One day she was able to feel this shame deeply in the session and said: “I feel so ridiculous, as if I’ve been talking to a wall and expecting it to answer, like a silly child.”
I asked: “Would you think it ridiculous if you saw a child who had to tell his troubles to a wall because there was no one else available?”
The despairing sobbing that followed my question gave Linda access to a part of her former reality that was pervaded by boundless loneliness. It also eventually freed her from her agonizing, self-destructive, repetitive feelings of shame.
— The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self Third Edition (Alice Miller), Loc. 1037–41