When I was young, there was something about me that didn’t fit the mold my parents and teachers were trying to stuff me into. I wanted real friends who I could connect with deeply, but I was incapable of deep connection myself, and that left me hungry and unfulfilled. I wanted to live in a safer and better world, but I didn’t know how to create safety for myself. I certainly didn’t know how to set boundaries to make myself safer. I learned much later that even as a child, I wanted to wake up and live in a world of conscious people, but that I was unconscious myself.