Fear Mixed with Dutiful Obedience ~ An Unsatisfying Counterfeit for Trust and Love

[Many people] cannot love and honor their parents because unconsciously they still fear them.

However much they may want to, they cannot build up a relaxed and trusting relationship.

Instead, what usually materializes is a pathological attachment, a mixture of fear and dutiful obedience. . .

Individuals who believe that they feel what they ought to feel and constantly do their best not to feel what they forbid themselves to feel ultimately fall ill --
unless, that is, they leave it to their children to pick up the check by projecting onto them the emotions they cannot admit to themselves.

Preface, pgs. 14-15

Excerpt from
Alice Miller
The Body Never Lies:  The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting
WW Norton, New York, NY (2004)