Dear D,
You’ve lingered in my thoughts since your last letter. Writing back felt heavy—not just from my own busyness, but from carrying your repressed anger. I know facing truth is agony. But as Alice Miller writes:
"Pain is the way to truth. Deny you were unloved as a child, and you spare yourself pain—but lose your truth. You’ll spend life begging for love. Therapy stalls when we avoid pain. Yet confronting neglect or hatred brings guilt: ‘My mother’s cruelty is my fault. What must I do to earn her love?’ This guilt shields you from a devastating truth: you were fated to have a mother who couldn’t love. Believing ‘I’m the problem’ lets you keep trying. But love isn’t earned. Guilt for what was done to you? It feeds your blindness. Your neurosis."
You feel I betrayed you. But the real betrayal came decades ago—from your parents. I tried to make your mother see. To protect you. She lacked the courage to shield you from a father who exploited you to feed his emotional hunger. On those Portugal summers, I watched it: you, a child, forced to be your father’s partner—not his daughter.
Your rage at me? Justified—but misdirected. It belongs to them. Scapegoating me lets that wound fester. Truth is the only scalpel: feel your repressed fury in its rightful context—childhood—and it dissolves. You free yourself.
I bought these books for you. They name what was done to you:
"Silently Seduced" (Kenneth Adams) — On covert incest.
"The Emotional Incest Syndrome" (Patricia Love) — When a parent’s love suffocates.
"Toxic Parents" (Susan Forward) — Reclaiming your life.
I left them with your mother. She refused to see. No excuses—she speaks English fluently. What good is language if not to seek self-knowledge? What good are degrees if they license emotional blindness? Miller was right:
"Universities churn out experts blind to child abuse. Why? Because cruelty masquerades as ‘parenting.’"
Your last email? Déjà vu. Growing up in Portugal, I was blamed whenever I refused to perform expected roles. My crime? Not soothing others’ unresolved pain. Now I know: their anger wasn’t about me. Yours isn’t either. I’m just the trigger. The scapegoat. Read more on transference here.
Sponsoring your move from Portugal was an illusion. I don’t feed those anymore. Geography doesn’t heal trauma. You can’t outrun yourself. I learned this in America: liberation came through facing my truth—not crossing an ocean. Now I offer that knowledge on a silver platter. Take it.
I can’t feel your pain for you. If I could, I would—you’re my niece, my goddaughter. Your freedom would be my joy. But this battle is yours alone. When you’re ready to fight it, I’ll stand with you. Until then? I won’t polish illusions.
Courage, D. Feel your truth. It’s the only path out.
Sylvie
(For context, see my earlier post: I Will Not Be Your Scapegoat)
Original letter below
Dear D,
Since your last letter, you have been on my mind constantly, and I have wanted to write to you, but because I am so busy these days, and plus writing to someone who is directing their repressed anger at me, it makes it even harder to sit down and write.
I know the truths I talk about are very hard to face and feel, but for you to free yourself, you need your truth, like Alice Miller says: "Pain is the way to the truth. By denying that you were unloved as a child, you spare yourself some pain, but you are not with your own truth. And throughout your whole life, you'll try to earn love. In therapy, avoiding pain causes blockage. Yet nobody can confront being neglected or hated without feeling guilty. "It is my fault that my mother is cruel," he thinks. "I made my mother furious; what can I do to make her loving?" So he will continue trying to make her love him. The guilt is really protection against the terrible realization that you are fated to have a mother who cannot love. This is much more painful than to think, "Oh, she is a good mother, it's only me who's bad." Because then you can try to do something to get love. But it's not true; you cannot earn love. And feeling guilty for what has been done to you only supports your blindness and your neurosis."
You were betrayed by your parents, not me, but now because I did not say what you wanted to hear. I did not behave the way you like to; it triggers your justified anger, but that anger was caused by the betrayal of your parents, and as long as you direct your anger at scapegoats, you will stay trapped, and it never gets resolved.
Only when we feel our repressed feelings in the right context do they start to diminish and get resolved, and we free ourselves.
On my summer vacations to Portugal, I would witness that instead of you relying on your father for emotional support, it was your father relying on you to get his emotional needs met, and this is very damaging to a child; you were more to your father a partner than his daughter.
I bought the books below, thinking of you. They describe what happened to you as a small child to a T. I tried to share these books with your mother. Still, she too did not have the courage to open her eyes and see, she can’t use the excuse that she did not know English, because she like you had no problems learning the English language in school, me in the other hand, because of my learning disability I was not able to learn in school. If I had not left Portugal, I would never have learned the English language, and I would not have been exposed to this essential knowledge to help me liberate myself. I felt that she learning English was a total waste, because if what we learned is not used to help ourselves, why go through the trouble of learning it? What a waste, I left the books in Portugal. If you gather the courage to read them, you will see yourself in them:
http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php?lang=en&nid=682&grp=0506
