The Minneapolis Shooter’s Manifesto: Another Cry of Repressed Childhood Pain

 Another mass shooting. This time at a Catholic school and church in Minneapolis. Once again, lives destroyed. Once again, the headlines ask “why?”

But the shooter’s own words—his manifesto—already tell us why. And it is the same reason Alice Miller spent her life trying to show the world: repressed childhood pain always comes back, sooner or later, either against the self or against others.

The Words of a Shackled Soul

Robin Westman’s manifesto reads like a confession of a tortured childhood, though he does not recognize it as such.

• “I don’t expect forgiveness … I do apologize for the effects my actions will have on your lives.”

• “I was corrupted by this world and have learned to hate what life is.”

• “I have wanted this for so long. I am not well. I am not right. I am a sad person, haunted by these thoughts that do not go away. I know this is wrong, but I can’t seem to stop myself.”

• “I am severely depressed and have been suicidal for years. Only recently have I lost all hope and decided to perform my final action against this world.”

This is the language of someone in the grip of compulsion repetition—the unconscious drive to reenact the cruelty once suffered as a defenseless child. His “haunting thoughts” were the repressed emotions of his early life, breaking through, demanding expression. Because he could not face the real culprits of his pain—his parents, his family, the blindness of his childhood environment—he turned his fury outward on innocent victims.

Depression as Repressed Anger

Westman admits he has been “severely depressed and suicidal for years.” This is not surprising. As I have written before: depression is anger turned inward. When that anger is never consciously felt, it either festers until it destroys the self—or erupts outward in violence. His shooting was the tragic eruption of anger that could no longer be contained.

The Illusions of Hatred

His weapons were covered in names of other mass killers, Holocaust references, anti-religious phrases, and racist slurs. These are borrowed scripts—ideological costumes for his pain. Just as James Dobson gave parents religious permission to beat and shame their children, Westman found in racism, memes, and past killers a framework to justify his own destruction.

But beneath the white supremacy signs, beneath the slurs and slogans, the real fuel was not ideology. It was the unfelt rage of a child.

Alice Miller’s Warning

Alice Miller wrote:

“The repression of authentic feelings during childhood leads to compulsive repetition of the early situation. The individual then does to others what was once done to him.”

That is what we are witnessing again. And until society has the courage to face this, we will keep witnessing it.

The media calls this manifesto “disturbing” or “inexplicable.” But it is not inexplicable. It is the same old wound, speaking again through another broken adult who was once a broken child.

The Real Culprits

Westman blames “the world.” But the world did not corrupt him. The wound began in childhood. His parents, his early caregivers, the society that teaches repression as virtue—these are the ones who failed him. Yet it is easier to rail against the faceless “world” than to admit the unbearable truth: that those who were supposed to love him were the ones who hurt him most.

Repressed hatred can only be resolved when it is understood and consciously felt towards the real culprits.

Until we dare to direct our rage where it belongs, we will keep seeing it displaced onto scapegoats—whether through suicide, terrorism, or school shootings.

Not a Mystery

Every shooting, every act of terrorism, every “inexplicable” tragedy repeats the same story:

• Repressed childhood pain.

• Depression and despair.

• Anger displaced onto scapegoats.

• Illusions that provide moral cover.

Dobson’s doctrines of repression. Trump’s cruelty. Musk and Thiel’s authoritarian dreams. They are all fueled by the same unresolved childhood pain, disguised as “family values,” “strength,” or “progress.”

The Only Way Out

There is only one solution: the courage to face and feel our childhood repression.

Without it, no amount of education, wealth, religion, or technology will save us. With it, we could break the cycle at last.

Until then, every new shooting is not a mystery. It is another cry of repressed childhood pain. And the blood of innocents will continue to mark the cost of our collective cowardice.