The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller

BATB score: 8/10

reader discretion advised this is not a book, this is a white-paper research

BATB summary: key point of the book > you weren’t allowed to explore and be your true self as a child, you model the ‘good boys good girls’ that your parents wanted you to be, all in exchange for parental ‘unconditional’ love; you were smart / gifted enough to comply, and thus, you grew up depressed and broken from living somebody else’s ‘good boys good girls’ life for no one but your parents

Best for: depressed souls, maybe it was from your parents; yes, you’re never good enough

Best as: why people with childhood trauma grows up to be psychiatrists; unfortunately, we all will pass on this trauma to our children

Best quotes: “The parents have found in their child’s false self the confirmation they were looking for, a substitute for their own missing security; the child, who has been unable to build up his own sense of security, is first consciously and then unconsciously dependent on his parents.”

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

“I can understand my suicidal ideas better now, especially those I had in my youth - when it seemed pointless to carry on - because in a way I had always been living a life that wasn’t mine, that I didn’t want, and that I was ready to throw away.”

“A person who can honestly and without self-deception deal with his feelings has no need to disguise them with the help of ideologies.”