Why and for whom am I writing this?

I started this blog to record my thoughts as a scientist. And while the next several posts have nothing directly to do with scientific research, they are about the experiences of somebody who has struggled to become a scientist — namely, myself. There are plenty of blogs already where scientists write about their research or scientific ideas, or give expression to their social, political, or philosophical views. But I haven’t really run across too many where a scientist talks about really personal problems which he or she has had to deal with while trying to create a career in science. This gives the impression that all the successful scientists (the blogging ones, anyway) have personal lives which are in tiptop shape.

This may or may not actually be true, but it has the effect of creating a vicious cycle. When I was young, I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies of famous and successful people. In some cases, their parents were not mentioned, or they were deceased. But whenever there was a reference to living parents, their influence was inevitably described as positive. Of course, the sample is biased — people with unsupportive parents have no reason to bring them up and would tend to be disinclined to discuss them.

This places a double burden on the child with unsupportive or abusive parents — firstly, he has to cope with their behaviour, and secondly, he must do so without role models with which he can fully identify. While I was growing up, I always wondered what these people about whom I was reading would do if their families had opposed their work. Would they still have accomplished what they did? It seemed to me that while having supportive parents was not absolutely necessary for success, having disruptive parents would be very debilitating and would prevent anything from getting accomplished.

I could have spent the past decade and a half making more contributions to science and to society. Instead, most of my energy and efforts were taken up with maintaining a focus on my studies while sustaining a continuous barrage of attacks against science and against the culture of science by my parents. But as the saying goes: “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” I have spent a lot of time thinking about science and science-related issues such as its role in and its effects on society. I had really wanted to write publicly about these things, but my parents prevented me from doing so. So I will write instead about my experiences growing up with physically and emotionally abusive parents, and how I coped with it.

I started writing an autobiographical account as a part of my talk therapy with UW Counselling Services. I have decided to make it public, because I think that there are many people out there who can benefit from my experiences. There are, first of all, the young people whose parents are unsupportive of their academic or creative endeavours. When I found myself in that situation as a youth, I really wished that I had someone whose experiences I could relate to. Then there are those who are in the situation that I am in now: unable to concentrate on academic work because of personal problems. The latter is probably rather common — there are a huge number of problems graduate students have to deal with, such as depression, poverty, illness, homesickness, and so on. But I suspect that there are a significant number of the former as well, who are not visible because they feel that they have no one to turn to. I know because I was in that position myself.

I think the parents of gifted children would benefit from reading about my experiences as well. There are probably hundreds of books and web sites on the subject of raising gifted children. They universally agree on the sorts of things such parents should do: encourage the child’s interests, listen to the child’s teachers, and so on. But I don’t know of anyone who has written about what it is like to be a gifted child in an environment in which the parents always acted in exactly the opposite manner to how the parents of a gifted child ought to behave. My observation of other parents while I was growing up was that most of them also behaved in ways which, it was obvious to me, impeded the growth of their children.

Finally, I am of course also writing this for myself. I am in a rut in my studies and cannot move forward. I feel that the course of my life has been derailed by circumstances entirely beyond my control, but I also recognize that I am the only one who can change my predicament. So I am writing about my life publicly to motivate myself to get back on track, to commit myself to this project of change, and so that I would be held accountable for those changes.

– davinci