The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

by Gabor Maté

Early childhood mechanisms of self-suppression are reinforced by persistent, gendered social conditioning. Many women end up self-silencing, defined as “the tendency to silence one’s thoughts and feelings to maintain safe relationships, particularly intimate relationships.” This chronic negation of one’s authentic experience can be fatal. In a study that followed nearly two thousand women over ten years, those “who reported that, in conflict with their spouses, they usually or always kept their feelings to themselves, had over four times the risk of dying during the follow-up compared with women who always showed their feelings.”[10] As at home, so on the job. Another study showed that for women with non-supportive bosses, the squashing of anger—a natural adaptation to an environment in which to self-express would be to risk the loss of employment—increased the risk of heart disease.[11]