painful memories

painful memories
Friday January 02, 2009

Dear Alice Miller,
I am 38 and I need help.
I read your wonderful book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, couple of years ago.
I was then still desperately trying to figure out why balance and
happyness where for me just void sounds with no actual meaning for me.

Your book was suggested to me from one of the numerous therapists that
I went to at the time when I new I had to do something about myself.
However I was more addressing the malcontent of people around me than
fulfilling a real personal need. To much was still in the closet at
the time and moreover I DIDN’T KNOW. My Mother was one of the biggest
sponsors in that pilgrimage in search of sanity.

Your book struck me straightaway. Right from his title I knew that it
was talking about me, about my sad childhood and ultimately about
my mother, my absent father and my apparently ‘marginal’ sister.

However I had to wait couple of years the birth of my first and
wonderful son Luca, to remove any resistance and hit the wall.
This Xmas was the epiphany. The visit of my wife Samantha’s family, my
family and the sentiments swirl that goes with it was the major
catalyst for the crisis that made me open my eyes. I think I actually
burped at some point, like if it took me all this time to digest your
book.

I want now more than ever resolve my issues.Resolve my aggressiveness,
my instability, my inability of choosing what is right for me.
I want to be happy for my first time and I hope is not to late.

I have actually confronted (without shouting for the first time) my
parents and gave them your book hoping they will open Their eyes.
I have also suggested we could go to a group therapy together in order
to assess the situation through an external eye.
I still don’t know if this was a good idea. Please advise.

I live in Milan and I need to know if you have a suggestion on where
to go and whom to ask for help
keeping in mind that the freshness I found in your book was probably
the interesting flip of perspective with regards to Freud traditional
approach.

Anyway I know that I have to do something quick before the doors that
are now open close down again
bringing me back to the trap I lived in in the past.

If you can please advise what you would do in situation and if you
know anyone that could take my case in Milan.
If you wish to get more information please do not hesitate to ask. I
shall do whatever it takes to progress and succeed this time.

Best regards
another gifted child in a drama.

AM: Why don’t you read my other books that were published in Italy by Garzanti and Boringheri? I can only suggest that you read them. The last ones may be only available in English for you. Look also on my web site so you can help yourself maybe. To give the Drama to your parents will hardly help you. Even if your parents changed, miraculously, the memory of what happened to you when you were a small child will stay unchanged and will need your feelings of pain and anger to be able to bring you the health and freedom you are looking for.