I grew up with two parents who constantly lacked caring for my feelings and frequently treated me with deep disrespect. Looking back, I know that neither of them had any idea of how to compassionately manage their own feelings, so they were completely incapable of being compassionate with mine. In fact, they seemed to lack the ability to feel and show compassion. For a highly sensitive child, this was very painful.

Their lack of respect for me showed up in many ways: Projecting their feelings on to me, blaming me rather than taking responsibility for themselves, not ever seeing me or ‘getting me,’ frequently judging me and yelling at me, discounting things that were important to me, and my father attempting to act out his sexual addiction on me. As many of you know from your own experiences, one gets used to being treated this way. Like most of you, I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me, and I learned to be a very good girl, always trying to please and do everything right.