Psychology · Chapter 1 · Simon: trauma & survival
A Crack in the Asphalt
Attention hunger after emotional neglect
“soaked up the foreign attention the way a crack in asphalt soaks up rain” Being seen is a basic human need, like food or sleep. A child who was noticed only to be hit — and the rest of the time not seen at all — grows up with a chronic hunger for attention. Such a psyche registers any feeling aimed at it, even hatred, as confirmation: I exist.
That is why Simon’s body answers his tormentor’s gaze with warmth and not only fear. This is not “perversion” and it is not consent to violence — it is what deprivation does: a crack soaks up any rain, because no other rain ever came. The shame he feels for these reactions is part of the trauma, not the person’s fault.
