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I have something to share with every soul on this forum. I have reached a breaking point in the past 24 hours. I have let go of the guilt, pain, fear, and shame I have felt everyday of my life for as long as I can remember. I have suffered sexual, physical, verbal, and mental abuse. I have carried it around with me everyday up until today. It has caused me to not feel emotion. I felt emotion for the first time in my life in the past 24 hours. Stefan, a fellow freedomain radio head, and a two year old child have been the tools I've been able to use to overcome this. I will be speaking now about the two year old I babysit and his role in changing my life forever. Hence, the title "The Power of Children". Yesterday, I get a call on the phone asking to babysit. My initial reaction is always YES. I have always loved and admired children but never been able to recognize why. So the evening comes and I arrive at the house to babysit for the evening. I see the little boy ,whom I have babysat since august. I'm feeling terrified but am smiling. The adults did not notice but the little one did. I'm going to name the two year old Bob for the rest of this. I soon as I looked at Bob, he had the strangest look on his face. He could see my fear. His parents set him down to greet me and he runs away from me. I go scurrying after him but he is running too fast to catch him. It was like he was the flash and I was turtle. He then runs up the stairs and is waiting at the top. I'm still trying to get to him. Soon as I get close enough to him, he runs into his parents room and slams the door in my face. I was beyond shocked. A few moments after I tried to open the door but couldn't. Right as this happened he opened the door and ran past me again. This time he was running to his room. And again right as I am about to get to him he slams the door in my face. At this time I opened to door after knocking and asking if he was okay. He looked right up at me again with a comforting look. We went back downstairs. His mother and father left. This has always upset him to a severe extent. Bob has always for at least an hour of cried and banged on the front door after his parents left. This is now the another thing I am able to recognize. He has never been upset for an hour about his parents leaving. It was actually on average about 15 minutes. This is my inner child (again) showing me how I have dismissed the abuse my parents have done to me by changing the amount of time this child showed his true emotion. As Bob is doing what any child does when their parents abandoned them with a stranger. I felt the fear in me. I was able to recognize this fear head on. I felt instant relief. I then asked him to please help me put together his train tracks. He stops expressing his justified emotions, and he turns around and bolts towards me. So we spend time playing, reading, watching chuggington, laughing, and of course the other things one has to do when taking care of children. Then when I felt the most comfortable I've ever felt. I ask him if he was thirsty. He didn't answer. So, I go and get his juice and hand it to him. He takes a big sip and spits it directly into my face. And smiles. After he spit in my face the only thing that was in my mind was "What facial expression can I show to teach this child empathy and not to be disrespectful to others". I did the expression I thought would be appropriate and he runs away to corner. I walk over after a brief pause to tell him how that hurt my feelings and try to convey how disrespectful that is and not to ever do that again. He slightly turns and has the biggest smile on his face. I now further recognize what this actually meant. I was almost completely unaware at the time. He was telling me about my lack of boundaries (I've never had them until today. I've already stuck up for myself more today than I have in my entire life) Bob knew the effect that that action would have on me which caused him to smile. I'm still in a intense state of shock at the amount of intuition and empathy this child is capable of. He's two years old. I'm 21 years old. He's been in his diaper longer than I have been in my emotions. That son of a gun knew exactly what he was doing. He was telling me not only about my lack of boundaries but how much I have disrespected myself. Time passes and we are still playing. I felt overwhelmingly tired and had to just lay on the couch. He was playing right next to me on the ground with his toys. Right as I lay down he climbs up on the couch. He is having difficulty so I help him up. He sits way far away from me and gives me a look. It was slightly mischievous (from what I perceived at the time it was actually him thinking of what to do next). He looks away. Then a couple minutes later he gets up, runs, and tackles me. He jumped on me. I'm panicking because I trying so hard to get him off me and him not be hurt at all. This moment felt like an eternity. Eventually I managed to set him down. I tell him not to do that because it's disrespectful. He turns and smiles at me and pats my leg. What he did right there was him testing my boundaries again. Normally any child I have babysat I have always let them do whatever they wanted to. Grab my hair, pull my clothes, hit me, bite me. Because to me then it would have been evil to not let them express their selves. Later he then tested my boundaries again. He ran up stairs and got his blanket and we both brought it down the stairs. We sit on the couch and he puts the blanket over our heads. He is trying to hold the blanket up to it is like some kind of fort. So I put his hands down and I instead put my hands up holding the blanket up. He's smiling still at me so lovingly. He's pointing to the trains on the blanket and talking. It was mostly baby blabber but it made perfect sense to me and I talked to him. Eventually my arms got tired and I didn't want to hold the blanket anymore. I actually told him that. Now this persistent little boy is so very persistent in testing me. He then over and over tries to put the blanket over my head. Each time I say no, he smiles and giggles. I just had another moment. This is so powerful. Every child I have ever taken care of has tried to incredibly hard to help me. All of the babies I've been around. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAS TRIED TO SAVE ME! The amount of empathy children are capable of is so far beyond anything an adult could ever achieve. This is why I have always wanted to be around children. I've just now come to this realization and it is the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me. I'm shaking and crying. My dogs are all over me. I can barely type. After that happened I swear that 7 year old me was sitting next to me and for once I was there for her. For once somebody was there for her when she really needed it. The next thing I know time is slowing down for some reason and I'm the happiest I have ever been in my life. As I was changing his diaper, feeding him, asking him lots of questions (which he actually can answer with a yes or no [at two years old]), teaching him things, looking at his little face. I felt love. Not in a romantic sense at all. But I felt loved and I loved this little boy. I've always loved children but have never been able to recognize it as love. But they did. Every baby I've been around has known this about me and reached their little hands out to me to pick me up. The rest of the night was the most wonderful thing I could ever describe. His parents come home around midnight and him and I are wide awake. His parents come in and he greets them and comes right back to me or at least around me. I've always been stand offish when parents greet their children. I always back away. He noticed that. So his mom asked him if he would like to give me a hug. I get down to his level expecting him not to and then he does. He hugged me for the second time that night. I tell his parents how perfect he was and thank them for the opportunity to be around their child. His father says "Alright, Time for her to go home". Bob looses his mind and clings to my leg crying. His arms and legs are around my leg. He wouldn't let go. He wasn't upset about me leaving but about me not being able to recognize what just happened. He cried so hard because he didn't know for sure if I was going to realize what just happened and was still trying to help me. I've felt emotion today. All day. I've expressed how I feel without trying to guess how other people feel. I learned how to separate myself from my emotions in order to survive the environment I was in as a child up until august. I hope this all was a good read. Haha no, I know this was a good read. You're welcome. Thank you for reading this. Thank you Stefan for what you've done. Thank you to Nathan who listened to me and held my hand all through this. Thank you Bob. You little son of a gun. I can't wait to spend three days around the clock with you babysitting you. I was reborn today. How about you?