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

by Gabor Maté

Actually, the self-disconnect had occurred long before then, in her “very happy, blessed childhood,” as revealed by my next question. It’s one I regularly pose to clients and participants, and I’ll now put it to you, the reader. Anyone whose conscious recall is of a happy childhood—a category that may range from innocuous to idyllic—and yet is confronting chronic illness, emotional distress, addiction, or struggles to be authentic, is particularly invited to engage with it: When I felt sad, unhappy, angry, confused, bewildered, lonely, bullied, who did I speak to? Who did I tell? Who could I confide in? Notice your answer, and also your feelings around it. If, as in Erica’s case, the answer is “No one” or indicates anything other than the presence of a consistently available adult “someone,” an early disconnect was surely at play. (A loving older sibling can in some ways stand in for a parent, but it is unlikely they can fully replace a parent. And even then it signals a disconnect from the adult caregiver.) No infant refrains from emoting to the parents precisely what he feels or from signaling when she requires help. The failure to do so later in childhood is a developmentally abnormal adaptation—for some a truly devastating one, which undergirds the woundings that follow.