Welcome to Litsy!

As children, our survival depends upon the love or rejection of our parents. We protect ourselves by conforming, by being “good“. The only way to break the cycle is to acknowledge and feel what we've been through.

I could relate to this as I was reading it, but I can't say there was any good advice that might help a former “gifted child“ navigate their world later as an adult.

Full review here - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4082454621.

“I so desperately wanted to be loved --- and that meant, of course, to comply, to be obedient.“ - Vera, age fifty-two

It seems to me that if there were ever to be any form of unconditional love, that it should come from one's parents. Those evolutionary inclinations to see an offspring reach adulthood and all that. Though I suppose that doesn't really require love, does it? When it doesn't, sometimes it's safer to obey than to risk all you know.

"He must excel brilliantly in everything he undertakes, which he is surely capable of doing (otherwise he just does not attempt it)."

Emphasis on the "otherwise he just does not attempt it." Anyone else have this problem? It's so hard for me to start new things, even hobbies, because I feel like I have to know it perfectly before I can even begin. But who can do something perfectly if they've never done it before? Makes no sense, yet here I am.

"In what is described as depression and experienced as emptiness, futility, fear of impoverishment, and loneliness can usually be recognized as the tragic loss of the self in childhood, manifested as the total alienation from the self in adulthood."

"The tragedy is that the parents too have no defense against it, as long as they refuse to face their own history. If the repression stays unresolved, the parents' childhood tragedy is unconsciously continued on in their children."

No parent is perfect, as much as we might expect them to be. They are people, after all. Flawed and human and children once themselves. Generational trauma claims more victims, and so we break the cycle or continue on.

"At first it will be mortifying to see that she is not always good, understanding, tolerant, controlled, and, above all, without needs, for these have been the basis of her self-respect."

As an adult questioning much of my childhood, I find myself not mortified but shaken. I wouldn't say I prided myself on being this person, though maybe in some way I did, but I do believe this mindset formed the core of my identity. If I am not her, who am I?

"Does this mean that it was not really me you loved, but only what I pretended to be? The well-behaved, reliable, empathic, understanding, and convenient child, who in fact was never a child at all?"

" . . . as if the roots of a whole life were not hidden and entwined in its childhood." ?

I've been reading this very slowly over the past several days - I'm only on page 16 - but I'm finding myself underlining words on nearly every page. As the author explains, her idea of a gifted child isn't one who does well in school or has some special talent; instead, it's a child who has adapted in order to survive. I'm very interested in inner child work, trauma and its effect on the nervous system, and how trauma is stored in the body.

Reading this to see if I‘m inspired or a bad parent? #thesearchfortrueself

The true opposite of depression is neither gaiety nor absence of pain, but vitality - the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings.

Started reading tonight, and already hooked. #readingatwork

It took me an ungodly amount of time to slog my way through this, and it wasn't worth it at all. Way too psychoanalytic for my taste and sorely lacking in evidence beyond the anecdotal. It's not the 19th century anymore.

#bookshelftourism At peer supervision - I can't stop drooling over people's bookshelves!! These shelves are mostly filled with therapy books!