Genes...

There has been a couple of readers’ letters on Millers web on bad genes… Millers answer to the second:

"... how the dynamic of child abuse works and how the myth of the bad child serves to take out the endured abuse on one’s own children. People who have understood this dynamic don't need any 'scientific' proofs of this kind [about bad genes]. They know that neither mental illness nor extreme cruelty come from bad genes. And they know WHY."

And to the first:

"Does it mean that you no longer believe in the fairy tale of bad genes? Dropping this 'theory' may lessen the number of your fans but give you a solid basis for serious research and open your eyes for the REAL sources of violence that are ALWAYS hidden in cruel child upbringing and child mistreatment. These were the causes of Hitler’s rise. If we believe that people are born with bad genes we would have to explain why so many millions of bad babies were born in Germany around 30 years before the Third Reich so that they became willing executors of Hitler’s perverse orders."

It gave rise to these thoughts… See this letter and this.

The child with supposed bad or ”faulty” genes has to be learnt, has to learn things for his/her own good!!?? Sometimes quite harshly? This has legitimated what? (what is the child reacting against? And are the parents projecting their own, and have been projecting through all times?).

The child with a supposed character of any kind, bad or good (läggning in Swedish) has to be treated in a certain way! Different children with different characters have to be treated differently. Which means the good one better and the bad one with punishments etc. Siblings are compared, and sometimes also deliberately played out against each others?? Manipulated to say it straight, even if that maybe isn't what the parent/caregiver has in conscious thought? How? Quite humiliating? And once again: is this love?

Couldn’t this be very humiliating for the child exposed to this, alone (with no kelp or support) against the superior force (and how loving is this actually from the parents or caregivers part? Is this love at all? “Indulgent” love?? Överseende kärlek in Swedish. Indulgent i.e. from above; the god from above!!??)? What does the child say, how does it react, how CAN it react? Can it say:

“No, I am not!!”

Who has the power including the power of definition?? Being attributed characteristics (tillskriven egenskaper in Swedish)...

Marked for life by this?? Handling it in different ways? Either by trying to prove the opposite; how kind you are, how caring etc.? Obliterating her/himself (utplånande sig själv in Swedish)? Or by being exactly as bad (or even worse) as he/she is said to be?? Or maybe switching between these strategies somewhere on the way? Leading to either self-destructiveness or destructiveness or both to different degree... I.e. harming oneself and/or others more or less badly/seriously.

The bad child can also be and is fairly often held up as a warning example for its siblings? (as the good child can be held up as a good example too!!) So they in turn suppress THEIR feelings, or play them out in secret, and maybe even join the parents in the bad treatment of the black sheep? Also as a measure to avoid this treatment themselves: to focus on the bad child the light is turned elsewhere???

But is this used even in adult life? Too? Here and there? People played out against each others, being manipulated in different ways, consciously and unconsciously?

Now I feel very ironical again... (I read a thank you letter here). Yes, and sometimes even by "enlightened"? Who need to be praised and not questioned (maybe exactly in the same manner as the early parents?)... Where the bad ones are excluded... With no explanation too... Hypocritical, authoritarian and quite a bit totalitarian (you don't have to explain or motivate, because this person is bad! Or?)?? Because I know how people have been rejected from the forum mentioned here... And I think it can have harmed enormously... And that I think is VERY, VERY bad!! So I can't praise unconditionally... And I think it is hypocritical, for there has been no explanations for the rejections, just a wall...

I am reading an autobiography about a female author which lived in the south of Sweden 130 years ago. The way she was raised made her "need" the truth, she couldn't stand anything but the truth!? She was probably exposed to sexual abuse, and probably also to "deprivation"? She couldn't stand the hypocrisy... This gave her enormous troubles... I have thought of writing about her. Her name is Victoria Benedictsson.

Addition August 20: see this site about the topic genes. A comment there (which also mentioned Peter Breggin's research):

"I suppose genetics was very useful in giving people another form of denial and avoiding their responsibility."