Personal Experiences
My Parents are well intentioned, respectable people who are honored by the society. My father had read many books relating to child rearing and development just to make sure that we were brought up right. He placed me at a private school even when it was difficult for him to afford it. My father told me that he wanted me to achieve what he himself could not. My parents still think that I have a lot of potential and that I should always look up and not down. In school I took part in athletics, dramas and debates only to win, personally I had no passion for any of these extracurricular activities. When I lost, I remember feeling a sense of worthlessness and it was almost as if I could not believe that I had lost. Second place at anything was not acceptable.
My parents’ high expectations were not
limited to extracurricular activities only; they
wanted me to excel in studies as well. I was never
good at studying a fact that I have just recently
come to recognize. When children at my neighborhood
were playing outside I was studying because if
I didn’t my mother would be mad at me. Whenever
I brought home my result sheet I remember feeling
the knots in my stomach as if the real result
was how my parents thought my result was. A B
and a C were bad and an A+ meant that next time
my mother would not be so harsh at me if I played
outside rather than study at home.
Once at my birthday I received many gifts, most of them were toys. My parents however gifted me an encyclopedia which to this day sits on my shelf. I remember how much I wanted a roller skate but I knew that my parents did not want me to make wrong friends (the cool kids who always doing neat tricks with roller skates). Instead I pasted the best smile on face and thanked my mother and father for giving me such a wonderful gift. At another birthday I remember my father gave me a reclining study chair so that I spend more time at my desk studying. Like always, I thanked him and demonstrated how cool the chair was by rotating on it. Whatever I have done in my life, it was for my parents and was according to their wishes. Now I am going to marry the woman my mother has chosen for me.
I do believe that what ever my parents did for me was for my own good because I have turned out to be a good natured responsible citizen. However, I cannot help feeling contempt for my parents for not giving me a childhood I deserved. I have learned to set aside my own personal feelings as secondary and unimportant so much so that it never occurs to me that I should give priority to my feelings and then look to other peoples needs.
I knew other children who would sneak out at
night to play, go skating and smoke cigarettes
together. I could not bring myself to do any of
these things even when I wanted to. I feared that
my parents would find out and throw me out; my
father had threatened to do that when I got really
bad grades once. At nights I stayed up and felt
the horrific emptiness, and in those lonely moments
I felt that I had no purpose in life but to go
to school the next morning.
I do not know how to say no. The answer to my parents had to be always yes. As a result I now find myself agreeing to things which I clearly do not want. I am also very gullible and I like to seek acceptance from other people such as my boss and my colleagues. In fact I crave for attention and look for every opportunity to get it. I have learned to measure my self through others and I do not know how to appreciate myself when others choose not to.
Alice Miller’s Perspective of Child Abuse
Alice Miller wrote, "When I used the
word "gifted" in the title, I had in
mind neither children who receive high grades
in school nor children talented in a special way.
I simply meant all of us who have survived an
abusive childhood thanks to an ability to adapt
even to unspeakable cruelty by becoming numb...
Without this "gift" offered us by nature,
we would not have survived.” When we
were children, we were innocent, bad things happened
to us but we did not know the nature of our experiences.
As adults we set aside and repressed childhood
traumatic feelings and now our actions are subconscious
reactions of our turbulent childhood. Our parents
and their parents were treated and abused the
same way we were and now as parents it is very
likely that we would abuse our children. This
is not culture, tradition or religion; it is in
fact our narcissistic desire to fulfill our unmet
emotional needs upon powerless and dependent subjects.
As adults most of us believe that our parents
were right and their actions were for our own
good and when teachers and parents punished, criticized
and humiliated us; society, religion and culture
did not allow us to express resentment. These
bottled up feelings cannot be contained and sooner
or later they express themselves; our own children
are likely victims. If we do not recognize the
true source of our misery and face our painful
feelings we can never deal with our violent or
self injurious state.
Personally, I regret not having a fulfilling childhood. I regret being locked up in my study room when other family members were watching TV and children were playing outside. I have trouble having successful relationships because I am too demanding and I have an authoritarian style of determining everything. I have a colleague who once told me that she can not help ordering her children around like servants and the children are so used to it now that they believe that it is their duty to bring water to their mother and to do other menial task she demands.
Alice Miller writes, “Experience has
taught us that we have only one enduring weapon
in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional
discovery of the truth about the unique history
of our childhood. Is it possible, then, to free
ourselves altogether from illusions? History demonstrates
that they sneak in everywhere, that every life
is full of them- perhaps because the truth often
seems unbearable to us. And yet the truth is so
essential that its loss exacts a heavy toll, in
the form of grave illness. In order to become
whole we must try, in a long process, to discover
our own personal truth, a truth that may cause
pain before giving us a new sphere of freedom.
If we choose instead to content ourselves with
intellectual “wisdom”, we will remain
in the sphere of illusion and self deception.”
Alice Miller’s parents thought of her
as a good girl and an overachiever, her mother
was the power figure in her family and Miller
was brought up in the Germanic authoritarian tradition.
Alice Miller did not know that she was abused
during her childhood until after two analyses.
Later on she wrote, "My child of long
ago was abused, exploited, and turned to stone.
I was amazed to discover that I was an abused
child. That from the loquacity of my life I had
no choice but to comply completely with the wishes
of others. Repression stopped me from recognizing
this. Had just one person come to my defense,
it might have helped me to recognize my mother's
cruelty for what it was. My parents had experienced
something similar in their own childhood, but
had come to view this as for their own good.”
In Miller’s view the only way to seek
salvation from a repressed traumatic past is to
become aware that it existed and that it was wrong.
Miller says that emancipation and freedom comes
when we transform ourselves from the victim of
the past state to the responsible individuals
in the present state. The problem with most people
is that such a transformation never occurs in
their lives and ‘they continue to live
in their repressed childhood situation, ignoring
the fact that it no longer exists.’
As a result they seek avenues to exact their revenge,
Alice Miller calls this the ‘unconscious
thirst for revenge’ and the examples of
such revenge are everywhere. When people engage
in acts of violence, when people burn homes and
hurt other people, when people engage in sadomasochistic
practices, when governments stock pile nuclear
arsenal and when leaders order the elimination
of entire races. For talented and gifted people,
childhood oppression drives them towards finding
any means to escape from loneliness so that they
do not have to remember for they fear memories
more than death. Alice Miller has devoted much
of her analyses to these gifted people who despite
their achievements still feel depressed, lonely
and miserable.
A friend of mine likes to hit her children and she says that her children do not mind and they still love her. When I asked my friend how she feels about her own parents, my friend said that had her parents left her to do as she pleased she would not have grown up to be the responsible person she is. When I asked her if her parents had ever hit her, she said yes, it is normal a part of life and one should fear as well as loves ones parents. Then my friend quoted a famous saying, ‘spare the rod, and spoil the child’.
Any child is at the mercy of its parents and
the mother is the child’s sole source of
survival. Children learn to judge the parents
needs at a very early age and when a child feels
disapproval and abandonment it strives to please
the parent. The child then takes on the responsibility
of an emotional caretaker. The child does not
develop a true sense of its own identity but does
develop the quality of empathy. Alice Miller wrote,
“Our contempt for "egoists"
begins very early in life. Children who fulfill
their parents' conscious or unconscious wishes
are "good," but if they ever refuse
to do so or express wishes of their own that go
against those of their parents they are called
egoistic and inconsiderate. It usually does not
occur to the parents that they might need and
use the child to fulfill their own egoistic wishes.
They often are convinced that they must teach
their child how to behave because it is their
duty to help him along on the road to socialization.
If a child bought up this way does not wish to
lose his parents' love (And what child can risk
that?), he must learn very early to share, to
give, to make sacrifices, and to be willing to
"do without" and forgo gratification-long
before he is capable of true sharing or of the
real willingness to "do without.”
Later on in life the child’s own needs and
repressed feelings surface and the repressed subconscious
memories become a part of the adult’s personality
with no discovery and integration of the true
self. In order to develop properly children need
a lot of emotional support, depression can be
avoided and the true identity can be discovered
only "when self-esteem is based on the
authenticity of one's own feelings and not on
the possession of certain qualities.”
Miller believed in healthy narcissism, when children
experience inner freedom and vitality and see
how the world relates to them. Unhealthy narcissism
is when the mother becomes dependent on the child
to satisfy her needs. Because the child is forbidden
to express its true feelings an enforced neurosis
of repression develops. A False self emerges in
which the child or adult play roles to keep their
parents love.
In Miller’s view punishment of a child by any means only brings about two results, the child learns to avoid punishment by lies and how to punish his own inner child. A deficiency syndrome develops in which the child feels that anything he does is just not enough. The child develops contempt as a defense mechanism against unwanted and despised feelings. Miller has also linked grandiosity with depression. In her view a grandiose person wants to excel at everything and is constantly preoccupied with gaining acceptance from others. When failure of achievement results then the person becomes depressed and feels empty, futile and disconnected. The grandiose person is constantly seeking feelings he ought to have rather than discovering the true nature of his feelings. Such a disconnection with the true self is typical of the abused child. The child also develops mechanisms to protect against early feelings of abandonment. This involves avoiding any situation in which another person needs the person who was abused in childhood as caretaker. In other circumstances the abused child grows up to believe that he can project his feeling on to others. Miller narrates that she has had many high achieving and talented patients who were consumed by the feeling of guilt, shame and a general feeling of anxiety as soon as the drug of achievement and success wears off. Miller found out that these people believed that their childhood was happy and protected and their parents admired them for their qualities and were very proud of them. These high achievers lived a much disciplined life and were given responsibilities very early in their life. However, these people have no clue about their own needs; their sole motivation is the pursuit of achievement. They also do not respect their childhood and they regard their child self with irony and disdain. I feel that her observation apply very adequately to my situation.
I think Miller is right when she says that people who were abused in childhood do not have a true sense of their own qualities, perceptions and realities. I still feel that I am on a path of personal discovery; I know what my parents want me to be but I do not know my own potentials. It is as if I was brain washed. I know that I regret my childhood and I am hooked to the drug of achievement. Lonely moments are the worst moments and I like to tire myself so much that I do not have any more energy to stay awake and ponder. I was reading a review of Miller’s book The Drama of the Gifted Child on Amazon.com and a reviewer wrote, “I think we're up against something very biological here, the incredible drive to be good parents (I can only speak to this based on observation; I fortunately live in a time where I was able to choose not to have children that I would subsequently screw up with my own profound mental illness).” |