The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

by Alice Miller

Other people actively continue the torture once inflicted upon them in self-scourging clubs of every sort and in sadomasochistic practices. They think of such activities as “liberation.” Women who allow their nipples to be pierced in order to hang rings from them can then pose for newspaper photographs, proudly saying that they felt no pain when having it done and that it was even fun for them. One need not doubt the truth of their statements; they had to learn very early in life not to feel pain, and today they would go to any lengths not to feel the pain of the little girl who was once sexually exploited by her father and had to imagine that it was fun for her. Repressed pain may reveal itself more privately, as in a woman, sexually exploited as a child, who has denied her childhood reality and in order not to feel the pain is perpetually fleeing her past with the help of men, alcohol, drugs, or achievement. She needs a constant thrill to keep boredom at bay; not even one moment of quiet can be permitted during which the burning loneliness of her childhood experience might be felt, for she fears that feeling more than death.

Entender que los comentarios de las personas son reales y vienen por pasados oscuros y traumáticos