Letter to D

Dear D,

Since your last letter you have been in my mind constantly and wanting to write to you, but because I am so busy these days and plus writing to someone that 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 in order 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."

http://www.alice-miller.com/interviews_en.php?page=6

You feel betrayed by me, but the person that has really betrayed you was your father and mother when you were a defenseless little girl. I tried then, to make your mother see and take action to protect you, but I was not able to and now you are suffering because your mother lacked the courage to protect you from your father that was using and exploiting you to fulfill his emotional needs. 

You were betrayed by your parents not me, but now because I did not say the things you wanted to hear and 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 you directing your anger at scapegoats, you will stay trapped and it never gets resolved. 

Only when we feel our repressed feelings in the right context, they start to diminish get resolved and we free ourselves. 

On my summer vacations to Portugal, I would witness that instead of you relying on the 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 and they describe what happened to you as a small child to a T. I tried to share these books with your mother, but 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 and if I had not left Portugal I would never have learned the English language and I would not ever have been exposed to this essential knowledge to help me liberate myself. I felt she learning English was a total waste, because if what we learned is not used to help ourselves why go through the trouble to learn it! What waste, I left the books in Portugal, if you gather the courage to read them; you will see yourself in them:

“Silently Seduced: When Parents Make Their Children Partners Understanding Covert Incest” By Kenneth M. Adams

“The Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to do When a Parent’s Love Rules Your Life” by Patricia Love

“Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy: and Reclaiming your Life” Susan Forward and Craig Buck ---

It’s amazing to me how a person goes to University and gets so much abstract knowledge, but they don’t get any self-knowledge the most important knowledge of all, because without self-knowledge we just deceive ourselves and others and with a degree from a University it’s just like getting a ticket to go into the world to spread their psychological virus to the masses and this is why we live in a world with emotionally blind people with degrees in power positions making decisions that put all of us in danger and this is why the world is in the position is in. Again these words by Alice Miller come to mind: “…society we live in continue to turn a blind eye to the facts of child abuse in all its forms. Among thousands of professors at hundreds of universities, there is not one single university chair for teaching about child abuse and cruelty to children. Why? Because that cruelty successfully masquerades as parenting and education” Alice Miller, taken from the book “The truth Will Set you free” page, 101
http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php?lang=en&nid=682&grp=0506

Reading your last e-mail is like a déjà vu, when I was growing up in Portugal, just because I did not say or do what people expected of me, it would trigger their anger and they would blame me for it, but I was not the cause of their anger, just like, NOW, I am not the cause of your anger, I am just the trigger, back then I did not understand these psychological mechanisms and I thought it was my fault, for not being able to be and do what they expected of me, but today I understand very well what is happening, even though it’s never pleasant to have people trying to make me their poisonous container or scapegoat, I am getting better every day at handling people’s transference. In the link below you can read a great article about transference:

http://www.alice-miller.com/articles_en.php?lang=en&nid=116&grp=11

I see clearly that me sponsoring you so you could leave Portugal is an illusion and I don’t feed people’s illusions anymore. Leaving Portugal will not solve your problems if you move to a new place without facing and feeling your painful truth first the only thing that changes is the scenery, but your unresolved personal issues will follow you everywhere you go, everywhere you go there you are! We can’t run from ourselves. Me leaving Portugal and coming to America did not solve my problems, the knowledge I acquire here helped me break free from the emotional prison I was born in and now I am bringing this knowledge, in a tray, to anyone in Portugal that have the courage to face and feel their personal painful truths. I can’t face and feel other people’s painful truths, if I could do it for you, I would do it, because you are my niece and god-daughter and nothing would make me happier than see you free, but I can’t do it for you, just like no one could do it for me, only you can do it, NOW, and if you ever gather the courage to do it and need someone to talk to, I am here to listen to you and give you support in your liberation, but I don’t have time to feed people’s illusions.

I wish you much courage and strength to face and feel your painful truths and I hope one day you can liberate yourself,

Sylvie

Also, read the conversation with D in the post before this one

http://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-will-not-be-scapegoat-or-poisonous.html