The flower that flourishes in the dark

As my writing journey evolves and my book begins to take some kind of shape, I am finding myself constantly thirsty for more knowledge. Not facts and figures because I’m not interested in adding more useless information in my life, I think I’ve got what I need in that area and if not it’s just a click away isn’t it?

My thirst is for a greater understanding of the human psyche, what makes us who we are, why we form these habits, and underneath all of the memories, we have acquired through life, who is really there?

I’ve just stumbled across a book called “The Drama of the gifted child, the search for the true self” by Alice Miller. The title is a little deceiving because in our society we tend to assign the term “gifted” to the academically bright, after all that is what our whole education system is built on. We strive to identify our brightest through IQ tests, good exam grades, and success through a rigid structure that only accommodates those that fit the box. Oh, I best not get into that one too much because I could go on forever about my views on the education system, so I best leave it there for now.

Back to my writing journey. As I go through the early part of my own life and try to find ways to show the reader how our character is formed, and the role our young life plays in our adult life, I can see more clearly what Miller refers to as the “gift”. This short paragraph from her book explains what she means by the “gifted” child:

“When I used the word ‘gifted’ in the title, I had in mind neither children who receive high grades in school nor children talented in a special way. I simply meant all of us who have survived an abusive childhood thanks to an ability to adapt even to unspeakable cruelty by becoming numb…Without this ‘gift’ offered to us by nature, we would not have survived.”

Personally, I can identify with Millers’ view, not because I was abused in the sense that we might commonly understand abuse, for me it was less obvious because emotional neglect is so much more difficult to identify. To an extent, most of us will have experienced some form of trauma as a child, after all the very fact that our parents are human means that they will pass on their own unresolved trauma. It seems to be a cycle that is passed on from one generation to the next unless someone in the line changes their response and reframes the experience. Each of us has our own story, some more traumatic than others, nonetheless it still plays its part in who we become as we grow up.

I’ve just started watching a drama called “The Queen of the South” which follows the story of a young Mexican woman who goes through a horrific experience. To keep herself alive she talks to her shadow self, a strong, confident reflection of herself in the future and this helps her through her difficulties. During one of these conversations, her future self says

“There is a flower that flourishes in the dark”

Most often than not we tend to look at the past in a negative way, especially if it was difficult and painful. That’s not to say that we should sugarcoat neglect and abuse, however, to come to terms with any form of trauma it can be useful to turn it into what makes us “gifted”. In other words, it is precisely that difficulty that has made us strong, resilient, and maybe even compassionate to others.

Too much emphasis on how damaged we are isn’t always healthy, it can keep us stuck in victim mode, which can not possibly help us live our lives to the full.

Miller makes an important point when she proclaims that “it is a gift to know how to survive through our hardest times”. When we look at the lives of those that have endured the most unimaginable experiences, we can see how crucial it is to be able to adapt and change to a given situation, so that we can survive.

In his book “Man’s search for meaning” Victor Frankl writes that he was able to identify those that would survive the concentration camps from those that wouldn’t. According to Frankl, it was an attitude, the posture, the demeanor, which was either an innate instinct or perhaps a ‘gift’.

There are two crucial elements that make up this ‘gift’.

One is to see that what is being done to us is not personal. It comes from the unresolved pain of those that inflict pain on us. For example, understanding that self-loathing can be expressed as anger and hate towards others. It is, of course, difficult to develop this sort of attitude towards someone that hurts us but if we can somehow stop taking it personally or even worse blaming ourselves for how others treat us, then perhaps we release the pain.

And that brings me to the second element of the ‘gift’ we are exploring here. To be able to let go of the past we have to first fully accept it. We can reframe it if it helps and we can reflect on it but ultimately, we have to come to some kind of acceptance. That doesn’t mean we let people off the hook or that we pretend it didn’t happen and we certainly don’t stay in a situation that is bad for us. It means that we look at it closely and then let it be.

If someone has hurt us and we wait for some kind of apology to get closer, then what happens if the other person never offers that to us?

What if someone hurts us but doesn’t care at all how that might affect us?

We can choose to hold on and keep that story alive or we can take the gift presented to us, a lesson on how to stop letting others into our lives that do not treat us well. Or if it is related to our childhood, then seeing it for what it was and letting that go.

Somewhere along the line, we have to stop waiting for others to say sorry or to acknowledge the harm they have caused us and let ourselves be happy regardless.

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