Paths of Life: Six Case Histories by Alice Miller

Author:Alice Miller [Miller, Alice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786727292
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2008-12-09T10:00:00+00:00

“What was it like right at the beginning?”

“At the hospital, they told me she had a heart defect and they were keeping her on the neonatal ward to have the necessary tests done. I went along with that, of course. I had no idea at the time what would come of it. Today, I’d say:‘I’m taking her home with me; she needs her mother—breast-feeding won’t do her heart any harm.’ Her heart’s just fine, by the way, always has been. Physically she’s pretty sturdy. But that first unnecessary separation from me really left its mark. She has incredibly precise memories of those first few days, and in her drawings, the hospital ward turns up over and over again. She calls it the ‘waiting room’ because she spent all her time waiting for me to come back. She obviously suffered from being alone, and the medical equipment frightened her, as well. The pain of that separation keeps on coming back.Whenever she feels abandoned by someone she loves or when she finds herself in an environment that doesn’t give her the explanations and information she needs to find her way about, she’s very quick to think that she’s been ‘dumped,’ that she’s all alone in the world. That first separation knocked me off balance, too, but thanks to the breast-feeding, there was soon a deep sense of trust between us.

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