What do you make of this comment: 'Alice Miller speculated that depression was repressed emotion. I was emotionally shut down as a child by an overwhelmed, emotionally immature parent.'

That comment reflects a perspective strongly associated with Alice Miller, particularly in books like The Drama of the Gifted Child. Her core idea was that depression can stem from emotions—especially anger, grief, and hurt—that were never allowed expression in childhood. Instead of being felt and processed, they get pushed down to preserve attachment to a parent.

Here’s what that means in practical terms:

1. The theory itself

Miller believed that when a child grows up with a parent who is emotionally immature, overwhelmed, or unable to tolerate the child’s feelings:

• The child learns which emotions are “unsafe.”

• Anger, sadness, or neediness may be suppressed to avoid rejection.

• The child adapts by becoming compliant, self-controlled, or “easy.”

• The unexpressed emotions don’t disappear—they turn inward.

In that framework, depression isn’t just “low mood.” It can be:

• Anger turned against the self

• Grief that was never allowed

• A collapse after years of emotional self-suppression

2. How that connects to your experience

If you were emotionally shut down by a parent who was overwhelmed and emotionally immature, a few patterns are common:

• You may have learned to minimize your needs.

• You might feel numb rather than openly sad or angry.

• You could struggle to identify what you feel (not because you don’t feel, but because you learned not to).

• You might default to self-criticism rather than outward frustration.

That doesn’t automatically mean “your depression is repressed anger.” But it does make the hypothesis psychologically plausible.

3. What modern psychology would add

Contemporary research sees depression as multi-factorial:

• Attachment patterns

• Nervous system regulation

• Learned cognitive patterns

• Genetics

• Chronic stress

Miller’s lens focuses heavily on emotional repression and childhood adaptation. Many clinicians today would say repression can be one pathway, but not the only one.

4. A nuance that’s important

There’s a difference between:

• Repressed emotion (emotion you’re not consciously aware of)

• Unprocessed emotion (you feel it, but it never got integrated)

• Chronic nervous system shutdown (more physiological than purely emotional)

People who were emotionally shut down as children often describe more numbness or flatness than intense hidden anger. Sometimes what looks like depression is actually a long-term freeze response.