The Conscious Parent

meant that Samantha spent her childhood taking care of herself. Feeling
guilty for even suggesting to her mother that she attend her first play or
her high school graduation, it took her a long time to understand that her
mother wasn’t really interested in her, preferring to save the world
instead. The result was that Samantha saw life as untrustworthy, which
caused her to believe the way to survive was to squash her own needs.
When Samantha’s mother remarried, it was to a physically abusive
man. Samantha couldn’t believe how a strong and competent woman
could allow herself to be humiliated in such a way. The moment
Samantha graduated from high school, she ran away, hanging out with a
crowd that did drugs, engaging in promiscuous sex, and living mostly on
the streets.
After six years, at age twenty-four, Samantha hit rock bottom and was
taken to a hospital suffering from drug-related heart palpitations. It was
in the ER that a light bulb went on, as she realized she was becoming
emotionally paralyzed like her mother. Finding a job, she enrolled in
school. Her natural brilliance saw her through college, a masters degree,
and a doctorate. By the time she was forty, she was drug-free and
financially stable.
Although Samantha appeared successful, internally she was in pain. At
work, she took care of people all day, a role she was comfortable filling
because she found intimate relationships suffocating. Unable to trust any
man and ready to feel betrayed at the least opportunity, her longest
relationship had spanned only five months, which meant she was
intensely lonely most of the time. As she felt herself slipping into
depression, she lamented, “I have nothing to look forward to. I have run