When the Wounded Child Takes Over: From Our Workplaces to the National Stage

When the Wounded Child Takes Over: From Our Workplaces to the National Stage

By Sylvie Shene

Yesterday, as I reflected on a situation with my young coworker, I realized how much clarity can be mistaken for a lack of compassion. But the truth is the opposite. What looks like detachment is, in reality, the deepest form of understanding — knowing exactly where someone is in their psychological development, and knowing that you cannot save a person who has already sealed their emotional doors shut.

The Hero Role: A Trap, Not a Strength

My coworker is only 21. She reminds me painfully of my sister, MI, and my niece Marie — born into dysfunction, carrying adulthood before her brain has even finished developing. Both fell into the “hero” role early:

• taking care of chaotic parents

• absorbing family drama

• believing control equals safety

• wearing a mask of superiority to hide terror

• projecting confidence while internally collapsing

At 21, I wish someone like me had crossed my path — not to rescue me, but to witness me, to help me see. No one who wants the naked truth should have to wait decades before discovering Alice Miller.

But the tragedy is that you can only reach someone who wants to be reached, and a person stuck in the hero/victim cycle is not open to feedback, only affirmation. They see anyone who holds a mirror as a threat.

As Alice Miller wrote so accurately:

“Don’t give such information to anybody who does not ask.
They would kill you rather than accept the truth of their childhood.”

In my coworker’s case, the “killing” is not literal — but she could harm my peace, my job, or my reputation if her wounded child feels exposed. I’ve seen this dynamic before. My niece Marie launched a smear campaign against me when I refused to be her accomplice in a revenge fantasy. That’s what happens when you challenge the illusions of someone who is emotionally blind.

Childhood Repression: A Time Bomb

What saddens me most is how early I can see the walls forming around her. Her superiority glance — the one narcissists give without realizing it — isn’t personal. It’s armor. It’s fear pretending to be power. It’s a child trying to survive a world she has no tools to navigate.

I don’t judge her.
I feel for her.

But I’ve learned: those with dangerous childhood repression often look for a scapegoat when their illusions crack.

And this pattern isn’t limited to individuals. It happens at the level of nations.

Because a wounded child who never heals becomes an adult capable of destroying themselves and others.

Which brings me to the tragedy that unfolded yesterday in Washington, D.C.

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The National Guard Shooting: Another Wounded Child Explodes

The suspect who shot National Guardsmen near the White House is an Afghan national — married, with five children — who drove across the country to carry out his attack.

Every detail in the news story screams of unprocessed trauma:

• a turbulent migration history

• CIA work

• political displacement

• cultural exile

• the weight of five children

• unresolved childhood wounds

• pressure, fear, identity collapse

People don’t wake up one morning and commit an act like this.
They implode.

They reenact the traumas buried alive in their bodies.

They become the very danger they once escaped.

And worst of all?

They leave behind new children who will now inherit grief, instability, and the cycle of emotional blindness.

Five small children.
Five futures forever altered.

As I always say:

The more unconscious people are, the more children they have.

The human ocean is full of time bombs — adults who were never allowed to feel or understand their pain. And when these wounds explode, they don’t just ruin one life — they ripple outward:

• families destroyed

• communities shaken

• nations manipulated

• policies tightened

• fear weaponized

Already, the administration is adding 500 more troops to Washington, D.C. You don’t need a crystal ball to see where this is heading. Violence is oxygen for leaders who need chaos to justify control.

Just like in families, unhealed wounds reenact themselves on the national stage.

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A Warning From Alice Miller — For All Levels of Society

What I see in my coworker, in Marie, in the suspect, and in politicians feeding off fear is the same root:

unfelt childhood pain becomes adult destruction.

People who never had someone witness their suffering:

• cannot witness others

• cannot regulate emotions

• cannot tolerate feedback

• cannot love 

• cannot handle reality

• cannot stop reenacting

• cannot stop looking for scapegoats

This is why the world is the way it is.
Not because of “evil.”
But because of repression.

The wounded child grows up — but never heals.

And then the world pays the price.

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The Only Real Solution

As Alice Miller said:

“You can only heal yourself, and this is much, very much.”

I can’t save my coworker.
I couldn’t save Marie
I can’t save anyone who doesn’t want to see.

All I can do is witness, speak the truth, and stay grounded — so I don’t become anyone’s scapegoat or anyone’s collateral damage.

What I wish, more than anything, is that the world would learn what I learned:

• suppression becomes sickness

• repression becomes violence

• projection becomes destruction

• childhood pain becomes political crisis

And until society is finally ready to see the wounded child behind the adult mask, we will keep watching tragedies unfold — in workplaces, in families, and in national headlines.

People make you crazy only when you try to rescue them.
People destroy you only when you threaten their illusions.
And people heal only when they choose to face their own painful truths.

History is not repeating — it is re-enacting.
The Trump administration is already using yesterday’s tragedy to justify harsher immigration policies. But this moment didn’t appear out of nowhere. It began decades ago with illusions, interventions, and unresolved trauma on a global scale.

In 2021, I wrote about the U.S. abandoning Afghanistan and warned that the "illusion of freedom" America sold would explode the moment it became too costly to maintain. And today, those consequences are coming back — not because immigrants are the problem, but because repression always returns through the weakest, most vulnerable link.

The wounded child — whether in a family, a workplace, or a nation — becomes a time bomb when no one dares to face the truth.

The chickens are coming home to roost.
Not because of immigration.
But because of decades of illusion, denial, and repression.

Read the full reflection from 2021 → sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2021/08/afghanistan.html