The Mask of the Healer: From the Epstein Files to the Prestigious Doctor Down the Hall

The recent release of the Epstein files has done what the justice system, for too long, could not: it has begun to pull back the curtain on a world of carefully constructed illusions. We are seeing the names of wealthy and influential men—doctors, scientists, businessmen—who orbited a convicted sex offender, exposed in black and white. Men like Peter Attia, the famed longevity doctor who joked with Epstein and lamented he couldn't tell a soul about their "outrageous" friendship. Men like Leon Black and Glenn Dubin, who continued to associate with him and, in some cases, welcomed him into their homes with their children present.

The files are a testament to a simple, brutal truth: the truth always comes to the light, sooner or later, in one form or another.

As I read these names—including the long list of doctors from Mount Sinai and other prestigious institutions who provided "VIP" services to Epstein—I am not surprised. I am, however, filled with a familiar, heavy feeling. It’s the same feeling I had in 2013, watching a resident from the community where I worked fall for the illusions of another charlatan promoted by Oprah Winfrey: the Brazilian "faith healer" John of God, who was later exposed and arrested.

We live in a world of puppets and puppeteers. And some of the most dangerous puppeteers are not the ones we fear, but the ones we are taught to trust. They are the "helpers" who, behind closed doors, create the chaos, only to later appear as the heroes. As I wrote to a corrupt former employer the day I resigned:

"A lot of the time, the 'helpers' who covertly, behind closed doors, create the chaos later appear to be the heroes and nice people. The most dangerous terrorists are in boardrooms. We live in a world where some very smart people have become master manipulators at creating big illusions to fool the emotionally blind public."

A Story Closer to Home

This brings me to my own story. While the world watches the downfall of Epstein’s associates, I think about the "prestigious psychiatric Dr. Julio Machado Vaz" in my country of birth, Portugal. I wonder when his mask will be ripped away.

I was 17 years old when he sexually abused me. He was a young, 27-year-old doctor. Back then, he was building a reputation, a career on the foundation of trust that his white coat and title afforded him. I have no doubt that during his long lifetime as a doctor, he abused many other vulnerable teenagers like me. He was, in his own way, a Portuguese equivalent to these men we are now seeing in the headlines—protected by his status, his connections, and the public's emotional blindness.

It may be that my story will only get the attention it deserves after I am dead. It may be that he will only be exposed after he is gone, too. But I have no doubt that it will happen. Because, as we are seeing now, the truth is patient. It waits. And eventually, it finds a way through the cracks in the illusion.

The Profitable Business of Illusion

The Epstein files show us that the "cult business" is very profitable, whether it’s the cult of personality around a financier, a TV host, or an author. We see it in the recent charges against acclaimed Australian children's author Craig Silvey, accused of child exploitation offenses. Another person in a position of trust, another illusion shattered for the families involved.

Oprah Winfrey famously said that her "job ended" and her "calling began." I would argue her calling became that of a master puppeteer, promoting cult leaders like John of God and cashing in on society’s desperate need for easy answers and charismatic figures. She is not alone. The boardrooms are filled with these "smart people" who have become experts at creating big illusions.

No Escape from Destiny

To those who continue to protect the prestigious psychiatric Dr. Julio Machado Vaz in Portugal, and to all the enablers who look the other way, I offer the same words I left with my former employer:

"Good luck to you all, too, but have in mind everyone will meet their own destiny sooner or later in one form or another -- there's no escape... When all your illusions burst, I'm glad I will not be around because it will not be pretty. Most importantly, I wish you all courage and strength to get through it when all your illusions burst."

The Epstein files are just one more chapter in humanity's long, slow reckoning with its hidden darkness. They prove that no amount of prestige, money, or carefully managed public image can shield a person from their own destiny. The truth is coming for them all. And one day, it will come for him, too.

Also, read about Dr. Johnnie Barto, a sexual predator pediatrician, gets up to 158 years in prison

Will More Women in Portugal Find the Courage to Report Dr. Julio Machado Vaz's Sexual Abuse?

Will Ever Portugal Find the Courage to Investigate Dr. Julio Machado Vaz?

Bill O'Reilly wasn't fired because of what he did — he was fired because it got out

Outonecer: When a Predator Performs Wisdom in Autumn

Americans Who Voted for Trump are Extremely Emotionally Blind

 

The Americans who voted for Trump are extremely emotionally blind, and now we all have to pay the price.

As long as most people in our society are blinded by the repressed emotions of the child they once were, there will always be just two choices to vote for, pure evil and the lesser evil. 

The fight we are witnessing in the stage of the world is not between good and evil, it’s between pure evil and the lesser evil, and they both are just driven by the repressed fears of the child they once were to gain as much power and money to escape from having to re-experience the powerless and the fears of the child they once were!

Most people would rather kill and be killed than face the fears of resolving childhood repression. 
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-conversation-about-effects-of.html

The biggest threat to humanity is people's repressed emotions of the child they once were, blinding them. If people were not emotionally blind, they would be able to see the lies, illusions, and all the traps society constantly puts in front of them. And yes, an emotionally blind humanity with the aid of technology will destroy itself much faster. Pure evil causes a lot more damage than the lesser evil. As we are witnessing… That's why I always vote for the lesser evil, which causes much less damage. There's a big difference between pure evil and the lesser evil. 

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/search?q=emotionally+blind

I totally agree with Dr. Alice Miller.  Our famous Dr. Phil is a great example of this phenomenon.  There is a lot of money to be made in all types of therapeutic businesses and treating symptoms.  But, as long as we keep ignoring the root of the problem, we only fix our problems temporarily and superficially.  Dr. Phil is a fraud, just like Oprah. 
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2011/04/alice-miller-most-significant-thinker.html

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/search?q=Oprah

The world is run by gifted and once well-behaved children because most people cannot see behind their gifts and talents -- that they are corrupted to the core. The white color crimes committed by gifted and once well-behaved children cost more money to society at large than all other petty crimes combined, but they rarely get punished in our society.

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2019/12/comments-from-facebook-post-about.html?m=1

Narcissists and Shame

Shame is a common theme in narcissistic relationships, both for the narcissist and their partner: 

Narcissists may have a chronic state of shame that they are unable to regulate. They may cope with shame by blaming others, avoiding facing it, or constructing a false personality.

Narcissists and their partners

Narcissists may target people who are insecure or have low self-esteem, and they may create situations to make their partners feel shame. This can put the narcissist in a position of control in the relationship. 

People in narcissistic relationships may feel shame for staying in the relationship, especially if it ends. They may feel ashamed for being in an unhealthy relationship, or because other people seem to have healthy relationships.

Some signs of a narcissistic partner who is playing the "shame game" include: Isolation, References to shameful events, and Blame. 

Psychotherapist Joseph Burgo says that intense shame in early life can lead to narcissism. 

The narcissist's unacknowledged shame often leads to their displays of shamelessness, lack of compassion, rage, and entitled grandiosity. Always the narcissist's shame is linked to the trauma they have experienced as children.

To avoid these shameful feelings and escape from the grip of shame, the child looks to get some control over their lives in other ways. For example, the child may glean control through perfectionism, grandiosity, power, attention, etc., all of which leads to the manifestation of the narcissist’s “God complex”, where they feel superior to everybody else

https://narcissisticbehavior.net/the-narcissists-shame/#:~:text=The%20narcissist's%20unacknowledged%20shame%20often,they%20have%20experienced%20as%20children.

As Alice Miller wrote in the answers below to one of her readers:

"I am also glad that you have the hope that we can pass on our knowledge to the masses. I had this hope 30 years ago when I wrote the Drama. I thought that showing the truth can change so much. Meanwhile, I became more skeptical or just more impatient after I discovered the fear of the beaten child in all of us that built up the omnipresent resistance against the truth." Alice Miller

(Me too I had the hope with the writing of my book would help pass this knowledge to the masses, but like Alice Miller, I have become skeptical and with the writing of my book I too learned that people's repressed fears at their parents build omnipresent resistance against the truth. And people rather destroy others than face and consciously feel their own repressed fears to see the truth. And this is why I have been harassed, prosecuted, and ostracized since I can remember and in the workplace by very bad players since I published my book. I understand people's fears of their childhood pain that have been trying to keep repressed all of their lives, but it is still disappointing that pretty much everyone I meet doesn't have the courage to face their fears and become real)  

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/search?q=Repressed+Fears+&m=1 

Very well said. But sadly unless most people find the courage to open their eyes to see and feel their painful truths -- no matter what anyone says or does -- it will not change the course of humanity to an abyss. I wish Oprah were not in the video because I'm not a fan. Oprah's life career has been a cult leader promoter. 

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/search?q=oprah  

Interesting 

Yes, that's what they do

Don't engage with them and walk away that's the only way to win. 

Resolving our childhood repression is the vaccine against narcissists. A coworker who I believe is a covert narcissist once told me that she didn't care for me, and I responded calmly that I didn't care for her either, but I should have said also that coming from her I take it as a compliment.

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-conversation-about-effects-of.html

Illusions Disguised as Spirituality

 I almost fell into this trap or illusion!

Illusions Disguised as Spirituality Thursday, December 21, 2006

Ms. Miller,

I am with a fellowship known as Adult Children of Alcoholics. ACA is a 12-step fellowship of men and women who endured abuse, neglect, and indifference as children but who live in confusion about their past unless they get focused help. An adult child is someone who unknowingly responds to adult situations with the childhood fears of being unlovable, inferior, or wrong. We self-sabotage ourselves in friendships and romantic relationships until we find help. ACA believes that addiction, compulsive sexual activity, overspending, overeating, and other forms of self-harm and dissociation have their basis in childhood trauma, neglect, and indifference. We just published our fellowship meeting book. I would like to send you one of these first-edition books for free because I believe you would understand our search for the True Self. This book was 15 years in the making, and it encourages adult children to talk about their childhood experiences and to inventory the dysfunctional family (specifically the parents). The goal is to achieve emotional sobriety by externalizing the parents and to reparent ourselves with self-love and spirituality.

O. G.

AM: You write: The goal is to achieve emotional sobriety by externalizing the parents and to reparent ourselves with self-love and spirituality. What exactly do you mean by "spirituality"?

 The spirituality we seek in Adult Children of Alcoholics is reliance upon a Higher Power who is loving and non-abandoning. However, this is a journey more than a destination. The adult child must first realize that he or she has projected the traits and attributes of abusive/neglectful parents onto God. So the God we arrive at in adulthood is usually a projection of our judging and abandoning parents or caregivers. This distortion of a Higher Power is validated by organized religion, which tends to be shaming and controlling. Once the recovering adult child realizes that the God he or she was raised with is really a distortion (this can take years), then the work of accepting a loving Higher Power can begin. Then the concept of self-love becomes believable.

O.

AM: Thank you for your reply; it is much telling to me because in my opinion the word "spirituality" is in most cases covering something that is not clear. In your concept, I don't see the path to growth but rather the repetition and continuation of the child's dependency on illusions. My experience gave me a very different view into illness and healing. If you have enough time, you can read the letters published here and see that growing and healing begin when former victims of mistreatment start to confront themselves with the cruelty of their upbringing, without illusions about the "love" of a higher power and without blaming themselves for projections. They allow themselves to feel their authentic emotions without moral restrictions and in this way become eventually true to themselves. If you succeed to read the 12 steps with an open mind, freely, as if it were for the first time, you will easily discover how they continue to keep the ACA in the former dependency of the child: fear, self-blame, and permanent overstrain. A person who has eventually painfully realized that she was never loved can, based on this truth, learn to love herself and her children. But a person who lives with the illusion that she was indeed loved by the Higher Power, though she has missed feeling this love, will probably blame herself in the old manner for her lack of gratitude and will tend to demand the love from her children. By so doing, she will pass on the blame to her children if they don't behave in the way she wishes them to do; she will pass on the blame, together with the lie that she learned in her so-called recovery.

http://www.alice-miller.com/en/illusions-disguised-as-spirituality/

Dear Alice,
If I may ask, what is your opposition to 12 step program? I apologize if I have missed where you may have covered this question already.
Thank you, LG

From the team: The following link leads to an exchange with a reader, where Alice Miller expressed her criticism of the 12-step philosophy:

Title “Illusions disguised as Spirituality”
Published: Thursday, December 21, 2006
Link: http://www.alice-miller.com/en/illusions-disguised-as-spirituality/

Thank you for your response. I am still not quite sure I understand very well. Are you saying that the 12-step program for ACA’s places the burden on the ACA to recover? And that “recovery” outside of the 12-step program is impeded because it does not allow for impedes the ability to “feel” honestly the injustices and abuse endured in childhood?
Also, may I ask what view you have of “God”?

Thank you again. LG

AM: In my understanding, we can liberate ourselves from the effects of cruel parenting if we become free to feel our own authentic feelings, whatever they might tell us. But if our goal is to become loving and forgiving persons, loved by the Higher Power, we are obliged to cultivate the denial of our reality, which we learned to do well as children, ignoring that it was exactly this denial that made us sick from the start.

http://www.alice-miller.com/en/12-step-programs/

Sylvie: Thank you, K, for writing. Me too, I miss Alice so much. The only real person I encountered in this world who helped me articulate how I truly felt all of my life. Phony people pretending to be spiritual, loving, and caring really disgust me.

As Alice Miller says: “We cannot really love if we are forbidden to know our truth, the truth about our parents and caregivers as well as about ourselves. We can only try to behave as if we were loving. But this hypocritical behavior is the opposite of love. It is confusing and deceptive, and it produces considerable frustration in the deceived person. This rage must be repressed in the presence of the pretended “love,” especially if one is dependent, as a child is, on the person who is masquerading in this illusion of love.”

People giving the illusion of love to their children and others, that’s pretty much all I witness in this world. Throughout my life, I have been accused of not trusting others. Why should I trust people masquerading as the illusion of love? Thanks to Alice Miller, I can spot a phony from a long distance.

 

Sylvie: J, thank you for writing. I have wanted to answer your question for a long time, but at the time, I had a lot going on and did not have the time or the words to respond. But it keeps popping into my head from time to time that I need to answer your question and also inform you of the concerns I have about the therapy that my friend from Israel that is a psychiatric doctor suggested to you at the time and it’s kind of interesting that a few weeks ago I notice that he is no longer among of my friends here on Facebook and I have no idea why, but somehow something I have said here on Facebook must have triggered his fears and his sees me as an enemy because he went as far as blocking me completely. I am curious about which comment or note of mine triggered his fears. Well, after I notice he is no longer my friend I went ahead and deleted his comments recommending his therapy, I will not mention the name of the therapy now, because I find it dangerous and if this therapy does not help him see who his real enemies were that is one more prove this therapy does not work and he once more shutters my hopes of finding health care professionals that have dealt and have resolved their own childhood repression before working on others. 

I checked that therapy’s website, and I even spent $100 and went to talk to a therapist who uses that method of therapy. I found that the therapist and this therapy use the same poisonous pedagogy as most therapies out there and in the end take the parents' side and leave the wounded child in the patient alone contributing to the patient staying and going deeper in their repression, so this therapy just like all the therapies I have encountered out there cannot help people liberate themselves from their repression and achieve freedom and autonomy. 

Once again these words Alice Miller wrote to me came true to me: “AM: I have learned over the years of my work on the internet that there are readers who SEEM to understand SOME of what I have written, at least intellectually, but they are still so afraid of their very cruel parents and of their repressed FEELINGS of rage towards them that they are constantly looking for scapegoats. They thus live in constant confusion, pretending to be healed and even offering help and empathy to others. But eventually, they unconsciously use other people (even the ones who are quite friendly to them) as a poisonous container, like their parents did to them, and if the offended people begin to defend themselves, they can become very mean. I can only urge you to trust your judgment and not offer your empathy and interest to everyone just because they say they read and understood everything I have written. In most of the cases, it is a lie. To understand my books means to overcome the fear of one’s parents, to honestly feel the justified rage TOWARD THEM and to no longer use others to get free from the accumulated rage.”

Okay, now I will try to answer your question. First I am so sorry for all the pain you went through as an adopted child. I have no idea what that pain might be like. I so agree with everything you wrote in your comment above and while reading it, Oprah’s picture got in my head, because she has been the most famous phony on the stage of the world for so many years that whenever I see her I want to throw up. You ask me how I deal with this phoniness. Well, before facing and feeling the repressed feelings of the child I once was, use to drive me crazy, up the wall, because it use to trigger my repressed anger to the point of wanting to through things at the TV. Now, it’s just a little annoying and makes me a little sad, but it does not drive me up the walls anymore and I am happy that I can see very clearly through all the different cloaks of people's phoniness and never again enter into intimate relationships with phony people. Free at last! But I feel for every child that is growing up and being deceived by this phony love and I hope when they grow up they are as lucky as me to find an enlightened witness like Alice Miller and break free from this trap of fake love and confusion.

J, I am glad to hear his information went in one eye and out the other and did not pause in your brain for a moment, because I still give him the benefit of doubt and I went to check it out for myself and wasted $100 and an hour of my precious time. I really liked Nimrod and I liked reading his notes, he articulated a lot of things I know to be true that I have a hard time articulating myself, because of being dyslexic, but now I know it was all just intellectual knowledge that he memorized, but he is still very afraid to feel his own repressed pain and all just comes from his head and unconsciously and compulsively is using innocent people as his scapegoat, because I sure never did anything to him, I did not even criticize his stupid therapy and I wanted to! But I repressed myself, so I would not trigger him, and I still did! It appears to trigger some people simply by breathing. I suspected you would not be fooled by it. I thought about deleting his comments or expressing my concerns about his therapy, but I was afraid to hurt his feelings because I did not want to happen the same thing that happened with Sabina a while back when I deleted some of her comments that were very confusing to people that might still be emotionally blind and it triggered her anger and she projected it all at me. I was planning to write to you in private to warn you about this therapy, but when I noticed he had blocked me, I went ahead and deleted his comments promoting this therapy because I am no longer afraid of hurting his feelings! Because he blocked me and can no longer see what I am writing, you could say he did me a favor and freed me. 

Now I see rejection as protection: in most cases, when people reject you, they are protecting you from themselves. If my family had not rejected me, I probably would still be in the family’s vicious circle, but because they rejected me, they forced me to go out in the world and find my way. Now I look at them, I see them living in a living hell, and I am the only one who escaped. Now I am so grateful they rejected me, “rejection is protection”. I am so curious about what I did that triggered Dr. Nimrod; I will never know! I hope that anyone who tries this therapy does not waste their money on it. I, too never was never able to find an enlightened witness, and I had to do all my emotional work alone. It's like I became my own enlightened witness with the help of Alice Miller’s books and website. Free at last!

J, I don’t know if my emotional work is completed finished either, for the last few years I have been feeling free and happy, but of course, there is a chance that some event in my life might regress me and I need to do more emotional work, but now I know how to handle, understand and be responsible with my feelings. I am glad you have your art as your witness; that is a pretty awesome tool to have! And what makes it even better is that you make that connection and understand the language of your art, that sadly most artists never make that connection, and they don’t understand the language of their own art that is expressing in a symbolic way the suffering of the child they once were, and therefore their art does not help them free themselves.

Kind of interesting because today I was reading Alice Miller’s book “Banished Knowledge: Facing Childhood Injuries,” the chapter “My Path to Myself,” where she warns us about the dangers of merely intellectual understanding.

Someone reenacted his childhood drama with me

Most people treat me nice and respect me, but someone young in his twenties, that, works for his father, this week he unconsciously reenacted his childhood drama with me, and unconsciously showed me how he was treated as a small child. These situations are never pleasant! I still don’t handle transference very well!

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

I know this person has his eyes closed and is not ready to open his eyes to these psychological mechanisms, so trying to explain these psychological mechanisms to him, that does not want to see, I would be putting myself in a frustrating situation, we cannot make someone -- to open his eyes -- that do not want to see and the best thing we can do for ourselves is to let it go and walk away to avoid continuing to be their poison container or scapegoat.

Sometimes, we tolerate the destructive patterns of others, because we are afraid to lose them, not understanding that tolerating them will cause us to lose ourselves. 

Interesting that someone send me a private e-mail sharing her experience and letters she wrote to Alice Miller. I thought I had read every letter written to Alice Miller, but somehow I missed this one.

Alice Miller’s answer below explains the plight of this young man:
S: ""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."

This passage sounded like me before I had the courage to condemn my mother of her treatment of me. I never liked how she hit me as a small child and yelled at me when I was older, but I felt that I had to stay loyal to her anyway. These conflicting feelings bothered me so much that I decided to ask Alice Miller for some advice. I wrote the following e-mail early last year:

Dear Ms. Miller,

I read some of your articles stating that sometimes it is best to distance yourself from an unrepentant parent since depending on him/her for love and security is childish and that an adult is free to engage in relationships elsewhere. I feel that doing this would make me feel better and free, but I have a problem.

On one hand, I am still angry at my mother for the harsh discipline she brought me up with and that she lectures me as if I'm a naive child. (I'm planning on living in an apartment within a few months.) I'm going on twenty-one for crying out loud, and she acts as if I live in a bubble. (Examples include "there are people that you can trust and people that you can't trust") Well, duh! I don't easily trust people anyway. And if I have any issues during my time living on my own, I should come straight to her. (As if I'm not supposed to seek out any other options.)

On the other hand, though, she said that she would help me with expenses for the apartment since I'm still in college and I'm saving money. She is pretty ill, (she has to take her blood pressure every day, medication, etc.) She also wants me to help her with her schooling because she is planning to go back to school and I agreed.

While distancing myself from her would be better for me, I fear that telling her that she abused me would make her sicker. I appreciate the good things she did for me, yet the bad things she did still burn in my memory, and I won't forgive her as long as she feels justified for what she did to me. I also fear that my older siblings would hold a grudge against me and say that I didn't appreciate her and that our father is the real abuser. (My dad abused my mother, brother, and to a lesser extent my sister. I was told that I was his favorite. My parents separated when I was three years old, and divorced when I was eleven. Even after they separated, I visited Dad every now and then until I was eight. I didn't see him again until last year. He told my siblings and I that he was sorry for what he did in the past and is working on improving himself. He stopped drinking excessively and is working on getting back into our lives. My siblings and I still talk to him on the phone. I still don't feel ready to have a close relationship with him, but I'm giving him a chance. I'm not sure how my sister feels about him, but my brother and Mom still have a grudge against him since they knew him the longest. I find this odd because at least he's trying to change, and they know what abuse is like, yet they both support corporal punishment.)

My mom was raised by her grandmother because her mother died when she was ten years old. My mom told me that her grandmother was very strict such as locking up the fridge until it was mealtime and making her and her siblings iron sheets. I assume that my great-grandmother also used corporal punishment on her. Yet, my mom doesn't seem ashamed of her upbringing and hails her as a goddess. Maybe that's why she's so sick now. (I'm relating to your phrase, "The Body Never Lies"; I couldn't agree more.)

Anyway, should I tell her the painful truth and risk worsening her sickness and having my siblings mad at me or is there another option?

SR

Here was her response:

AM: Your dilemma is absolutely understandable in your age. If you read The Body Never Lies you know that dependency increases hatred. But maybe you need more time to make your decisions. Try to listen to your feelings and to take them seriously.
--------------------------------//-----------------
I was disappointed with her answer at first because it wasn't what I wanted to hear. After doing some thinking though, I realized that it did me no good to stay close to her while having mixed feelings about her, too. A week after seeking advice from Ms. Miller, I had the courage to write and send a letter to Mom to tell her my true feelings about her. The letter can be found HERE

I am now thankful that Ms. Miller didn't tell me what I wanted to hear because the truth is better than wishful thinking.

I think that you mentioned sending Oprah these letters back when you were in that anti-corporal punishment group before you left. (By the way, I left, too, back in March. It's sad that even noble groups like that one hold on to illusions.) You stated that Oprah either ignored the letters or deleted them or both. This is more evidence that she wants to deny her pain and it's dangerous that she encourages her followers to do the same.

I'm sorry if this is a bit long-winded, but I couldn't limit my response to your post to a few sentences like I usually do. Anyway, keep up the good work. I feel that you are picking up where Ms. Miller left off.

Posted by Schiavonne on Thursday, July 01, 2010 - 7:35 AM

Dear S, Thank you so much for writing and sharing your letters to Alice Miller and your Mother. I enjoy reading very much, they brought tears to my eyes, it’s a joy to see a young person like you with so much courage to see and feel. 

You said: “ Anyway, keep up the good work. I feel that you are picking up where Ms. Miller left off.” 

This is the biggest compliment anyone could ever give me. Thank you. I will never be able to fill the shoes of Dr. Alice Miller, I am dyslexic and I drop out of school in the seven grade, so expressing myself does not come easy, I will never be able to articulate the knowledge I feel and shared with Dr. Alice Miller like she did, but you can be a sure that I will try to carry her torch everywhere I go and as far I can go. 

Some people get annoyed that I quote and mention Alice Miller’s work a lot, but she is the only person I know that articulates what I see and feel so well, the only reason they get annoyed is that the truth we are putting in front of them is too much for them to bear. 

I read a lot of self-help books before I read Dr. Alice Miller’s books and after reading all those books I always felt there was not quite right and I needed to search further. Not until I read and digested Dr. Alice Miller's books did I feel I was hearing the whole truth at last and no longer needed to keep searching, finally, I had found all the answers to my questions and I no longer felt alone with my perceptions, it was liberating. 

I am amazed at these so-called “educated” smart and very articulate people, especially on TV, but are not able to see these psychological mechanisms, and me, that I was considered to be stupid, and mentally challenged while I was growing up and I dropped out of school in the seven grade can see so clear. Now looking back I think everyone, especially my teachers, try so hard to make me feel stupid because they felt threatened by my authenticity and courage. 

Congratulations on your courage to see and feel our world is in desperate need of more courageous young people like you.

OUT OF SHADOWS

I made a comment on the YouTube video OUT OF SHADOWS OFFICIAL https://youtu.be/MY8Nfzcn1qQ

And someone left a comment with the link below:
https://operationdisclosure1.blogspot.com/…/fall-cabal-vide…

If you want to understand the cult of Trumpism, you have to watch the videos. The brainwashing and mind control are so powerful! If I didn’t see things clearly, I would have become a trumpeter!

Here is the comment I left in my response to watching all the videos.

@rowingtothedream: I watched all the videos except number 5 because YouTube removed it. It was very interesting to watch!

I know the words written by Vi King are true because since I published my memoir sharing my life experiences and psychological discoveries, I have been ostracized, harassed, persecuted, and the target of psychological warfare. 

If I had written a book with the same old recycled pretty lies and illusions passed down to us for millions of years, like many best-selling authors out there, who all they do is hide the real state of affairs. 

I would still be loved at my job of nine and a half years, promoted with a big raise, and my book would have already become a bestseller. By the way, Oprah is the biggest charlatan promoter out there!

Charlatans all help each other and kiss each other's asses by promoting each other’s BS to exploit the emotionally blind public. Nothing ever is what it seems.
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/…/communities-are-micros-o…

In our society, if you speak the naked truth and expose the real state of affairs of what really goes on behind closed doors, those with power will mobilize all the forces at their command to try to silence you.
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/…/big-cover-up-by-sociopat…

When it comes to politics, the left and the right are both just different ends of the same stick; they both are fighting for power and money. And, they both use half-disconnected truths mixed with pretty lies, pretty illusions, and catchy slogans for brainwashing and mind control to mobilize the masses to join their political cults and vote them into power. 

And suppose they feel threatened by a person who can expose their pretty lies and dirty games, they will join forces to destroy a person, a common enemy. In that case, they fear can expose their lies, illusions, and dirty games, like I was, they were people from the left and the right working together very hard with a very well-orchestrated psychological warfare to try to silence me and discredit me and my book, so they could go on with their lies and illusions as usual.

As long as most people in our society are blinded by the repressed emotions of the child they once were, there will always be just two choices to vote for, pure evil and the lesser evil. 

The fight we are witnessing in the stage of the world is not between good and evil, it’s between pure evil and the lesser evil, and they both are just driven by the repressed fears of the child they once were to gain as much power and money to escape from having to re-experience the powerless and the fears of the child they once were!

Most people would rather kill and be killed than face the fears of resolving childhood repression. We live in a world of puppets and puppeteers.
 https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/…/the-media-creates-false-…

The biggest threat to humanity is people's repressed emotions of the child they once were, blinding them. If people were not emotionally blind, they would be able to see the lies, illusions, and all the traps society constantly puts in front of them. And yes, an emotionally blind humanity with the aid of technology will destroy itself much faster. Pure evil causes a lot more damage than the lesser evil. As we are witnessing… That's why I always vote for the lesser evil, which causes much less damage. There's a big difference between pure evil and the lesser evil. 

Correspondence with Alice Miller

I was fortunate to be able to correspond with Alice Miller after I read her books. Here are selected letters that we wrote to one another.

Standing on My Feet, Friday, August 22, 2008

Dear Alice Miller,

I am forever grateful to you. After reading your books, I felt understood for the first time in my life. I am excited to have found someone who finally knows what they are talking about, so I bought all of your books! You have confirmed what I have always known, but could not articulate. I have to say that I was not as lucky as some of your readers in finding a good therapist, but thanks to the information in your books and website, I have finally found freedom at the age of 49. I was 36 years old when I discovered your books. Upon reading them I did not feel alone anymore, and with your help, I was able to free myself from a toxic bond with my abusive family who are all in denial.

I am finally able to speak to them and be in their presence, if only for a short time. I have no hard feelings toward them anymore, just detachment and compassion. Of course, my being in the States and them in Portugal helps a lot, as the distance keeps them from invading my space.

Consequently, I am alone but happy, healthier, and standing on my own two feet.

I believe I can help take your books to a lot of people who want the truth like me. You have helped me in writing my own book about my life’s journey, experiences, and discoveries. I had to travel long distances and endure many years until I found an enlightened witness like you. No one who wants the truth should have to wait this long.

I have a horrible link to a famous doctor in Portugal, who took advantage of me when I was 17 years old. The doctors in Portugal are so sick and in the dark. If I find a way to go public with my story I will expose this sick doctor, and at the same time bring attention to your work. My passion is to do everything in my power to shine as much light as I can onto your very courageous work. This particular doctor is well-known in Portugal, Spain, and Brazil, so people would probably buy my book because of his celebrity, and at the same time, they would be introduced to your work. In the U.S., many people would be curious about my story and would probably buy the book. I have lived here for over 20 years and danced in a bar in Phoenix, Arizona. I became a very popular dancer and people from all over the U.S. and the world came to see me. Today I work as a gate attendant manager for a very up-scale, gated community in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was wondering if you or someone you know might help me to get my story written and published.

I know now that my mission in life is to expose this sick doctor in Portugal and help bring attention to your work. I want to see every Alice Miller book on display in every bookstore around the world. It is so annoying that I see so many books containing misleading information and lies, while I have to special-order your books. I feel there is a conspiracy to keep your books hidden from the public, especially in Portugal. I want to do everything I can to break through this conspiracy.

In the meantime, I have created a website—www.sylvieshene.com—where I tell some of my story the best way I can, getting a little help from people here and there. I have also posted a lot of your work, and if you find anything there you don’t agree with please let me know. I totally trust your judgment.

Thank you for your attention and for the very courageous work that you do. Without your books and your website, I would never have made it.

My love to you and your team,

Sylvie Shene

P.S. If you like, I give you permission to publish my letter on your website and use my legal name.

AM: Thank you very much for your letter. It is indeed very difficult to find my books in the Portuguese and Spanish speaking countries. As you are interested in distributing the knowledge that was helpful for you, I am sending you my new flyer that you can translate into Portuguese if you wish to do so. Then we can put this text also into youtube where some other flyers are already published in English. I can well understand that you wish and need to write about the abuse by the famous doctor but I think that you should first discuss with a lawyer the question how to avoid being accused by HIM for defamation. This can still happen. In any case, I don’t think that my books need this story to be read and understood. And I am glad that you succeeded to save yourself eventually. The world is full of scandals like that and the victims often stay stuck in their stories. Please let me know how you feel about my suggestion.

A Dream, Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Dear Alice Miller:

Thank you so much for answering my e-mail. It is surreal to me that I am communicating with you. You are a true hero. And thank you for sending me your new flyer. I will translate and distribute it as soon as possible.

Your suggestion makes a lot of sense, and I will definitely try to find a lawyer. I understand your concerns for my well-being with respect to getting stuck in my story, but I think I am strong and mature enough to handle it and protect the little girl within me. I am very well aware of the risk involved, but it’s one that I must take.

I feel it is no coincidence that I left Portugal and found your books. In the process, I found my voice, and this young doctor, at the time, became famous. I feel all this has happened so that I can get maximum exposure for your work and expose the problem of these unhealthy professionals in Portugal.

I can give you many examples: This morning I was speaking with my niece-in-law on the phone. She has a little boy and she is the only one in my family who has paid attention to your ideas. The rest of the family unconsciously chooses to deny these truths. She has also tried to take these truths to her family so she could help her nieces and nephews from being spanked, but her sisters refuse to listen. One of her nephews, who is about 10 years old now, was taken to the hospital for a lot of physical tests. He had to have general anesthesia to find out why he keeps urinating in bed at night. A psychologist talked with her nephew and he told him that he was afraid of his father. The psychologist suggested that the father spend more time with his son. As if spending more time with his abuser is going to help the little boy! Instead, the whole family should have been brought in and educated about the dangers of spanking their children. These ignorant professionals who are making their money and deceiving themselves and others have to be stopped.

Anyway, I would like to tell you about the dream I had last night. It is very strange because I don’t have many dreams anymore or I just don’t remember them. You and I were at the Phoenix airport and you were moving back to Europe. (I know you don’t travel anymore, but in my dreams you do!) We were waiting for your plane to take off, but it was taking forever. You were traveling with a cat, and this cat did not need to be in a carrier! He was very calm, followed you everywhere, and slept next to you while we waited. I fell asleep too and when I woke up you had taken off. I was a little sad that I did not see you leave and did not get to say goodbye. I started to look for my car keys to go back home, but I was having trouble finding them. Eventually, I found them in my purse, but when I got out of the airport I was in a strange city and did not recognize anything! I did not feel scared, I just kept looking around in awe, and then I woke up. Do you have any idea what this might mean?

Thank you for your attention and I hope all is well with you. Much love,

Sylvie

AM: Thank you for your letter. You don’t mention that you read and understood the new flyer I have sent you. Was the content scaring? The dream may be your unconscious reaction to the scaring flyer. The dream may say: I feel well now, I don’t need to know more, I can let Alice Miller go and I can find the key to my car (this is wonderful, it is your autonomy!). But you are a curious person, you are not only looking for your peace, you want to KNOW. This may be the new, unknown city you will now have to discover by writing your book. It is a very encouraging dream.

Dear Alice Miller:

Thank you so much for taking the time to write to me. I have no words to express how much this means to me.

I’m sorry I didn’t mention that I read your new flyer. It is very easy for me to understand, maybe because I have read all of your books. I’m excited that you fit all these facts so well into a flyer, and I cannot wait to translate it into Portuguese to help share it with the public, who is in such great need of this knowledge.

No, the content was not scary to me. I received your first e-mail Sunday morning, and I only received and read your new flyer Monday morning, after I had the dream. The truth does not scare me, it’s liberating, and I welcome it no matter how much it hurts.

But it does not hurt anymore! To the contrary, I feel joy and happiness that I have liberated myself. I do feel some sadness for all the people who still live in an emotional prison—suffering and making others suffer—by refusing to look at the truth because they are so afraid to feel their repressed emotions and be alone.

Your interpretation of my dream makes a lot of sense, and indeed it is very encouraging.

Again, thank you for all your help and the very courageous work you do. You are truly one in a million! My best wishes to you and your staff. Much love,

Sylvie

Empathy Thursday, November 06, 2008

Dear Alice Miller,

I am so excited to find out that you are writing your autobiography. I can’t wait to read it. Do you know when you will finish it? And will it be available in English? I also can’t wait until June when your last book, Free from Lies will be available in English.

You are the most important person in my life because you are the only one who speaks the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I always knew the truth, but I don’t think I could have been left alone with it much longer. All my life I was thirsty to hear the truth from someone else, but everyone I listened to was telling lies.

Until I read your books, it was the first time that I knew I was finally hearing the truth from someone else. I am so grateful to you: Without you, on my side, I probably would have been dead by now. Like J.B. in the post “Liberation,” I used to hear the same phrases and I too had difficulty walking away from those people. I wanted to explain to them and help them understand. From reading your books, I learned that I cannot make someone see and understand if they refuse to see their own truth. Now I can walk away without difficulty. Finally, I am free! Thank you so much for all your books and your website.

Much love,

Sylvie

AM: Congratulations! Yes, you can’t make someone to see if he doesn’t want to.

AM: Thank you for your letter. I am sorry that my answer to your previous letter didn’t appear on the website under your text. I wrote: “Congratulations to your understanding. You are right, you can’t make someone to see who DOESN’T WANT to see.”

The following are several letters I received and answered by one of my readers. I asked Alice to comment on them…

From: S F to Sylvie Shene, December 27, 2008, Alice Miller

Ms. Shene, I have come across your website from the Alice Miller link and wanted to “introduce” myself. I have for the past 20 years or so been an avid reader and participant in Alice Miller’s forums, and I wanted to share my resolve and advocacy of “once-abused-children” with you. In ALL aspects of my adult life am I confronted with the effects of childhood trauma, both in myself and in EVERYONE I meet. We are ALL, I think, in one way or another, “survivors”. The published article about MDs is for me now VERY pertinent, as I have just this week been “eliminated” from a childhood forum by the moderator (a MD himself) because of me having “abused his patience with me”. Now if THAT is that an “echo from childhood”, then what is, I ask you? Feel free to comment. sf

From Sylvie Shene To: S F Dec. 29, 2008

SF, thank you for contacting me. I am sorry you are going through the pain of being rejected from the childhood forum. There is no doubt that this is connected to childhood. I wished you had gone into detail as to how the incident was triggered. I hope you come to an understanding of the feelings triggered by the incident and come to a resolution so that in the future you will see things more clearly and remove yourself from a possibly abusive situation. As a child, you could not walk away, but now as an adult when you are in a place or are involved with people who cause the dynamics of your childhood to be reenacted, you can say to yourself: “There it goes again, I had better get up and walk away.” I know that most people who were abused as children find it hard to meet people who can empathize with how they have been affected by their childhood. This can be very lonely. I believe that learning to stand alone and find our autonomy is the goal.

Good luck, Sylvie

From: S F to Sylvie Shene, December 30, 2008

Hi Sylvie,

Actually, the “problem” is that I am already QUITE “autonomous”, and that seems to irritate most authoritarian personalities, of which there are many. I see that you are a psychologist, but actually, I contacted you for the contact, not necessarily for the “pep talk”, but thanks anyway for your compassion. The incident got “triggered” as the moderator accused me “abusing his patience”, (I was asking for reasons for accepting some posts and rejecting others-he gave no answers, which EVERYBODY deserves), and for having “stalked” the other members…..just bullshit.

What does get “triggered” in me are memories of how similar many people react to child-like behavior as my parents did. I´m not behaviorally “triggered” by it, I just think it is interesting and important to see HOW MANY “adults” there are walking around, (even in the “healing” world) who are unaware of how THEIR fears and autocratic impulses are being “triggered” by people like myself.

Now if one has been “properly” pedagogically trained, one would say, “Well it is happening so much, it MUST have something to do with something I’m doing”, but MY question is, “Why are so many people who REACT to me as my parents once did”?

I think the answer lies in the fact that the “upbringing” that I went through was maybe particular to me and parents in certain ways, but that GENERALLY, practically EVERBODY has had parents like mine including these forum moderators. What is lacking in my view are people who know this.

From Sylvie Shene To: S F Dec. 30, 2008

Hi S,

Thank you for writing back and congratulations on your autonomy, it’s a good place to be in! I am not a psychologist and I’m sorry if I sounded like one. I know that almost everywhere we go people treat us the way their parents treated them. It is hard to handle and at times painful. It’s even more frustrating when it happens in the “healing” world.

I still don’t handle transference very well, but the good thing about being an adult now is that I can remove myself from the situation and go to my little condo, feel my feelings, and take care of myself. Have you read the article on the Alice Miller website about transference?

Feel free to write to me anytime, Sylvie

From Sylvie Shene To: S F 

I’m sorry for the mix-up, I thought I had read on your myspace page that you were. My mistake. Autonomy is truly the best “place” to be as you said.

I myself am now in Germany, where my father was born, and where the ideas of authority and discipline are still unquestionable entrenched in most of the people. It has given me much practice in guarding my autonomous stance, although I DO miss the interchange with other like-minded people. Hence, my writing to you, and you look so sympathetic in your photo, I thought it would be worth the try.

What I felt in arguing with this forum moderator was the same frustration that I felt as a child with my father, when NO MATTER what I did I would be seen and treated as “guilty as charged” even though I’d not the SLIGHTEST idea what they were talking about. I have learned to give myself in ALL aspects of life the constitutionally-guaranteed “assumption of innocence” in all these matters, and today I was thinking about just HOW MUCH energy I needed to expand as a child warding off my parents ‘and siblings´ constant fault-finding-like living in a courtroom, or a penal colony.

One more thing about the “public discourse” to which you referred. During the run-up to the Iraq war, I met a guy at the Rathaus Schöneberg in Berlin, (the place where JFK gave his famous “Ich bin ein Berlner” speech, and met a guy, Scott Ridder, who was on Hans Blix’s inspection team in Iraq, and he told us that they were allowed to go ANYWHERE they wanted to all over the country with unlimited access and that there were NO weapons of mass destruction. I knew from the beginning that it was a scam, so the CIA didn’t? It just proves as you said that people and politicians will go looking for “Bogeymen” rather than face the REAL threats and dangers that they ONCE were in.

I have read some material on Prescott Bush, GW’s grandfather, and his daily thrashings of GHWB, which were CERTAINLY given to GW when he was a child. And now 800,000, Iraqis have paid for this with their lives. Horrible.

From Sylvie Shene To: S F, January 1, 2009

Hi SF,

Don’t worry about it, you probably thought I was a psychologist because on my website it says I have a degree in “Psychology/Social Work,” but it is just a two-year degree I received on the Internet. I created my website a few years ago and since then I see a lot of things differently. There are a lot of things I’d like to change on my website, but my time is limited and I have not had the chance to do it. No, I’ve never been trained as a psychologist…Which I think is good!

I took the course to make my resumé look better, and it helped me get a management position where I work. Do you speak German? Do you read Alice Miller’s books in her original language? In Portugal, where I am from, it is the same or even worse than in Germany. In my family, my niece-in-law was the only one who listened to me. She is making a difference in raising her now 7-year-old son. She feels very alone. My family and her family are against her for protecting and treating her son with respect. They blame me and tell her not to speak to me. She has an aunt who says she wishes she could kill me!

When they were little nobody ever respected and protected them, and now when they see a child being protected and respected it triggers their anger. They attack my niece, and when they have the chance, they take it out on her little boy. It’s very sad to witness these psychological mechanisms take place; their anger being transferred and displaced onto the next generation, instead of being directed at the past generation who are really the cause of their anger and hurt. The only person my niece and my little grandnephew have to talk to is me. Unfortunately, my niece-in-law only speaks Portuguese, and it’s hard to find Alice Miller’s books in Portuguese.

I too want to find like-minded people, but it’s very hard here in Scottsdale, Arizona where I live. I don’t know anyone who I can really talk to. Everyone I meet is to some extent emotionally blind. Alice Miller’s website is the only place I can go to hear the truth and feel understood.

Last month I created a page at intent.com, a website created by Deepak Chopra for people to find support for their intents in life. I have enjoyed reading some of his books in the past, but I did not find support there. I received attacks for speaking my truths. They used the same lingo my family used to use on me (about the spirituality and reincarnation crap). I too, like you in your forum, was feeling the same frustration I used to feel in my family of origin. The so-called “spiritual people” are even more emotionally blind than society in general, and I have come to the conclusion that spirituality cements blindness and is the ultimate illusion. If I could have deleted the comments that people were leaving, I would have stayed on the site. I felt that these people were like flies attacking me and there was nothing I could do to get rid of them. So, I deleted everything from my intent.com page!

Very interesting that you met Scott Ridder from the inspection team in Iraq. I didn’t have proof like you that weapons of mass destruction were a big scam, but I did know that the Iraq war was a big lie. I too have read about Gorge W. Bush’s childhood. Because he idealized his parents and childhood, he was not able to see or understand what happened to him as a child. Because he was not able to feel his repressed emotions, people around the world had to pay the price for it, especially the Iraqi people. It’s horrible, just as you said. I am glad you wrote to me, it’s nice to talk to other like-minded people who want to see and understand what happened to them as a child.

Best wishes for the New Year, Sylvie

In reference to the above letters

Dear Alice Miller,

I forgot to tell you if you like, feel free to comment on the letters I shared with you yesterday.

Best wishes, Sylvie

Alice Miller 1/2/09 Re: I forgot to tell you…

AM: I have learned over the years of my work on the internet that there are readers who SEEM to understand SOME of what I have written, at least intellectually, but they are still so afraid of their very cruel parents and of their repressed FEELINGS of rage towards them that they are constantly looking for scapegoats.
They thus live in a continual confusion pretending that they are healed and even offering help and empathy to others. But eventually they use unconsciously other people (even the ones who are quite friendly to them) as a poisonous container like their parents did to them, and if the offended people begin to defend themselves they can become very mean.
I can only urge you to trust your feelings and to NOT offer your empathy and interest to everybody just because they say they read and understood everything I have written. In most of the cases it is a lie. To understand my books means to overcome the fear of one’s parents, to honestly feel the justified rage TOWARD THEM and to no longer use others to getting free from the accumulated rage.

Sylvie Imelda Shene, 1/9/09

Dear Alice Miller,

Thank you for your reply. Your words validated my feelings and surely I am going to trust them. I know that a lot of smart and talented people are able to intellectually understand your books to some extent, but in the end, they are not capable of getting in touch with their repressed feelings. They actually use their intellect and talents to escape from feeling their true emotions. It is very sad. Intuitively I have always known this and that is why I have always worked to find my independence. I will never give it up for anyone, because eventually if I am with someone long enough, there will be the possibility of being used as a poisonous container or scapegoat. I need to have a place of my own for safety.

I am sorry to hear that some of your followers on the Internet have tried to use you as their poisonous container or scapegoat and make you a target for their repressed feelings. You have done so much for them. You don’t deserve this treatment.

I know I have to be very careful with people on the Internet. Two years ago, I returned from a year and a half in Portugal. I was very disillusioned and I decided to go out and have some fun. I thought I was invincible and that I knew better and nobody could hurt me. A young, good-looking man here in Arizona found my myspace page and started to write to me. He called me “beautiful” and took an interest in the things I was saying.

I thought that maybe I would go out with him, have some fun, and share with him what I have learned. So I decided to take the risk and sure enough, this person was not interested in anything I had to say. He only wanted to use me and live off of me. He could not hold a job and I was willing to let him live with me for a while, only if he was doing his emotional work. However, he was not able to face his truth or feel his repressed feelings of the child he once was.

In no time he started to treat me like his family used to treat him and reenacted his childhood drama and mine all over again. I tried to explain to him what was happening, but he did not want to hear it. I asked him to leave because I was not going to be his poisonous container.

The good thing about getting involved with this man was that I did not feel any painful repressed emotions. This was a test for me. I was just a little offended at his emotional blindness. How could he think that he could use me, lie to me, and get away with it? Couldn’t he see that I was not going to let him take advantage of me? That is the last time I will take a risk with anyone—I am getting too old to take risks with people.

I will keep trying to share my experiences and discoveries with others as much as I can, but with a lot of distance. I will never take anyone in unless I know for sure that they are aware, responsible, caring, and conscious. I am very aware that chance is slim. I am content living alone for the rest of my life with my cats.

This year I found out that this same young man had a baby boy with a young girl he met. I guess he did not learn anything from me, otherwise, he would not have had this poor, innocent, little being to use as his poisonous container. I wrote him e-mails telling him that because he was running out of adults to use as his poisonous container, he looked for an unconscious girl to have a baby for him. He would then have a little innocent being at his disposal to use as his poisonous container in which to feed all the lies that were fed to him as a child. I told him he was selfish, cruel, and a coward!

This unconscious girlfriend also is not able to hold a job. I believe she comes from a family with money and he thinks that by having a baby with her he will get to the family’s money and be able to live off them. It is so sad to witness that this little being was created for the sole purpose of manipulation. This child has no way of knowing what is happening to him. It makes me feel so powerless.

This is also what happened to my sister, who is three years older than me. She got involved with a man who could not hold a job, and he got her pregnant in 1986 and used his little baby daughter as a tool of manipulation to live off my family. This man was also violent. When the money was all gone he got a staph infection and died in the hospital at the age of 49, I think. My niece is now 23 years old and last year on Live Messenger she wrote me saying she had a panic attack. She asked if I knew what causes panic attacks. I tried to explain to her that it had to do with her difficult childhood and I shared with her the answers you gave to your readers about panic attacks on December 18, 2005, March 6, 2009, and September 1, 2009:

“Panic attacks are always connected to traumatic childhood experiences. If we have access to our history we can sometimes easily find the memory and the triggers in the presence that explain the fear so that the fear disappears. In your example the woman feels panic after a happy experience.

It CAN be that one of her parents or both envied her for her gifts and her success in school, in sports, etc. and criticized or ridiculed her after each achievement. Then, instead of being happy she felt bad, ashamed, guilty, and in her brain pleasure became connected with pain. The adult can later suffer from panic attacks after having been successful. The interjected parent repeats then what the real parent did to the child by destroying her pleasure out of pure envy.

Is this understandable to you? —It is never too late for the truth if one really WANTS to know it. Let your mother talk to you about her childhood, what she suffered of, then she will find out what the panic attacks have to tell her, and this understanding can help her to overcome the fear. Otherwise, in the full denial, she doesn’t know what she is scared of, and this is VERY PAINFUL. Knowing the reason of one’s fear can be very relieving. But it is possible that she will refuse to talk about her childhood, then you can’t do anything. Don’t try to force her. — Your rabbis may be right, as far as the theory is concerned:

God is perfect, the man is not. The commandment comes from God, but parents are human and their failures are understandable (one may ask: are they also understandable if children make them or must children be punished by beatings when they show that they are not perfect? Should parents also be beaten for their imperfection? Why not?)

I wonder if you have already tried to use these theories in a concrete case. Could you, for instance, tell your parents: “I can’t honor you because when I was small and helpless you humiliated me by spanking and slapping me, you implanted fear and rage in my small body that caused me later panic attacks I am still suffering from”? Can you imagine speaking in this way with your parents? What kind of reaction are you expecting from your parents if you say the truth, that you cannot honor them? Loving understanding and apologies or rage and indignation in the name of God? I assume that your body knows very well why it produces panic attacks.

All religious families who spank their children are not only cruel but also highly confusing because they pretend to do it in the name of God. In this way, they betray the children’s confidence who will believe their whole lives what they so early had to believe. The Judaism is not an exception. You will hear from priests of other religions the same theories as your rabbis tell you.

But none of them tackles the concrete fact that slapping and beating a small child is cruel, humiliating, stupid and damaging their brains, especially if it happens to a child before the age of three years old when the brain is being structured. The priests seem not to know (or not to care) that spanking and slapping children makes them to become violent or chronically scared, often for their whole lives.

Above all, it teaches them to stay ignorant and to teach their own children the same absurdities they learned from their parents: that GOD NEEDS THEIR SUFFERING.
You write that you are orthodox. In my opinion, orthodoxy is not about love, it is about obedience. Thus you may hate what I have written here. But I wrote it to the person who has panic attacks, who wants to know her true feelings, who try to understand their meaning and wants to be honest, even if that means not to be obedient.”

Later my niece wrote me an e-mail and these are her exact words (she likes to speak and write in English to me): “There is something that I need to say…I don’t believe that most of my problems are related to my childhood. I was really happy at that time…” She idolizes her father and is in total denial. I know how her childhood was, because every summer I used to go to Portugal and I witnessed with my own eyes the nightmare she grew up with.

There is nothing I can do make her see it now. I can only hope that she does not have children. She is in college and it looks like she is pretty successful in her studies. She will be one more of the so-called “educated,” unconscious, poisoned persons in the world. (I think “educated” people in denial are the most dangerous.)

If we lived in a society that really protected children, we could report these people as unfit parents, be watchful of the parents and take the children side and protect them, so these little beings could grow up feeling loved, cared for, in truth, and protected to become loving, conscious human beings. But such an agency does not exist. It’s so sad. These children are going to be these people’s poisonous containers and will become uncaring, unconscious poisonous people themselves.

This is one of the reasons I don’t have hope for humanity. In most cases, the people in denial are the ones having children, and the more in denial they are the more children they have. This vicious circle has no end, and our tortured planet cannot afford any more unconscious, poisonous people. We were six billion people not too long ago and now we are close to 9 billion. I don’t think our tortured planet can support any more insane, uncaring, unconscious, poisonous people much longer.

And sometimes I think if people refuse to see these psychological mechanisms, I hope we all die soon. Maybe a big asteroid falling from the sky will put an end to human life quickly, because I am tired of seeing little, defenseless, innocent beings suffer because adults refuse to see and feel.

Two memories come to mind. In the first, I was about 13 years old and my brother had gotten a woman pregnant in Spain. This woman was obsessed with my brother and I have no doubt she got pregnant to use the baby to get to my brother. She would send pictures of the baby to my mother. My mother talked to my brother about taking responsibility for his child, so my brother quickly married her and brought his new wife and the baby (who was about two years old) to meet all of us.

I remember one night being in bed. My older sister and I were sleeping together, and in the room next to us was my brother with his new wife and baby. In the middle of the night, the baby kept crying. Now I understand why — this baby used to sleep with his mother and now this strange man was sleeping with her. He was forced to sleep alone in his crib. My brother was yelling at the baby to stop crying and started to spank him to make him stop.

This woman, his new wife, did not do anything to protect her baby. I guess she did not need her baby anymore, he had gotten her what she wanted. I told my sister that our brother was hitting the baby. I wanted to get up and go to the baby and hold him, but my sister did not let me. She told me, “You always cause more trouble, just be quiet.”

Now I regret that I listened to my sister. Being 16 my sister should have been stronger, or at least let me do it and not stop me. No wonder my nephew has problems being a parent to his little boy. Thank goodness my niece-in-law is listening to me, and she is doing everything she can to break the cycle and protect their little boy.

When I was 16 years old, my other brother, who also married a Spanish girl, came visiting with his wife and two young children—the older girl was 3 years old and the younger was a 2-year-old baby boy. My brother started to spank the baby boy because he did not want to eat.

This time I got up and said, “If the baby does not want to eat, he will later when he is hungry…And in my presence, no one will spank a child.” My brother was yelling at me, but I picked up both children and took them to the park. I know they were very little, but they still remember when I protected them from their father. I remember walking down the road holding the hands of these little children, feeling so powerless and wishing there was a place I could go for help. But help to protect children from unconscious parents does not exist.

I so agree with your answer to the post “we all are the crew” on January 01, 2009.

I don’t have much hope for humanity. Like you said to your reader:

“You write: ‘My main point in the allegory is that by necessity none of us are passengers anymore. Everybody’s crew.’ I agree with you. But to become aware of the fact that our obedience learned in childhood doesn’t allow us to think freely needs probably more than many hundred years. I am not sure if the tortured planet leaves us the necessary time to understand this fact, to protest against it, and to become a conscious, responsible member of the crew.”

I am amazed at all the smart, “educated” and talented people in the world, especially those on TV who cannot see and feel. It is very sad because the TV could be an excellent tool to mirror how to be a courageous and feeling human being. The people who need to be on TV are all blocked by the powerful repressed people; those who take refuge in ideologies, philosophy, religion, rationalities, theories, etc.

Those things don’t work and take us away from our painful truth and make us more emotionally blind to the chance to become aware and become a feeling, human being. It’s so sad to see this tool go to waste when it could be used to help us save ourselves and the planet.

Also your words on the post “Painful memories” on January 02, 2009 are so true:

“…..To give the Drama to your parents will hardly help you. Even if your parents changed, miraculously, the memory of what happened to you when you were a small child will stay unchanged and will need your feelings of pain and anger to be able to bring you the health and freedom you are looking for.”

I went through this illusion for years, writing letters to my family and sending all of them books. They could not face themselves, see the truth or feel their repressed feelings. I had to feel my own pain of coming from a family lacking courage and incapable of seeing and feeling. I had to feel all of my repressed feelings alone. I remember one day being in a rage at my family. I ripped up some of their pictures that I had with me in the States. Like you said, even if they “miraculously changed” I would still feel my repressed feelings and nothing will ever change that.

I won’t take more of your time. Thank you for being here. It’s nice to know there is someone out there who understands.

Sylvie

Arizona Boy

Dear Alice Miller,

The story of the 8-year-old boy here in Arizona has upset me very much.

I wished you had elaborated more on your answer to your reader’s letter of 12-2-08, about the story of the 8-year-old boy here in Arizona.

I identify with this little boy, too.

Heartbreaking. I think this little boy is very courageous because he took revenge on those who were hurting him. He did not repress it and maybe it will prevent him from looking unconsciously and compulsively for innocent beings or scapegoats to hurt because of what his parents did to him. Everywhere I go I find that most people are cowards.

They protect and idealize their parents, but they take revenge on innocent beings, other little children, their own children, and animals and help to create wars. Grownups always join together against children. Children are always alone without anyone on their side.

What upsets me the most are the professionals, psychologists, and psychiatrists. They all talk about theories but they don’t explain to the public the true psychological mechanisms. They hide behind theories so they don’t have to face their own painful truth that they are grown men and women still afraid of their own parents.

I have no doubt that the father’s friend took the father’s side about hitting the little boy. If he had taken the little boy’s side and had protected him, this never would have happened.

If a grown person was living in a hostage situation and killed his perpetrators, society would probably take his side, saying that he did what he needed to do to free himself. He would not be punished. Most children live in a hostage situation without anyone to help them. This little boy needed an enlightened witness who could understand and take his side. He does not need more punishment.

Maybe I am a little far off, but that is how I feel. As you say: “The parents are the problem and not the children. But nobody wants to understand that parents are not free to give their children emotional support as long as they are stuck in their fear of their own parents and don’t dare to question their cruel behavior. Out of this fear, they repeat the cruelties they were subjected to in their own childhoods.”

I wish that everyone on the planet could read your article on your website, “The Essential Role of an Enlightened Witness in Society“:

One more thing is where are all the pro-life people? They spend so much money fighting for the unborn children so that more children are born and used as scapegoats by adults. Why not spend their money fighting for the children who are already here and really need protection? All the pro-life people should read your article, “Protecting Life after Birth” in your book Breaking Down the Walls of Silence, page 145.

AM: Thank you for your letter. I completely agree with everything you are writing here. You are right: If an adult who lives in hostage could come free by killing the perpetrator he would have probably not been punished at all. And the child now will be punished or get a therapist who will make him feel guilty for his whole life. This is our system of JUSTICE. Could you send your letter to people of power to make them aware of the absurdity of their system? Your letter should be distributed, wherever you can.

Dear Dr. Alice Miller,

Thank you for your quick response. It feels good to know that I am not alone. I will send the revised letter to people in power and publish it on the Internet and send it to all the places I can think of.

Thank you for your support,

Sylvie Shene

P.S. Do you mind if I distribute your literature and your answers to my letters?

AM: No problem, you can distribute my literature freely, provided you don’t make any changes in it or put any additions into it.

Dear Alice Miller,

Today I sent the letter below to Oprah Winfrey. I thought I would share it with you. Also, I’d like to inform you that I have been sending my letter of the 8-year-old boy together with your flyer “The Roots of Violence are NOT Unknown” to a lot of people and places, including the attorney of the boy, the police department, the courts, President-elect Obama, the U.S. Supreme Court, and various news channels.

Thank you,

Sylvie

Dear Oprah,

I used to be a big fan of yours, but after I read Alice Miller’s books I realized that your show is a big illusion. You and your viewers are running from and avoiding personal truths and repressed painful emotions of the little girls/boys inside you. I have stopped distracting myself with TV shows that don’t give the full story, the whole truth, or give misleading information. Most people on TV are very articulate and say very seductive words that act like drugs that keep us numb, distracting us from facing our painful truths and from feeling our repressed painful emotions.

Have you read the book The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting, by Alice Miller? Your body is telling your truth through symptoms. The reason you keep coming back to the weight issue is because you are not taking the time to pay attention and feel the repressed, painful emotions of the little girl inside you.

Please read The Roots of Violence are NOT Unknown By Alice Miller.

I wish you much courage,

Sylvie Shene

AM: Congratulations!

Happy Birthday!, January 12, 2009

Dear Alice Miller,

You know you are the only person I know in this world that I wish could live forever. I hope you are having a wonderful day!

Love, Sylvie

Dear Alice Miller,

Thank you.

I wrote this letter a month or so ago, but I did not send it. Here it is now.

Once again, thank you for having the courage to speak the truth. In your post “Barbara’s Forum2” on Monday, September 29, 2008, you wrote that instead of understanding, you receive personal attacks. It happens to me all the time. People have told me that you talk about the problem, but you don’t give any solutions. This is so annoying, because people cannot see or hear the obvious solution that you do give us—the need for each of us to face our personal, painful truths and to trust all of our feelings.

I don’t know much about IFS therapy, but all the therapies I have come in contact with actually block us from our true feelings. They merely try to change the present behavior. I have learned that change cannot be accomplished without facing the truth about our past and without working through all our feelings and repressed emotions. Any change at all would just be superficial and temporary.

I’m surprised that Barbara has been sucked in by this therapy. Your experience has revealed just how great the compulsion is to repeat, to continue to do to others what once was done to us. I have also learned that people use all kinds of methods, even therapies, to run from facing a personal truth or their true feelings. I would just like to send you a hug.

Norman, thanks for your letter, “Saying the truth or being loyal,” Tuesday, September 30, 2008. And thank you, Alice Miller, for publishing it on your website with your answer. I totally agree with what you wrote:

“Fortunate are the few children who can express their criticism, who are listened to, taken seriously and understood by their parents. They receive a precious gift for their whole life. But for most children, saying the truth means mortal danger. They are often brutally punished simply for saying frankly what they feel and think.

As adults, they often use the same means as their parents used before, without being aware of what they are doing. They are blindly attacking everybody who questions their traditional ‘opinions’ given by their parents. Their children can’t do anything else other than obey and stay loyal. Only adults can take legal actions if it comes to criminal harassment or severe defamation.”

I totally agree with everything you and Norman said: I had the same experiences. I just wish I could articulate it as well as you and Norman did. To me, it is much more important to speak the truth and not deceive myself rather than to be loyal.

Love, Sylvie

Thank you for posting your answer to B.R., 2/11/09

Dear Alice Miller,

Thank you for sharing your answer to B.R. I got curious and I went to B.R.’s website to read her nasty piece of writing. I did not finish reading it because it bored me to read all about her projections onto you. I am so sorry she is making you her scapegoat. Being someone’s scapegoat is never a pleasant thing. I am so grateful for your books and website.

Having you here by my side for the last 10 years has been a life-saver and it pains me to see someone making you their scapegoat. I hope that you have a good team working with you and that the reader’s mail can go on forever. I also hope you have peace and health for many, many, many years.

You know when I read her book and articles and the answers to your reader’s mail, which I enjoy reading, I could feel that she still was repressed and harboring illusions. What she was writing was not coming from her true feelings, but from her head.

I call people like that parrots—they have great smarts, memories, and are very talented at writing and articulating, but they really don’t understand what they are saying. They are not capable of feeling their repressed feelings and they unconsciously project those repressed feelings onto scapegoats.

I had a link on my website at the end of the page of my story to your website and to B.R.’s article. I was rereading my story and clicked on the link to the article on your website and got a blank page.

For a while I was in a dilemma, not knowing what to do, because I did not want to create a link to her website. I started to write to you to ask you if you could write a small article on how religion, spirituality, and the 12-step meetings cement childhood blindness.

I decided not to bother you and created a link to the article on her website even though I don’t agree with IFS therapy (I don’t agree with most therapies out there). And now that I have proven my feelings are right, I have a responsibility to not have a link from my website to hers.

If you ever have a chance to write an article about how religion, spirituality, and the 12-step meetings cement childhood blindness, I would love to create a link to it.

Again thank you for being here and for your insights.

Sylvie Shene

AM: Thank you for your thoughtful letter I agree with you that there is a difference between the powerless, legitimate rage of a desperate child that reacts to the cruelty of their parents and the rage of the adult who is attacking others out of denial of their history by imitating the behavior of own parents from the position of “power” (even grandiosity). The first rage (of the child) should be felt and expressed in therapy, it can be then RESOLVED. The second one (of the adult), directed toward scapegoats, can NEVER be resolved (see dictators). If therapists see it as an end point of their therapies and don’t enable the patients to confront the early parents and the feelings of that time they do much HARM to them. Staying trapped in the hatred toward scapegoats can’t be the successful end of a therapy. I hope that you can continue your work if you have this difference in mind and can also explain it in your forum.

 Alice Miller to B R. 2/12/09

AM: Thank you for your understanding of what happened. I wrote today an answer under the title “Aggression out of denial” that could help you maybe to see what happens behind some attacks. I wrote already much about religion, the 12 steps and about blinding people by using poisonous pedagogy but all this is destroyed in my writing and not focused in a specific article. Maybe I will write some day an article on this topic but I can’t promise it now. If you want to publish my answer to E of today on your website you can do it.

Dear Alice Miller

I am so happy to see a young lady created a myspace page for you. I thought about creating one for you many times, but never got around to it. I am glad K.K. did, because she did a much better job than I would have done.

It gives me hope when I see young people reading your work. When I try to share your work with young people, my experiences have been very frustrating. Just like you said to K.K. on February 19, 2009:

“…usually young people are still dependent on parents and are thus often afraid to question their behavior. It is much later, when they become sick or are surprised that they are hitting their children even if they never wanted to do this that they start to think about their childhood and their suffering they had then to endure. They realize that they kept their truth repressed for decades, hidden in their bodies. Unfortunately, most therapists don’t help them to discover their truth, in order to heal, they tell them rather to turn the page and forget the past…”

Your words are so true and what is very sad is that even when people have their own children they still refuse to see these psychological facts. They continually do to their children what was done to them, without thinking twice.

I finally had my webmaster delete Barbara’s link from my website and created a link to your website and the article, “The Longest Journey.” I think this article expresses the point I was trying to make very well.

Again, thank you for all your help. Just like K.K. said: “Your work shines like a beacon on a cold, dark night.” I too feel very fortunate to have found your books.

Best wishes,

Sylvie Shene