How Arrogance is Created

"Those who take a stand in today's world on behalf of workers, women, or even mistreated animals will find a group to represent them, but someone who becomes a strong advocate for a child and opposes the lies society has tolerated in the guise of child-rearing practices will stand alone.  This situation is difficult to understand, especially when we consider that we were once all children ourselves.  I can explain it only by suggesting that unequivocal advocacy of the child represents a threat to most adults.  For when it becomes possible for children to speak out and confront us with their experiences, which were once ours as well, we become painfully aware of the loss of our own powers of perception, our sensibilities, feelings, and memories.  Only if the child is forced to be silent are we able to deny our pain, and we can again believe what we were told as children: that it was necessary, valuable, and right for us to make the emotional sacrifices demanded of us in the name of traditional child-rearing.  As a consequence of the adult's arrogant attitude toward the child's feelings, the child is trained to be accommodating, but his or her true voice is silenced.  Another arrogant and blind adult is the result. "

From the book:  "Pictures Of A Childhood" by Alice Miller

Stripping the gurus” by Geoffrey D. Falk -- this book is good

I just started reading this book and so far the little bit I have read it’s awesome.
The words below in Geoffrey’s book are so true! It’s exactly what is happening to some members at the cult group I talk about in my blog People Unlimited. 
http://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2011/02/people-unlimited-inc-my-experiences.html
Some members of this group have become very phobic of the outside world and live in fear if they leave the group they will die.  The leaders give the members the illusion of freedom and love, but the reality is, they are in a very closed emotional prison very hard to escape from.
“…. For, that in no way offsets the blind belief inherent in the claimed necessity of keeping the guru-disciple vow, where the punishment for breaking that vow is to be cast into Vajra hell or the like. East or West, southern U.S. or northern India/Tibet, agrarian or postindustrial, all makes absolutely no difference. Rather, the fear of long-term punishment will produce exactly the same rigid reactions, and inability to walk away from toxic situations, in the East as in the West.  The universal nature of known psychological structures and dynamics throughout the human species guarantees this.
  When [alleged] cult leaders tell the public. Members are free to leave any time they want; the door is open,” they give the impression that members have free will and simply choosing to stay. Actually, members may not have a real choice, because they have been indoctrinated to have a phobia of the outside world. Induced phobias eliminate the psychological possibility of a person choosing to leave the group merely because he is unhappy or wants to do something else (Hassan,1990) That is, individuals in so-called cults who have been taught that bad things will happen to them should they leave will be no more “free” to exit those environments than someone who is petrified of water would be “free” to go swimming.”
http://www.strippingthegurus.com/index.html

A list of some of the books I read

Below is a list of some of the books I read, even though they were all a little helpful to help me become aware of how I was affected by my childhood. I now find them to be tinted with manipulations, morality, and poisonous pedagogy and preaching forgiveness which kept me repressed and stuck. I only was able to really liberate myself from the compulsion of reenacting my childhood drama when I focused on Alice Miller’s books and website that I finally was able to break free. To me Alice Miller was IT and I felt I no longer needed to look anymore and now I read others people’s books not looking for answers anymore, but simply out of curiosity to see what other people are saying and I have not found anyone that comes close to the clarity of Alice Miller.

Melody Beattie
“Codependent no more: How to stop controlling others and start caring for yourself” (the first book I read)
“Beyond Codependency: and getting better all the time”

“Codependents Guide to the twelve steps” In this book at the end in references I found the title of the book “Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society Betrayal of the Child” By Alice Miller - I had to buy this book because of the subtitle “Society Betrayal of the Child” because growing up, I always felt betrayed by everyone. And that is how I found Alice Miller. I now see the 12 steps programs are a religious cult that keeps people in the state of the child and they don’t help liberate people.

An amazon.com reviewer of the great book by Ken Ragges “The Real AA: Behind the Myth of 12 Step Recovery” Says it beautifully:

“I am 25 years old and have already belonged to 2 cults (No, I'm not bragging). The first was the Unification Church aka the Moonies, the second was Alcoholics Anonymous. I'll try to explain briefly some of the similarities.

A few years ago I was going through a lot of pain over the breakup of a relationship. I chose to ignore it and drink. I drank pretty heavily for a while, almost every night and almost always till I passed out. I knew that I needed help and was told about AA.

I started going to meetings and was immediately told to get a sponsor, make 90 meetings in 90 days, and to start reading the big book. And once again, just like the Moonie experience, it did work for a while. Until one day I realized that they labeled everything they had ever done wrong as being the result of their diseased alcoholic thinking, even the things they did before they ever picked up a drink!

I started to realize what a B.S. concept it was, to oversimplify every little thing down to this one tiny "fact": that we're alcoholics.

OK, so the resentment I was feeling toward my parents wasn't the result of abuse, but rather an alcoholic character defect, and that as long as I worked the steps, it would go away.

I was also told that if I ever left the program, that I will most likely drink again, and even if I don't I'll just be a miserable dry drunk.

I realized at that moment that this was the exact same thing the Moonies had told me ("if you leave the church you are rejecting the Messiah and will be miserable.") I began seeing the connections.

The Moonies assigned me a "spiritual father" to guide me on the path to serving Moon, AA gave me a "sponsor" to show me how to work the steps.

The Moonies had 1000s of members who always had these phony smiles on their faces and believed that what they were doing was the right thing in Gods eyes and that other religions were wrong, AA had the same thing. The similarities don't stop there, but I think I've said enough.”
http://www.amazon.com/review/R29F6R9PR130SP/ref=cm_cr_pr_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1884365140&nodeID&tag&linkCode#wasThisHelpful


http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php?lang=en&nid=1002&grp=1206
http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php?lang=en&nid=2594&grp=0409


“The Language of letting go”

John Bradshaw
“Healing the shame that binds you”
“Home Coming”

Julia Sokol
“He scared, she scared: Understanding the hidden fears that sabotage your relationships”

Jean J. Jensen
“Reclaiming your life: A step by step guide to using regression therapy to overcome the effects of childhood abuse”

Charlie L. Whitfield, MD
“Co-dependency – healing the human condition”
“Healing the child within”

José Stevens, PH.D.
“Transforming your Dragons: How to turn Fear Patterns Into Personal Power”

Gary Zukav
“The seat of the soul”
“The heart of the soul: Emotional Awareness”

M. Scott Peck
“The road less travel”
“Further along the road less travel”
“People Of the lie”

Melody Pia
“ Facing Codependency: what it is, where it comes from, how it sabotages our lives”

Robin Norwwod
“Women who love too much: when you keep whishing and hoping he’ll change”

Susan Forward
“Toxic Parents: overcoming their hurtful legacy and reclaiming your life”

Eckhart Tolle
“The Power of now”

Deepak Chopra
All his books until the book “How to know god”

“The Emotional Incest Syndrome” by Dr. Patricia Love and Jo Robinson

“Silently Seduced: When Parents Make their Children Partners –

Understanding Covert Incest” By Kenneth M. Adms

“The Addictive Personality: Understanding the Addictive Process and Compulsive Behavior” By Craig Nakken

Anne Katherine -- “Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin”

Harriet Lerner – “The Dance of Anger” and ‘The Dance of Intimacy”

“Baby factories”

“Authorities are still seeking the woman who is suspected of selling babies at the home, BBC reported. A 23-year-old man suspected of impregnating the teens has been arrested. “Baby factories,” as they’re called, BBC said, are not uncommon in parts of Nigeria. The babies are sold at illegal adoptions, sold into slavery or labor, or — when they’re grown — put to work as prostitutes. European Union statistics show Nigeria and China as the biggest traffickers in humans.”
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/10/17-pregnant-teens-rescued-nigerian-baby-factory/#ixzz2T6AScIbb

This is going on all over in America, because every time a woman is manipulated and coerced to carry a pregnancy to term to give up for adoption she is in a baby factory.  People are so unconscious and repressed that they can’t see and feel the pain and suffering that their actions will cause, that is going to be felt until the end of time, because the chances these traumas to ever heal are very slim, not when so little true enlightened witlessness are available in our world, even with an enlightened witness not everyone finds the courage and strength to feel the pain of their tragic beginnings.

The other day I was cat sitting and turned the TV to a local channel, I think was channel 12 and this Christian teenager was a guest on a show, she counsels other pregnant teenagers not to go through with their abortions and asks them to make the ultimate sacrifice, to carry their pregnancies to term and give birth to their babies to give up to adoption, and the show’s host was praising her for the great work she was doing. This girl is just a very gifted child that has tune in to the expectations of the unconscious adults in her world and to secure her own survival is doing what pleases the unconscious adults and is hurting young teenagers under the disguise of helping them, but really she just helping herself by exploiting other teenagers to secure her own survival and continues the circle of pain to go on for eternity. Every time someone is asking you to make the ultimate sacrifice, this person is asking you and all the generations that follow to hurt until the end of time and we should tell them to fxck off and get out of our lives.

Until the Full Truth of Facts can be seen Liberation is not Possible

“ A baby requires the certainty that he will be protected in every situation, that his arrival is desired, that his cries are heard, that the movements of his eyes are responded to and his fears calmed.

...The only possible recourse a baby has when his screams are ignored is to repress his distress, which is tantamount to mutilating his soul, for the result is an interference with his ability to feel, to be aware, and to remember.

...It is only in the child that trauma are bound to lead to psychic wounds because they damage the organism in its growth process. These injuries can heal if one dares to see them, or they can remain unhealed if one is forced to go on ignoring them. The feminist movement will forfeit none of its strength if it finally admits that mothers also abuse their children. Only the truth, even the most uncomfortable, endows a movement with the strength to change society, not the denial of the truth. When men abuse their women and the women put up with it, both the violence of the men and the tolerance of the women are consequences of early child abuse. Hence young children, male as well as female, can become victims of adults of either sex. When sensitive, nonbrutal women (and men) are incapable of protecting their children from the brutality of their partner, one must attribute this inability to the blinding process and the intimidation experienced in their own childhood. That is the simple truth. Only when these roots of all violence are exposed is it possible to examine the phenomena without retouching or embellishing them. When a female therapist has been taught that men are solely to blame for all evil in the world, she will, of course, be able to support her female patients when they eventually discover that they have been sexually abused by their fathers, grandfathers, or brothers: Unlike the followers of the drive theory, she will not talk them out of this truth. But as long the truth about the mother who allowed the abuse to happen, who failed to protect the child and ignored her distress, is kept out of sight, the full reality is not allowed to be either perceived or acknowledged. And as long as the child’s feelings cannot be experienced, the rage against men---a rage she can already experience---remain impotent: it can even remain coupled with the undissolved loyalty and devotion toward the father or other abusive men. When mothers are defended as pathetic victims, the female patient will not discover that with a loving, protective, perceptive, and courageous mother she could never have been abused by her father or brother. A daughter who has learned from her mother that she is worth protecting will find protection among strangers too and will be able to defend herself. When she has learned what love is, she will not succumb to simulated love. But a child who was merely pushed aside and disciplined, who never experienced soothing caresses, is not aware that anything like nonexploitive caresses can exist. She has no choice but to accept any closeness she is offered rather than be destroyed. Under certain circumstances she will even accept sexual abuse for the sake of finding at least some affection rather than freezing up entirely. When, as an adult woman, she comes to realize that she was cheated out of love, she may be ashamed of her former need and hence feel guilty. She will blame herself because she dare not blame her mother, who failed to satisfy the child’s need or perhaps even condemned it. Psychoanalysts protect the father and embroider the sexual abuse of the child with the Oedipus, or Electra, complex, while some feminist therapist idealize the mother, thus hindering access to the child’s first traumatic experience with the mother. Both approaches can lead to a dead end, since the dissolved of pain and fear is not possible until the full truth of facts can be seen and accepted.” Alice Miller  “Banished Knowledge” page 1, 2, 78 and 79

Alzheimer, Trauma, Repression

Lately, I come across a lot of people that tell me someone in their family suffers from Alzheimer.

AM: For a feeling person as you are it must be heart-breaking to assist a person who doesn't remember anything and to feel her pain that she can't feel. For people who are afraid of their own pain, it might be okay but not for you. You clearly see that you want to live YOUR life and you see what you need to do to "spread your wings and to fly". I wish you can do it soon, it is never too late.

AM: Thank you for sharing with us your interesting observations. The behavior of your father showed one of the ways how repressed memories can bother a person who has lost his defenses against emotions that he has had to his disposal his whole life. He may lose his control and cry for attention, something he never dared to do in his childhood. Another person may become totally erased. Aging triggers the traumatic memories because we become again dependent on others when our forces decrease. This dependency demands again facing our old history. Alzheimer disease is then the alternative to continuing therapy. Either remember the old pain again or deny whatever comes up - as has been done the whole life (PTSD)

Assisting Alzheimer

Hi Ms. Miller,

I hope this letter finds you well. I wanted to express a situation to you in which I am being a part of and wanting to look at the deeper, underlying effects that I am allowing myself to participate in.

I care for an elderly woman her name is Kay, she is 86 years old and has Alzheimer's disease. (Do you think this disease is a deep manifestation of repressed feelings? My instincts tell me it is since it is a severe form of memory loss and loss of one's ability to care for themselves as the illness progresses more and more)

Her family has ways of doing things without telling Kay of the goings and doings of her personal belongings and her house. When her husband passed away a year ago, they took a lot of his things from her apartment the very night he died, and they took and have sold most of her belongings from her house and now are selling her house without telling her. Her daughter recently told us of this, and asked each of us (3 personal care providers), if they should tell her mother of her house being sold. But my feeling is that she already knew the answer and how we would respond to this question since they proceeded to do these other "behind the scenes activities" without telling her.

I know it would devastate Kay, she and her husband built their house from the ground up, lived in it for over 50 years, and I would even take her to see her house every week for several months, but we could only look at her house from the side of the street in my car since she was not allowed to go inside her own home. She couldn't understand why she didn't have the key to her own house and why she couldn't go inside it, why we would just sit in my car looking at it as strangers, never going in. I had told her(without telling her children), that her granddaughter had moved in and didn't want to invite her grandmother into her own house, the reason being she thought she would upset Kay to see all her possessions no longer there, and the inside of the house changed so much to what it used to be. I could understand this, however, if they had talked to her about this, the shock would have been understandable and explain to her the reason's and so
forth. Now, we are not to mention of her house being sold, and if she asks about how her house is, or about wanting a key to it, we agreed to say to her that her son was looking after it and that everything is fine and that when she would see him again (which is very rare), we would ask about the key(only if she remembered to ask).

I realize that a lot of what has been happening is very clear of the secrecy and lies that not only I grew up with and that I have personally generated in my own life and how a lot of families operate. I know that we live in a society where adult children put their parents away in nursing homes and take advantage of them due to there mental and physical fragility, by taking their money and whatever else for there own use. I understand where this is coming from the hatred, the anger, the denials, the hurt, the ways we take revenge on one another, unconsciously and consciously, the wanting to just put someone like a child or an elderly person away to not have to see them and remind them of what they represent. I know that Kay's children have a lot of blame and hurt and unexpressed feeling towards Kay and it is being expressed by these current actions.

I have a close relationship with Kay, and I know without a doubt that if she had been communicated with care about her house and belongings she, of course, would get rightly upset, but I also know she would understand...and due to the nature of her disease, she would "forget" allowing some residue of her needs being met even for a brief moment until the memory of that episode fades and the questionings of her house and belongings would arise again, but knowing somewhere in the depth of her being, the memory of being told and seeing allowed in her home would reside within herself even if she were to "forget".

As someone being a close care provider for Kay and using my "judgment" for what seems to be the "best" for her, I don't know where the line is drawn between doing what I feel is innately right in incidents when I have told her outright about her house and why she can't go in, and other things I have told her factually of things that her family had not told her. Along with the present agreement of withholding and lying to her due to her state of being...I have been confused and sad, and angry about how I am part of this and how we overall communicate and relate with each other on a daily basis.

I would sure appreciate your thoughts on this and your perception on the elder population especially the nursing homes and how the adult children take there hurts on the parents by these institutions. I know it is just not the parents, but the whole system of nurses, doctors, care providers- like myself, etc... I have definitely seen how I have neglected myself in going into this profession, for I have asked myself for several, several years why am I doing this line of work, because deep down it does not bring great joy or fulfillment, only something that I know how to do and I am told I am very good...which seems to translate that I am very good at providing other's needs but my own. Do you think that when I can fully come out of the depressions and the deep hurts from my childhood that I can finally discover what and how I truly want to live my life? You discovered this through your paintings, and left psychoanalysis, and wanted to write. I have a
profound sadness on the possibilities that I may never know what it is I really wanted to do with my life other than being a care provider. I feel really, really sad that it may be too late for me, that whatever inclinations or inspirations I might have had as a child will never be discovered...that they have been pushed down so deeply down...that it will never see the light to exist. And I feel really, really sad not knowing if I will truly come to a place of healing, to spread my wings and fly.

AM: For a feeling person as you are it must be heart-breaking to assist a person who doesn't remember anything and to feel her pain that she can't feel. For people who are afraid of their own pain, it might be okay but not for you. You clearly see that you want to live YOUR life and you see what you need to do to "spread your wings and to fly". I wish you-you can do it soon, it is never too late.

http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php?lang=en&nid=2708&grp=0709

Alzheimer, Trauma, Repression
Dear Alice Miller,

On July 15 a reader in your mailbox asked: "Do you think this disease [i.e. Alzheimer] is a deep manifestation of repressed feelings? My instincts tell me it is..."

When I was caring for my father who suffered from Alzheimer's disease in the last few years of his life, I had the same impression as your reader. My father had a severely traumatic childhood, however, he never discussed it in depth with anyone, and when he did mention it, it was only humorous; his real emotions remained deeply repressed. When he retired from his work, he has stripped off his defences that enabled him to ward off his feelings of futility and emptiness generated by this massive repression; his childhood situation came back to haunt him. Gradually losing his memory and regressing to an infantile state of mind, he allowed himself, probably for the first time in his life, to behave like a child: to be unsatisfied, irresponsible, dependent, helpless, and to express his endless need for attention. My mother who could not tolerate his helplessness (as she could not tolerate her children's helplessness before) became the substitute of his mother - a woman devoid of feelings altogether - but this time, he could loudly protest. In his "senility", he allowed himself to say things that sounded delirious, but that were in fact very true; for example, he said that he doesn't recognize me; true: my father had never bothered to find out who I really was.

To care for a person with Alzheimer's disease is a huge emotional burden; the affected person shows you just how helpless he had been as a child, but you can do nothing to save him from his predicament. The "senility" makes it totally impossible to discuss a person's childhood with him. The feelings of helplessness and hopelessness are therefore transferred from the demented person who cannot deal with them, to the caregivers. Personally, this brought me close to psychological collapse. I, therefore, urge anyone who takes care of a demented person to take good care of THEMSELVES. Remember: you are not responsible for this person's miserable childhood. And the helplessness this person makes you feel is difficult to bear: it reminds you of your own helplessness in the first years of your life... It can also reactivate the frustration of a child who desperately tries to save his parents from their pain: the drama of the gifted child. Mission impossible - once again.

The correlation between psychological trauma and dementia has recently been demonstrated in a research presented in the 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease. This new research demonstrates that people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are twice as likely to suffer from dementia in later life than people without PTSD. This research gives further support to your readers' intuitions.

Please feel free to publish this letter.

NP

AM: Thank you for sharing with us your interesting observations. The behavior of your father showed one of the ways how repressed memories can bother a person who has lost his defenses against emotions that he has had to his disposal his whole life. He may lose his control and cry for attention, something he never dared to do in his childhood. Another person may become totally erased. Aging triggers the traumatic memories because we become again dependent on others when our forces decrease. This dependency demands again facing our old history. Alzheimer disease is then the alternative to continuing therapy. Either remember the old pain again or deny whatever comes up - as has been done the whole life (PTSD)

http://www.alice-miller.com/readersmail_en.php?lang=en&nid=2711&grp=0709 

"Coming Out " Works!

Yes we need to start coming out with our stories to remove the stigma once and for all.

“In our research, having a close friend that’s gay or lesbian can have a profound impact on support," Cox explained. “We see this across Democrats, Republicans, and Evangelicals. It really cuts across a lot of demographics and, in a lot of ways, is more powerful than ideology."

"The same isn’t true for women who have abortions. Most Americans know someone who is gay or lesbian, but they often don’t have the same personal connections with women’s own abortion stories. That’s not because women who have abortions are rare — in fact, one in three U.S. women has had an abortion by the time she is 45 years old — but rather because of a lingering stigma surrounding this aspect of women’s reproductive care. That societal stigma ultimately dissuades women from being open about their experiences with abortion by reinforcing messages about how the procedure is morally depraved, something to be ashamed of, and something women always regret.

That’s why women’s health advocates encourage a “coming out” model for the women who have chosen to terminate a pregnancy, similar to the process within the LGBT community. If politicians like Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) can “evolve” on pro-equality policies because they have personal connections with gay and lesbian individuals, perhaps they will also consider supporting a wider range of pro-woman policies if they hear more from women in their lives who have chosen an abortion. But that isn’t likely to happen soon, particularly if women still don’t feel safe to share their stories without shame and stigmatization.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/04/02/1809121/why-us-politicians-arent-evolving-on-abortion-rights/