The Drama of the Gifted Child should be renamed to "The Silence of the Sensitive Child". It would be a more accurate reflection of the content.
The author starts from the premise that children need to be able to become real people through being emotionally accepted for who they are. The failure of such, most notably in emotionally sensitive children, leads children to surpress their "true" tendencies and put on "as if" identities in order to please the parents. They grow up being attentive to the needs of the parents and later by extension, those around them, because satisfying the "needs" of others has become the association they have with "love". This leads to the development of often times, high functioning adults (the author refers to them as grandiose identities) that despite all their accomplishments have trouble expressing emotions and feel dead inside. Often times, these people will become depressed once they can no longer "achieve" and at the same time, they are unable even to identify the cause of their depression. These individuals will often spend much of their adult hood, either conciously or unconciously, looking for the love and acceptance that they've never received as a child but this will forever be a quixotian endeavor as the sort of unconditional love that they seek can only be received as a child. And so the quest for love is not a homecoming but rather the discovery of something that was never made available.
This was a powerful book that put to words and anecdotes feelings and sentiments I've harbored for over a decade now. I oscillated between anger and sadness as I read each chapter as the patient stories and needs were very much a mirror into my own childhood (and present). I wish I had read this book sooner as it would have saved me from a lot of guilt and depression and would have short circuited the path to the anger that I'm still having trouble expressing today. Besides better putting to words the traumas and happenings of a childhood spent being unable to be "myself", it also makes clear this idea that the past cannot be changed and that love, at least the sort of unconditional total absolute love a child has for an all knowing parent is not something that can ever be obtained past childhood (unless one becomes a fanatic cult follower in one of those communes where one writes off all worldy possessions and engages in shamanistic sexual orgies). This was a thread I was still holding on to. Reading this book has helped me cut it. The time for childhood is over. I'm no longer a child. I did not have a childhood to develop my identity but I can form my identity now. The process is different and the ends are different. It is not easy but it can be done. Be wary of proxy goals.
What would have happened if I had appeared before you sad, needy , angry , furious ? Where would your love have been then ?
Created 2025-05-23T14:52:00.391000, updated 2025-05-23T14:52:36.790000 · History · Edit