Mille Miller Narcissistic Child Summary

Tracy, a seventh grade girl in the movie Thirteen, provides a glimpse into the dangers of negative adolescent development. She was an honor student who was content playing with Barbies, but she was also desperate for acceptance and affection. Tracy meets Evie, a popular girl who engages in destructive behavior. Tracy’s only goal becomes emulating Evie, and she embarks on a path of self-destruction. Tracy, who is in early adolescence, is at the peak of her most critical developmental stage (Capuzzi & Gross, 2014), and is willing to do whatever it takes to belong. Throughout the movie, we see her struggle with low self-esteem, anger, dysfunctional relationships, self-harm, and substance abuse. Vernon (2009), discusses Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which can be utilized with Tracy. Vernon (2009) notes that when needs of safety, belonging, love, and respect are not met, children respond emotionally, cognitively, physically, and socially, depending on their developmental level. The degree of development also impacts how children react to common developmental difficulties and situational problems. Vernon (2009) adds, “…how children interpret and respond to basic needs, as well as typical and situational problems, can result in various self-defeating behaviors” (p.3). Applying this to Tracy, we see that her basic needs of

Looking at Gacy’s childhood, he lacked these elements. His attachment to his parents were one-sided. Gacy had still loved his father even when he was often severely beat for having congenital heart disease, His attachment to his peers were skewed as well. His peers teased him for having the disease. The only relatively good attachment he had were with his teachers. His teachers said he was smart and a good student.

Growing up in an overprotective environment never gave her the chance to become emotionally mature and independent. In addition, her parent's demands were always in first place and they were very strict.

Freud’s “Id” is the most appropriate personality theory for Precious’ mother. Her actions were irrational, selfish, and impulsive, although totally conscious. She transferred her anger and aggression towards her daughter, throwing things at her, hitting her, being inhumane towards her and her own grandchildren. Her actions were motivated by sexual drives and the desire not to lose her man. Precious on the other hand has some similarities with Freud’s “ego”. She has been through a lot in her young life. Although she has unconscious thoughts that she uses to escape reality, avoid pain and unpleasant situation, she uses all that energy and drive to make reality better. She developed her cognitive skills because she imagined herself as becoming famous and a well admired person. Her self esteem improves overtime. Whenever negative emotions, anxiety and unpleasant feelings

Besides Connie’s shallow self-absorbed character which is the result of her relationship with her friends, her relationship with her family also attributes to Connie’s self-absorption and shallow attitude. She never feels she is good enough for her parents. Her mother constantly

After spending time with her elderly relative, the girl sees that the worst thing you could do to another person “is to make them feel as if they are worth nothing” (Ortiz 3). This ordeal causes her to learn that what she says and how she behaves could be hurtful and upsetting to others. Because of this event, Connie would most likely become more thoughtful of them. In addition, the teen starts “to consider a number [she] hadn’t thought much about” (Ortiz 3) and begins to understand Abuela better. The girl feels terrible and sorry since she had made her grandmother feel like she was worthless. Zero becomes a more significant number to her life, and she realizes that she should not act towards others like she had. In conclusion, Constancia’s experiences with her grandparent made her more mature and considerate, changing her self-centered

The daughter is bored with her mother's dreams and lets her pride take over. She often questions her self-worth, and she decides that she respects herself as nothing more than the normal girl that she is and always will be. Her mother is trying to mold her into something that she can never be, she believes, and only by her futile attempts to rebel can she hold on to the respect that she has for herself. The daughter is motivated only to fail so that she may continue on her quest to be normal. Her only motivation for success derives from her own vanity; although she cannot admit it to herself or her mother, she wants the audience to see her as that something that she is not, that same something that her mother hopes she could be.

Sometimes people deceive their friends solely because they are afraid of rejection, but they don't understand the consequences until it is too late. This situation can be found in the book, Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee. In the book, Millicent Min, a child genius, finds a friend in volleyball while being forced to tutor Stanford, her biggest rival, in the summer. However, her friend, Emily, develops a crush on Stanford, and Millicent lies about her being a genius, which would vandalize their friendship. Despite the inquisitive decisions the characters made, there are a few things that I found confusing in the book.

Helen would have also been more prone to abuse, and other effects of low self-esteem. Some of the narcissistic characteristics Helen’s mother exhibits are her utter disregard for everything Helen says, speaking over her, her attention only engaged once benefits to her are involved, for instance: “Vice president! His income must be– does he know you’ve got a mother to support?” (Treadwell 17), and immediate overreaction to any criticism. Many children with narcissistic parents may have grown up in both neglectful and verbally abusive situations, but Helen’s situation would have been compounded beyond that as she seems to have grown up with only her mother as a parental figure. Helen’s father was revealed in the second act as, seemingly, long dead, leaving Helen alone to a single, powerful, influence. The Second character who exhibits the next most pressing issue is Helen’s husband, Mr. J, who proves himself to be a sexual predator. Helen’s physical repulsion such as when the Telephone Girl asks her “Why’d you flinch, kid?” (Treadwell 10) and her reactions to Mr. J touching her should really have been plenty of notice for him to stop. In the beginning, Mr. J has both status and rank, as her boss, over Helen, and this puts the relationship on shaky and inappropriate grounds due to Mr. J’s power over her. That he constantly touches her, treats her differently, and makes her feel indebted to

Children are affected by their parents when they become neglected and don’t come through for them. In the Glass Castle, a memoir written by Jeannette Walls she depicts what happens when her siblings and her are all let down, time after time, again with their parents. Their father, Rex is alway making it seem like he never does, he is continuously saying “ Have I ever let you down”. Throughout her lifetime he has only came through a handful of times. Jeanette is the only one who keeps faith in her father, after he is always letting them down. As the successful memoir escalates, Rex claims to come through for his family with the odd jobs that he gets, but still continues to let them down by spending their money on unnecessary things.

These curiosities should have been answer by a parent, Victor Frankenstein. However, Victor never put any effort in guiding the poor and innocent child. Evelyn Yeo in “How Does Emotional Abuse Affect Self- Esteem,” concludes that from the time of infant-hood to childhood, a child’s sense of self is defined by how he was treated and what he was told by his parents and primary caregivers. Infants especially, have no knowledge of who they are as a separate person so they rely heavily on their parents’ feedback. From parents’ trust, affection, and encouragement, the child will eventually grow up with confidence and achieve potential to make him or her parents’ proud. Overtime, self esteem will soon build upon them so they are prepared to be set in the real world (1).

Depression is something serious that ruins the lives of many. In “The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace, he introduces the reader to a person who suffers from depression but also is narcissistic; someone who hungers for attention and makes and situation about them. There’s a difference in depression alone and depression that is accompanied by narcissism. Being sad and keeping to yourself is symptomatic of depression, but being sad accompanied by the need to blame others as well as having a grandiose view of one’s self would be more representative of depression with narcissism. This combination brings an unhealthy lifestyle and burdens ones around the sufferer. The Depressed Person may not reach out

She even believes that she shares in the blame for her abuse, for she shows an apologetic attitude others (Allison 116). Through her feeling of isolation, she learns to depend on herself, especially on her imagination. She imagines herself with strength enough to fight back against Daddy Glen with “hands…a match for his” (Allison 109). She also visualizes other

Alice Miller wrote the book The Drama of the Gifted Child, which talks about a child who wanted nothing more than to please his parents. He felt like the best thing to do is please others and be perfect in everything he set out to do. Some children do what their parents say, some don’t follow the rules at all, but there is a child who did every single thing his parents told him to do. An ideal child that parents would adore but while he did everything they wanted he lost something. Himself; is what he lost in the midst of just focusing on what his parents wanted from and for him; he stopped dealing with his own life. He put himself on the back burner to please the parents who asked for so much and even took away a lot. Miller speaks on how it is because of the child’s own self pressure to be perfect that he experienced things adults go through at the time of still being a young boy. He never let himself feel remorse for his own actions, it was only failure and when it happened he bottled it up and never dealt with those feelings. It got to the point where he locked his child like self away to later then recover it after he became an adult.

This is made obvious by the subjective reflections of the now grown daughters as they write about their relationships with a distorted and one-sided view. “When individuals describe and evaluate an important relationship, this “accounting” of the relationship imparts meanings to the events, actions, and emotions of their past history, their present interactions, and their anticipated future together.” (Bojczyk, Lehan and McWey) This is how they identify their formative years and how they identify themselves as daughters to their mothers. Sufficed to say, despite the differences in perspective and experience, it is nearly impossible for the mother-daughter relationship to be clinically reviewed, they are heavily subjected to the author’s opinions and reactions to their mother.