Having enjoyed Lori Gottlieb's "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone," I picked up another therapist memoir, "Good Morning, Monster" by Catherine Gildiner.
I had mistakenly thought the latter would be like the former, with examples about relatively normal people struggling with unexpected challenges. However, it was about five of Gildiner's patients who experienced horrific abuse as children, but dealt with it and rose above it.
Usually I avoid topics of such a nature, as I cannot handle the details (I never read Holocaust books). But I was sucked in rather quickly, and was unable to put it down.
The basic premise of four out of five of the subjects is that "hurt people hurt people"; that these individuals were tormented by their parents, and previously their parents had been tormented by their own caregivers.
Except, none of these people themselves became abusers. Additionally, one of them grew into an amazingly kind, gentle, and generous man—before he ever went to therapy.
"Hurt people hurt people" isn't a good enough explanation. There are those who were hurt and make a decision, whether consciously or unconsciously, that they would never hurt others the way they were hurt. They chose to end the pain, rather than allowing the cycle to continue.
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