Not really trying to find answers... I'm just dumping midnight thoughts on the pub. And not really as a way to address this relationship, but rather to think about other relationships.
What I had in mind here is more that, in a way, I can never thank that small child; she's not there anymore. I've been on both sides of that kind of relation; my impression has been that I could not reciprocate what feelings adults built with me as a child, because this child is no longer there.
Are you sure? If so, how so?
Perhaps an interesting experiment would be to see if you can reconnect with the child you tell yourself no longer is, she can connect with the child she possibly tells herself no longer is, and then you two interact in those respective states of inner child reconnection...?
Yeah, probably sounds like insanity.
Then again, what about the notion of selfhood doesn't?