away.

Am I stuck with this forever?

[Therapy reviewed]

It does get better. My emotional neglect was all encompassing. I use to take women emotionally hostage most of my life trying to get something from thrn that I craved.
I can't tell you the hours I spent trying to invent a reason to get them to care for me. The amount of alcohol I'd drink whilst in these day dreams. I send myself to sleep inventing myself on my death bed with who ever was my chosen victim at that time sitting caring about me in my death

I've had 20yrs of 2x a week therapy. It ended abruptly and I was left feeling what had it achieved. But seeing posts like this puts it in perspective. I no longer take women emotionally hostage nor feel the need to have those old day dreams. That hole no longer exists. So I guess being seen and heard was enough.

[Oliviab]

I don't really know the answer to this, but it is something I am working on myself and with my T. One thing I do know (at least for me), this is a long, slow process. Like, SO much slower than if the needs had been met at the age-appropriate time. My T says that this has to do with "windows of opportunity" relating to brain development, and how our brains are primed to learn certain things at certain times, and if they don't, those things can never be learned in quite the same way. But they can be learned. Partially, anyway. I liken it to the healing that happens after a serious injury. There will always be a scar, and it may ache and pull sometimes, or be stiff, and not function the same way--things will never be as if the injury hadn't happened--but they can still be vastly improved from the original wound.

My best understanding of how this process works is that some of the needs can be partially (although probably not fully) met from a deep and trusting relationship like the one we have with our Ts and through lots of repetition. Some of them we can learn to meet ourselves by cultivating a more adult part who can step forward and meet some of those needs in the moment, over and over again. Cultivating this adult part can take a long time. Over time, this adult part should take over more and more of this from the T. (Some people call this "parenting" the child parts, but I do not. I cannot tolerate that term, because of a complex history with parents. The term causes a very negative, visceral reaction in me. I tend to think of it more as we are all marooned on a desert island together and I have to help them, whether I want to or not, or feel capable or not).

And then, there are some needs that can't be met, or can't be fully met, and those we have to grieve and accept things as they are. And the grieving process is scary and intense and I think it comes last, when all other avenues of hope have been exhausted. I have been working with my T for over 7 years, twice a week, and I am still afraid of the grief--it seems too vast, like an ocean that I am afraid to wade into for fear it will swallow me and I will not emerge. But I know I have to. Eventually.

[unaluna]

Taking a person emotionally hostage - what a perfect description. Except that i do it to myself, because thats what im used to. First the parents, thrn the awful dating and marriages, and always the messy hoarding. When am i actually gonna start being NICE to myself?

[SlumberKitty]

I struggle with this too. My parents were emotionally neglectful when I was a child. Not because they didn't care but because my Dad was gone all the time and my mom was unstable with untreated Bipolar 2 disorder and they both had ridiculously high expectations of my sister and I. Our emotions were not tolerated. We weren't hugged or cuddled. We weren't allowed to have a tantrum, or moan, or be sad, or cry, or heaven forbid we be angry. It was like we were little robots. Obey. Obey. Obey. That was the only thing they cared about. That and being perfect which is impossible to achieve and even harder to maintain.

I don't know how to comfort myself now as an adult. Therapists will ask me what I do to comfort myself and I have no idea what to say. I have no idea how to get those needs met from when I was a child. I mean, I guess those needs are always going to be unmet, but now that I am an adult I have all these deficiencies. I think part of that is why I self harm so much. It fills an emotional need for me.

I have one darling friend from Church who gives the best hugs. They are like a bear hug. And she holds on for about 30 seconds. It is delightful. I wish I could lose myself in that hug. I also wish I could bottle it so I could carry it with me for the rest of the week. She wasn't at Church last night and I really missed her hug. I counted on getting it. And I didn't. And then the criticalness of self sets in. Like I shouldn't be so dependent on a hug. It's ridiculous. I need to learn how to fill my own emotional needs. The other hard thing is that I don't really know what my emotional needs are. If I had to guess: to be heard. To be seen. To be understood. To be accepted. To be empathized with.

Yeah. I fear I am going to go through my life and just be a huge ball of messed-up-ness because I don't know how to do these things for myself.

HUGS Kit

[Rive.]

I personally don't think it is possible. It will never be possible to rewind, change history, and receive what we did not get. So the ache will always be there.

It's like losing a limb. Sure, it is possible to adjust to a new reality without it but at the end of the day, we *are* missing a limb. For me, child needs needed to have been met in childhood. Anything else is not the 'real' thing and is just a band-aid.

[Waterbear]

I actually disagree with Rive, my personal experience is that these childhood needs can be met, but I think it takes something really really special, and I'm not sure that that can be found in traditional therapy. Gosh, I'm not even sure that it can be found in any type of therapy, really, because I think the thing that really helped to 'cure' me was an incredibly special relationship that potentially went beyond the bounds of therapy. I too used to take people emotionally hostage (also love that saying) and had such an enormous great big gaping hole in my heart that I thought would never be filled. I used to look at random people in the street and wonder what they would be like as a mother to me, and any female I encountered would become my next target, so to speak.

But I am now in a much different place. I don't have that same hole, or that massive ache. Instead I have just a known missing. I know I missed out on what should have been, and yes, that's sad, but it no longer dictates my life or how I interact with people, and that is as a result of th relationship and the work that I did with my ex therapist, so I do think it is possible, but for me at least, it had to be real. Like really real. I had to know, in my core that it was real, and that I wasn't just another client to her. I had to know that I meant something to her. Learning to know that (I can't say believe, because to believe it implies that it might not be true) took a long time, and a lot of work on both our parts, and it was the hardest work I had ever done. I think if you asked her, she would probably say it was the hardest work she had ever done, too, but I was also absolutely incredible, and I am so grateful that the stars aligned to make it happen.

I'm rambling, and not even sure I'm answering your questions, but I hope it was helpful in some way, and happy to talk more if you want.

[AnaWhitney]

Hugs to you ❤️❤️ Great replies & I have nothing helpful to add but I’ve been really wanting to ask when I read your posts, what does L stand for ?

[ScarletPimpernel]

Originally Posted by AnaWhitney

Hugs to you ❤️❤️ Great replies & I have nothing helpful to add but I’ve been really wanting to ask when I read your posts, what does L stand for ?

L is my therapist's first name initial. I already have an ex-T and T (who is now my backup therapist), so I had to go with L's initial.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Thank you all for your responses. I asked L for a phone call tonight. She believes that all of you have a point. She believes that I can still get some nurturing needs met, while others I'll have to grieve. She says she holds hope for me, but it can be a long process. She said my young parts need to be seen and heard. I added that they need to be responded to, too. We call trauma work emotional tunnel work. She said we will do that in tomorrow's session. I told her I think this is one of my main issues, that I've experienced it for all 40 years. She agreed.

[Waterbear]

I'm glad you had a phone call with L, and that it helped. Yes, I forgot the grieving part. There is so much that need to be grieved for, but that in itself is the healing Scarlet, and so it is really worth doing. It hurts but it does make a difference.

[ScarletPimpernel]

I feel like I can't grieve it because that means there's a pain that will never be soothed. And to me, that seems unbearable. Logically, I've been bearing this pain my whole life (seeking mother-figures from at least 5 years old). So what's another 40 years?

I just want it to be soothed! It's such a big hole inside me. I used to believe that if you built up your life around it, the hole would become smaller. I had many mother-figures. At one point, I had friends too. I guess it was fulfilling enough at that point? I don't remember. But I lost everyone. I'm actually more emotionally stable now than I have ever been. And yet the ache is stronger than ever too.

Is it like how L says that as your window of tolerance grows, the more you can feel? So while it feels more painful, you are actually able to take in more and heal more?

While that would make logical sense, I still emotionally suffer, and I still want the nurturing.

I just hurt... And this weather not allowing me to see L in-person tomorrow doesn't help. I don't get the physical reassurances that I depend on and desperately needing right now.

Originally Posted by Waterbear

I actually disagree with Rive, my personal experience is that these childhood needs can be met, but I think it takes something really really special, and I'm not sure that that can be found in traditional therapy. Gosh, I'm not even sure that it can be found in any type of therapy, really, because I think the thing that really helped to 'cure' me was an incredibly special relationship that potentially went beyond the bounds of therapy. I too used to take people emotionally hostage (also love that saying) and had such an enormous great big gaping hole in my heart that I thought would never be filled. I used to look at random people in the street and wonder what they would be like as a mother to me, and any female I encountered would become my next target, so to speak.

But I am now in a much different place. I don't have that same hole, or that massive ache. Instead I have just a known missing. I know I missed out on what should have been, and yes, that's sad, but it no longer dictates my life or how I interact with people, and that is as a result of th relationship and the work that I did with my ex therapist, so I do think it is possible, but for me at least, it had to be real. Like really real. I had to know, in my core that it was real, and that I wasn't just another client to her. I had to know that I meant something to her. Learning to know that (I can't say believe, because to believe it implies that it might not be true) took a long time, and a lot of work on both our parts, and it was the hardest work I had ever done. I think if you asked her, she would probably say it was the hardest work she had ever done, too, but I was also absolutely incredible, and I am so grateful that the stars aligned to make it happen.

I'm rambling, and not even sure I'm answering your questions, but I hope it was helpful in some way, and happy to talk more if you want.

It sounds like a large part of your narrative relies on specialness and mystical ideas - stars aligning and connection beyond boundaries. I find it troubling when these kind of concepts are celebrated in therapy.

It is categorical fact that childhood needs cannot be met in adulthood. Given the right nurturing, adults should be able to thrive knowing that we aren't special (beyond the vitality that we all have) and that we are ordinary. Thriving whilst knowing our ordinariness would be possible because part of our development would have been to have experienced a time when we were special and precious; to have integrated that experience into our self; and crucially to be able to leave behind the need to be special to another because it is settled within our own heart.

What if you were just another client? If you (or I) can't tolerate that idea, I think we are still stuck with our unmet needs.

It is really dangerous territory to characterise work which happens beyond boundaries as something nurturing, especially when other posters (like me) have deep wounds. It is very alluring to consider that preciousness, but the currency in such a place isn't one of love and specialness. I could write a similar "special" narrative to yours, but my reality includes pain, abandonment (the ending is a crucial part of the work and if the work ends unilaterally, your needs are not recognised), fear, craving.

I am still in a lot of pain from my therapy ending so your post has poked at me, unintentionally of course. It's good that you have taken positive stuff from your work with your ex-therapist. I want to speak of something different and darker which happens in the (misplaced) pledge to meet childhood needs.

[unaluna]

I split the difference between waterbear and my esteemed comrade. Taking from the theatre, suspending disbelief was the key to my therapy. First i found a child psychologist willing to take me on. Jeffrey Seinfeld wrote some books about his experience treating children. These kids were not getting the good stuff from their parents, yet they were able to be patched up by him, by being seen and heard and properly reacted to.

At my first session, a child client was just leaving, and t gave them a hug. So i was like, "i hope you dont discriminate on the basis of ace or rage or sex." I think this helped establish our paradigm.

Back to the idea in my first paragraph - we just need patches, not a whole tire or sock replacement. Just enough to keep us from blowing out. And then enters the Japanese concept of kintsugi - repairing with gold, so the repaired vessel is more beautiful than the original.

So - suspend belief about "can never go back." Going back is not the point. Thats LIFE. No crying over spilled milk. Start from HERE and kintsugi.

I GET being stuck in the past. I know i have a lot of traits that i "inherited" from my family. I have deep regrets about paths not taken. But i also am grateful about the experiences i have had.

[Waterbear]

I think the soothing can come from grieving though, that certainly happened for me, in some respects. To fully heal, you have to fully feel.

[Waterbear]

Scarlet, I hope you don't feel this is derailing your thread, and apologies if it is, but it is not a categorical fact that childhood needs cannot be met in adulthood at all. I needed someone to take the time to really find a way to communicate with me. My T did this with me. I needed someone to show me what safe touch felt like. My T did this with me. I needed someone to show me how to play, and interact. My T did this with me. I needed someone to show me that they would really show up for me when I needed them to. My T did this. I needed someone to help me learn a out emotions. My T did this with me. I needed someone to to help me learn how to feel my feelings. My T did this with me. I needed so much, that I should have had or learn as a child, and my T helped me by meeting those needs. So I disagree. Politely. And I can only tell you I am sorry your therapy ended in a way that was not right. The ending is so very important, yes, and I know how much pain is caused as I was there myself, when my T abruptly stopped our work, without winding down, without my input, without my voice. You may have a valid point, that a lot of my healing comes from mystical beliefs and a need to feel special, to someone, but I don't see anything wrong with that, and I think we can agree to disagree here. I'm sorry my post poked you, just as yours poked me! Lol. We are all just fragile humans trying to find out way through this messy, imperfect life, and we will each have our own takes, out own ways, our own insecurities, and our own ways of making things feel better for ourselves.

[Waterbear]

And I think the idea of this reparative therapy is exactly as you say Comrade, that "Thriving whilst knowing our ordinariness would be possible because part of our development would have been to have experienced a time when we were special and precious; to have integrated that experience into our self; and crucially to be able to leave behind the need to be special to another because it is settled within our own heart". The problem is, neither you nor I had the right ending to the work. That doesn't mean it isn't possible. You got churned out in a very dark place, as did I to begin with, out stories are vastly different though because I saw the human behind my therapist and she continues to show up for me. You are right that this isn't normal, and maybe it isn't 'right', but god, who writes the rulebook on life!!! It's right for me and it's right for her. But maybe I shouldn't talk about something that is so far from normal. The only thing unboudaried about our work, though, is that we have stayed in touch by text. And I wonder now whether she is actually just finding a way to give me the ending that I should have had. To gradually detach, so to speak.

That doesn't mean that I don't think that what you wrote is possible. I do think it is possible. But it needs to be seen through and it comes with some significant risks. Risks like you understand all too well. Question is, where is our life at before we start this work, and should we be made aware of the risks before we start. I knew the risks. I knew how badly it could end but I also knew where I was headed if I didn't try.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Waterbear - I think L is very similar to your T. She really shows up for me. I "think" that she's one who will not abandon me. I have hope at least. She has taught me about emotions, she has given me safe touch, she listens, sees me, and responds. I know she loves me, but even more important: respects me, cares about me, and even likes me. I've done more work with her than I have with other therapists. I am able to process a lot more and still be stable. Even ruptures are getting faster to move through.

AND I still have these needs, wants, and desire. Sometimes she does meet them and it feels so good. Other times, it's just not enough. L and I call it the non-enough-pain.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Una - I have always loved the concept of kintsugi. I've never applied it towards trauma. We normally apply it to being perfectly imperfect. I can see how filling in the cracks now would make us more whole, maybe even better. Like when we break a bone, it grows stronger at the break, and doesn't break in that spot again.

[Waterbear]

I have hope for you, Scarlet, because yes, it seems our Ts are very similar, and I am glad that you have that relationship with her. I sincerely hope that you have the opportunity to work through it all with her, the good and the painful. God it hurts, doesn't it, grieving the loss of what they cannot be to you, but I do have hope for you to come through it in a better place, but it takes time. A lot of time. I don't think the desires will ever truly disappear, but they can lesson, massively, as others have said above.

I am not being understood.

[ArtleyWilkins]

My husband had a horrible childhood (and I had my own old issues - not parental), so he had these same parental issues which were impacting our marriage for a long time. He wanted things from me that I couldn’t possibly provide; I wanted to help him but found my efforts were never fully sufficient. It was a drain on us both and we needed to figure out how to sustain our relationship despite our complicated pasts.

My therapist explained it this way. Those unmet needs are like a hole in the bottom of a cup. No matter how much I did to fill my husband’s cup of needs, much of it was draining out of the bottom through that hole. No one could fully patch that hole because it was too old and would just keep reopening. We might be able to patch it up a bit from time to time, but the damage was never going to completely be removed: a hole is a hole; a scar is a scar. But, my husband could (and largely did) learn to accept his history and mourn what never was and would never be. So did I with my own past issues. (Acceptance does not mean that it was okay; acceptance is simply facing the reality that what was never there was not going to somehow appear—no one in his present could change that.) He could learn to tend to that loss on his own and accept that other people can help, but they are powerless to change or fully mend the past.

My husband grew to liken it to his handicapping condition: it wasn’t going to get better, but he could learn to work with it, learn to accept help from others but not expect a cure, find ways to manage and keep a hearty present despite the loss. We both had to reach a place where we could accept the past for whatever it was, understand its implications for our present, and be okay with acknowledging that sometimes those holes needed some personal tending.

I think the turning point for us was when we reached the point where we could simply communicate with each other what we might be struggling with, without expecting the other to “fix” us. We could validate our own struggles and just respect the process we were experiencing. We found that the easy communication and simple validation—without expectations—was kind of like sitting with emotions. Learning to sit and be mindful without panic was so healing and calming.

Our marriage became SO much healthier, AND as individuals we were each healthier in our own right. (Wish we had gotten there sooner.)

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by comrademoomoo

It sounds like a large part of your narrative relies on specialness and mystical ideas - stars aligning and connection beyond boundaries. I find it troubling when these kind of concepts are celebrated in therapy.

It is categorical fact that childhood needs cannot be met in adulthood. Given the right nurturing, adults should be able to thrive knowing that we aren't special (beyond the vitality that we all have) and that we are ordinary. Thriving whilst knowing our ordinariness would be possible because part of our development would have been to have experienced a time when we were special and precious; to have integrated that experience into our self; and crucially to be able to leave behind the need to be special to another because it is settled within our own heart.

What if you were just another client? If you (or I) can't tolerate that idea, I think we are still stuck with our unmet needs.

It is really dangerous territory to characterise work which happens beyond boundaries as something nurturing, especially when other posters (like me) have deep wounds. It is very alluring to consider that preciousness, but the currency in such a place isn't one of love and specialness. I could write a similar "special" narrative to yours, but my reality includes pain, abandonment (the ending is a crucial part of the work and if the work ends unilaterally, your needs are not recognised), fear, craving.

I am still in a lot of pain from my therapy ending so your post has poked at me, unintentionally of course. It's good that you have taken positive stuff from your work with your ex-therapist. I want to speak of something different and darker which happens in the (misplaced) pledge to meet childhood needs.

I agree with some of what you're saying. I also have this desire to be "special" to my therapist. (With ex-MC, at one point I told him this, and he said, "You're special, just like all of my clients are special." Which for some reason helped a bit.) Which I'm pretty sure comes from unmet childhood needs.

But I've also had some bad things happen in my attempts to become and feel special with therapists and a former teacher. Feeling special and then feeling abandoned can create a new set of wounds, or at least reopen the ones that are there. With ex-MC, for example, he made me feel so accepted and like anything I said or did is OK--until suddenly it wasn't. Which was a huge emotional blow to me. Like, I even became too much for *him*.

Something that Dr. T has said to me a few times (including during our recent rupture) is that he feels I'll be unhappy with the limits of the therapeutic relationship with a therapist who has good boundaries. That I might be happier/feel my needs are met by one who has poor boundaries, where the lines are more blurred (between, say, therapist and friend). But how that could get very messy for me and end up really hurting me.

And I do agree with that second part. I mean, I'd like a T who is more warm, yes. And one who allows more outside contact (like occasional phone calls). But at the same time, I understand the importance of boundaries. How they also protect the client. I feel like so many stories on here of clients who have been treated as more special by therapists who blur the boundaries end with the client getting very hurt.

Scarlet, to clarify, I don't think L is like that. But I think you said at one point that ex-T had rather fuzzy boundaries, and I know she really hurt you.

Also, I don't think that all therapeutic relationships where the client is "special" in some way are doomed to end poorly. I think it's about the therapist having awareness of what they're doing and a sort of deliberateness. To be examining themselves and considering whether what they're doing is truly helping/serving the client (rather than, say, meeting a need in them to take care of someone) and also whether it is sustainable.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Wow! A lot of good stuff for me to process and think on!

Waterbear - Thank you for holding hope for me. I hope L is truly with me for the long run because I feel like I can and already have made progress with her. I feel like I'm just at the start, and have an uphill battle to go. But I'm in this for the long haul. And not just because I enjoy L and gets some of my needs met from her, but because I truly want healing and wellness and I believe this is the right path for me.

Echos - I do know that all the love in the world won't fill the hole. In the past, I had mother-figures who would literally mother me from rocking me in their arms to holding me while we napped together. It still wasn't enough. Partially because I wasn't a child and they had problems holding the teenage/adult me at the same time, and a bigger part was because, like you said, the needs are not from now.

Artley - Thank you for your personal example. I guess it is comparable to a disability, a hole, or a scar. I think part of me understands this. But the emotional part of me doesn't want to stop trying to fill it. I know I have a lot more work to do. I feel like I've only recently been able to confront and even recognize this part of me.

LT - L does provide me with some things that people might consider loose boundaries: touch, being told I'm special, the use of the word love, outside contact, disclosures, etc. AND she has very good clear and appropriate boundaries. She's not afraid to hold them either. We always say honesty first even if it hurts. That our relationship is strong enough to deal with the outcomes and hurts. Ex-T... I don't remember too much. She would play these word games with me and would make things seem like they were my fault. She'd use the word love, but never directly say "I love you". T and L believe that she left me because she couldn't hold her boundaries anymore, couldn't deal with her counter-transference. She did say our relationship was getting in the way of therapy. (I recently read my thread from back then).

I don't think all relationships where the client is special is all bad. I don't think "looser" boundaries are necessarily all bad. I also don't think strict boundaries are all bad. I think we all meed specific things from different people. Sometimes we find the right person. Sometimes we find the wrong person. Ex-T did help me with skills while I was seeing her. Her abandonment just tainted a lot of it for me. T and L have very clear boundaries. T was more skills based and L is more relational based. I had/have transference with all 3.

I guess what I want is to make peace with my past. And I really think I've only just started this journey. I'm scared and feel vulnerable. The child in me wants to hide behind L's skirt and cling to her ankles. I think part of my journey is to accept the holes from my past, but also acknowledging them, feeling them, and processing them. I think L (and maylny of you) are right: I need to be seen and heard and responded to. It's just really hard feeling all these things at a deeper level.

[ArtleyWilkins]

Originally Posted by ScarletPimpernel

I guess what I want is to make peace with my past. And I really think I've only just started this journey. I'm scared and feel vulnerable. The child in me wants to hide behind L's skirt and cling to her ankles. I think part of my journey is to accept the holes from my past, but also acknowledging them, feeling them, and processing them. I think L (and maylny of you) are right: I need to be seen and heard and responded to. It's just really hard feeling all these things at a deeper level.

I know for me, this was basically what had to happen. I had to make peace with my past. My T kept telling me that he wanted me to get to a point where I could put my past (metaphorically) in a box up on a high shelf in the back of my storage closet . . . not to hide it, but because I wouldn't feel the need or pull to have it out in front of me all of the time anymore. I didn't quite understand that metaphor for a long time although I do think I managed to do that without realizing it I guess.

Then, my husband died. And I found myself quite literally pulling boxes off of high shelves in the back of closets and storage areas as I went through my old things and my husband's old things. I found items in old keepsake boxes that I had totally forgotten existed. Then it struck me that, at one time in my life, I thought these items were so important that I had boxed them up to save for . . . what? That was an aha moment for me. I had hung onto "stuff" thinking it was SO important, but the reality was that it really wasn't important to me anymore. I have changed. My life has completely changed. That "stuff" was cluttering up my storage space, and I purged quite a bit of it because I realized if it wasn't important enough to remember, it certainly wasn't important enough to hang onto . . . and my kids certainly don't need that "stuff" after I'm gone. I prioritized. I realized what was really important to me and what I could let go.

That's what making peace with my past has been. I reached a place where my present, my kids, my husband, my future were finally more important than my past. I could let that "stuff" sit on a shelf and forget mostly about it. As my T said, I can pull that box down later if I feel I need to. I can open it back up again and see what is inside if I need to, but it is pretty much out of sight and out of mind because I have reached peace with it and have put it away to focus on my present.

I haven't needed to pull that box down off that shelf in a good decade now. And honestly, with the passing of my husband, I reached a deep shift in my internal priorities. And that ugly part of my past is like all that "stuff" I threw out. I don't need it anymore; it was just cluttering up my space. I'm much better off without it.

I hope you can reach that peace some day. It took me decades to get there, but once I did, that peace has been a blessing.