Do You Know How to Be Yourself?

In the introduction to Free from Lies, Alice Miller describes a survey she commissioned in 2002 that asked 100 mothers at what age they thought "they might begin impressing the necessity of good behavior on their children by giving them 'little' smacks and slaps." Eighty-nine of these women reported that their children were about 18 months old; 11 couldn't remember the age, but not one said that she never struck her child. Miller continues:

Though the pain inflicted may not be severe (at least we assume this to be the case), children will surely register the fact that they have been attacked by the very person they instinctively expect to protect them from attacks by others. This is bound to cause ineradicable confusion in the infant brain, which at this stage is not fully formed. Such children will inevitably wonder whether their mother is there to protect them from danger or is in fact a source of danger herself. Accordingly, they will adjust to the situation by registering violence as something normal and integrating it as such into their learning processes. What remains is fear (of the next blow), distrust, and denial of the pain inflicted on them.

But it's not just physical violence: it's neglect, verbal violence, emotional violence. The confusion is the true issue. Each of us learn what love is from our earliest experiences. If we get lack of eye contact, lack of sufficient touch, a shutting down of emotions, and self-soothing, what will we dish out and settle for in our adult relationships? Who do we grow into when the first three to ten of our lives are spent trying to conform to someone else's expectations of who we should be? How can we be ourselves when, right from the get-go, we are told and shown that ourselves aren't good enough?