The Helping/Enlightened Witness

ANXIETY

 I remember that day when after the classes I walked out of the law school building (I was studying a Master of Law at university in Philadelphia). It was another day of horrible suffering, of being unable to focus; I had no freaking idea what the hell they were talking about. I couldn’t focus on one sentence, I felt a rock on my chest, my throat was tight, and I felt pain with every breath.

HOPELESSNESS

Everyday was the same for the years since my husband got sick. When he died (half a year prior) it just got unbearably worse. I had a 6-year-old and I needed to look after her, but I couldn’t even breath properly. Getting up required enormous effort. I would sleep maybe two hours at night and wake up in horror.

I was begging God to help somehow, to do something – I had no clear idea even with what, but just something… I couldn’t live like this anymore.

I walked into the university bookstore, wondering around with no clear idea if I needed anything. I stopped in front of a bookshelf and took a random book out of it. This was Alice Miller’s “The Drama of the Gifted Child.” After reading a few pages, I saw could be interesting, so I bought it.

This book was a revelation to me. It was the first time someone explained to me that my life wasn’t just a random mess. There was a reason to everything that happened, and most of all it wasn’t all hopeless chaos I felt all those years. There was hope to at least gain some understanding.

After that book, I read all the books that Alice Miller ever published. When I finished them, I continued onto other psychologists and new age authors (that’s already a different story).

Alice Miller helped me start reexamining my childhood, and as a result my life, my relationships, and my choices.

THE ABYSS

As a child, I mostly saw darkness around me. I was always either sad or angry. I would cry over a sad postcard with a Santa who looked to me cold and lonely. I would cry over pictures of my family knowing that they might die any moment. I would look at people and feel sadness, loneliness, and heaviness. Back then, I didn’t understand what was going on with me. I just saw and felt darkness in my life.

A RAY OF LIGHT

There were moments when I felt love, when I saw light around me, when I felt happy.

I loved sleepovers at my aunt Ciocia Marychna’s place. When I would wake up, I would listen to the sound of birds and look at the flowers around the 2-story small apartment building. It would make me feel calm. I would feel hope in my heart.

Ciocia Marychna would make me tea (always super sweet) with bread, butter and sugar on top. I loved when she came over and played with me. Ciocia Marychna was my HELPING WITNESS. Now I know it, and I’m grateful for it. She didn’t protect me, but she did love me.

Alice Miller introduces the terms “HELPING WITNESS” and “ENLIGHTENED WITNESS” in her work on child abuse. She claimed that this refers to a person who would express love and respect to the child, help them see injustice, and have an enormous impact on their entire life.

Louis Armstrong, the legendary jazz musician, wore a Star of David until the end of his life in memory of the Jewish Karnoffsky family who gave him love and respect and taught him, as he described in his memoir “How to live-real life and determination”.

Each time I think of such person in my childhood I am grateful to them for what they gave me, for the opportunity to spent time with them, grateful. I feel it’s important to discover such person/people in our lives and express gratitude for what they gave us. even if for just a little while.

For more information about the role of an enlightened witness, here is an article written by Alice Miller herself: https://www.alice-miller.com/en/the-essential-role-of-an-enlightened-witness-in-society/