Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It

by Gabor Maté

Almost all the adults minimize the effects of the trauma they had experienced. They have pushed out of conscious awareness the anger and despair of a small child assaulted by the very people he must rely on for support and protection, or they see such experiences as normal life events. One woman answered in the negative when I asked her if there had ever been any violence in her home of origin. It turned out that she used to be whipped by her father, ostensibly as a form of punishment. I asked her what she had meant by her original answer. “I can see it, now that you mention it,” she replied. “But when I thought of the word violence, I thought you meant something much worse.” When people first mention violence they experienced in the family home, it is not unusual for them to do so with a smile. They use dismissive phrases they would never employ if they were describing the same events happening to someone else, particularly to any small child they know. They feel they brought their punishments on themselves. “Just kid stuff,” said a thirty-six-year-old woman whose father used to hit her with a stick. “I was not an easy kid,” said one man, “I warranted discipline.” “I didn’t get what I didn’t deserve,” said another. I ask them whether they would smile or call it “just kid stuff” if they themselves were to witness a child being subjected to such “discipline.” The answer is always a somber no.