Dependency as adults?

Dependency as adults?
Sunday May 18, 2008

Dear Alice Miller

I’m sure you’ve received this kind of question several times before on this reader’s mail service, but I would really appreciate it if you would tolerate one more. So here we go..

When we were children we all needed someone who would stand by us and be “ours” in a sense so we could develop our own true identity and personality because this person would be our “fixed point” during the process. And there would be a great degree of dependency and trust in this adult person which would be utterly necessary to really become our selves and trust ourselves deeply.
But if we didn’t have the luck to have such a person in our lives as we were a child, and we were forced to be “grown-ups” and left alone with our pain; would we still need, as adults ,to experience that kind of dependency of another loving person to truly become ourselves and trust ourselves?

Or do we carry the key within ourselves to be vital and free from our past if we are able to truly FEEL the pain even without an enlightened witness?

Thank you for this wonderful reader’s mail site.

Warm regards, T.

AM: Yes, I fully agree with your own answer. I would only add: pain and anger and would also suggest that once you are your own, your true reliable enlightened witness within you, you may make the experience, to your surprise, that you are no longer as alone as before, you may meet people (if not perhaps many) who think like you, who don’t want to deny their past.