Getting in Touch with your Feelings

Hi L,

Thank you for writing. Congratulations on your work of translating Alice Miller’s books into Russian. And I am glad to hear you have made good friends that share your experiences. I have not been able to meet many people here in Arizona that are able to face and feel their own childhood injuries and I am in a pretty lonely place. You ask if I ever found the right therapist for myself, the answer sadly is no and I have stopped looking. I became my own enlightened witness with the help of Alice Miller’s books and website. You say that you have problems getting in touch with your feelings. Fortunately all of my life my feelings were easily triggered by present circumstances and before I read Alice Miller’s books I use to isolate myself from other people, because intuitively I knew other people were more repressed and did not understand, and they would make me feel worse by unconsciously transferring their own disowned repressed feelings into me and making me feel even more guilt for feeling that way and I would isolate myself from others to protect myself until I felt better and stronger to be around other people, but of course sometimes would affect my work, but since reading Alice’s books I no longer feel alone and isolated and I am able to understand my fears, anxieties and painful feelings when triggered by present circumstances and resolve them pretty quick and able take the proper action to take care of myself in the present moment without letting old fears and pain of the child I once was fogging my judgment and interfering with my work. I am sorry you have difficulty in getting in touch with the feelings of the child you once were. I have a niece-in-law in Portugal that too can understand it all intellectually, but is so terrified to feel the painful feelings of the child she once was that in the moment the fears of the child she once  was are triggered to the surface she runs by distracting herself with shopping, chasing men or whatever and when those things no longer work, like the defenseless little girl she once was, she goes to her parents the people that created her emotional prison and kept her captive, they take her to the crazy doctors of Portugal that instead of helping her face, feel and understand her fears and painful feelings give her medications causing her repression to go deeper and fortifying the walls of her emotional prison even more  and making true liberation completely impossible, it’s very sad because she has a beautiful 9 year old boy that, NOW, I hope he will be able to escape the parents’ emotional prison, because I am starting to lose hope for his mother. I am wondering if you had sexual abuse as a small girl from an adult member of your family that was supposed to be your protector, but instead exploited you to satisfy his own sexual needs, because I have notice women that have been sexually abused by a person that was supposed to be their protector have a harder time in getting in touch with the feelings of the child they once were. I know how intense the feelings of the child I once was were and I did not have sexual abuse from my protectors as a small girl, my abuse was mostly neglect and emotional, so I have no idea how much more intense and agonizing the repressed feelings of a person that has been sexual abused as small child might be like and how much harder might be to feel them alone without an enlightened witness being present to help them. I wish I could be present for my niece-in-law, but she is in Portugal and I am an ocean and a continent apart, but even if I was there would be no guarantee that she would be able to gather the courage to feel those intense agonizing feelings of the child she once was of being sexually abused by her own father the man that was supposed to be her protector.

Feel free to write me anytime, it might take me a little bit to answer, because now days I am busier than I ever been in my life, but you can be assure that eventually I will answer you.

Sylvie