Firstly, a big congrats for doing that brave act. I imagine that took a lot of guts and was nerve wrecking to make such a cold approach. I would like to suggest that the situation there didn't have much to do with your lack of curiosity with your experiences. Instead, I think this was the result of all the work you have done up to date; even if you have a long ways to go.

Notice your concern for that little girl. Is there a time in your life when you would have had a different reaction, or can you think of how somebody else could have had a negative reaction to the kid? As for me, a few years ago before I got connected with a certain part of MEcosystem and my past I would have simply been annoyed with children. " Just keep buying the little brat drinks so she'll stop acting bored and ruining the enjoyment of the adults." A reaction like that going in the opposite direction indicates something important about how you react to your own childhood.

Wouldn't it be something if that child were you and it was your parents holding you hostage in a castle of boredom and you (currently) can at least walk up to your dad and try *something*? Stef has mentioned before that the stuff he's doing at FDR now is him doing what he wished somebody would have done for him when he was struggling with this stuff.

The moment I started becoming sympathetic towards children is the moment I talked to this MEcosystem character that resembled me as a kid. I had to do a lot of empathy work for myself before I got just how brutal I was treated, and that my negative reactions towards kids was just a projection of that.

Now, I'll bet that situation is frustrating given that it was, like you said, throwing a sandbag a brick wall. In her world that brick wall is a brick tower that falls on her everyday of her childhood. While you can rescue her from that completely she will have that chance some day when she gets older. Sometimes in these attempts we are able to make a tiny break off a tiny little chip from that brick wall that helps the victim a little when they get a chance to escape.

We didn't have heros then, but we can be heros now for others. How does little James react to your actions at that coffee shop?

Great to hear.