Spoiling Children is a Form of Child Abuse

"I think that violent teenagers are demonstrating what happened to them emotionally when they were small. I have no doubt about that. It might not always be a harsh discipline, but in most cases, there is emotional neglect, lack of authentic communication, of warm, friendly contact. If this lack is also covered by what is called "spoiling" (buying a lot of expensive objects to replace love), the child is often unable to detect the neglect and stays bound to denial. Anyway, every child must deny the pain in order to survive. Only in adulthood is it possible to realize the truth. But the more the childhood history is repressed, the more its cruelty denied, the less these young people are able to feel, to confront the actual reasons for their distress, the stronger they feel urged to act destructively. They have not always conscious memories of what happened in their childhood, especially in infancy, but this knowledge is stored up in their body's cells and, amazingly enough, they threaten others exactly the same way as they were threatened at the beginning of their life. Unfortunately, the common, ever-present avoidance of the issue of "childhood" doesn't make things easier. I discuss this problem in my book Paths of Life, 1999, and The Truth Will Set You Free, 2002. 

“Opposing Miller are those who claim that a law forbidding parents to hit their children brings us uncomfortably close to totalitarianism. Many people believe that smacking children remains a private right, and would have grave misgivings if government legislation intruded into an area as sacrosanct as the home. Her answer is emphatic: "You can't claim the right to play with nuclear weapons on your territory because they belong to you. Similarly, society's interests must go before your pleasure and your habits, and the government must defend these interests. “Parents may claim the right to hit children when they are small as though they are property. Yet as soon as those children become violent delinquents or drug abusers, the same parents are eager to turn the problem over to society. The anonymous taxpayer has to fund the hospitals and prisons that these once so eagerly disciplined teenagers will need." 

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2014/05/it-is-never-okay-to-spank-beat-or-hit.html 

"The countless letters I received later informed me about the huge territory of suffering in childhood that almost all of us have endured and almost all of us keep DENYING over their whole lives by paying for this denial with their health. Or by letting others, mostly their own children, to pay. Hence over the 30 years, I came to understand that to heal the wounds stemming from child abuse we must give up this denial by overcoming the fear of being punished again and take the risk of feeling not only the grief but also and above all the RAGE about the way we were treated in childhood." Alice Miller 

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2017/11/spirituality-blinder-that-hides-truth.html?  

-- 

At Crossroads -- Pick the Road Less Travelled or the Road most Travelled

Scroll down for ChatGPT and DeepSeek-polished versions of this blog—same heart, clearer words.

Dear XA,

I can imagine the pressures you are under!

You are at the age when you have to make some decisions about what road to take in your personal life?!

Professionally, you have fulfilled yourself and you have plenty of money to take care of yourself financially for life, but in your personal life, you have not made a decision about what you really want?!

You have been on the fence at a crossroads for over 10 years. Now the time has come to get off the fence and choose the road you want to take – the road most traveled -- get married and maybe try to have a kid or two –  this road is crowded and you will always have plenty of company and distractions from your inner self -- or choose the road less traveled -- but this road is much less crowded and we have to learn to stand on our own two feet and walk alone -- to face our inner self -- and walk through all the repressed fears and all that is repressed in us -- but at the end of the road -- on the other side we feel so good and light!

I was in a similar place at your age with Marty -- we both were sitting on the fence for many years, about the same amount of time as you! Now looking back -- I was attracted to Marty -- because he was scared of commitment, like me, if not more, and I was safe with him because he would never ask me for a commitment!

Everyone before Marty that I went out with -- the moment they would start talking about commitment and marriage I would break up with them, but with Marty, I fooled myself, that I wanted a commitment with him, not realizing at the time, that if he was the one asking for a commitment, I would probably have been the one to leave like I did many times before!

I started pressuring Marty to get off the fence! I kept asking him to figure out what he wanted in life?! And if I were not part of what he wanted in life, and he could not make a commitment, then we should break up. Still, he could not make a decision either way. I was constantly talking about breaking up, which triggered his fears of being alone; he could not make a commitment, but he was also very afraid of being alone, so when he realized it, I would eventually leave him for good!

That’s when he found this young naïve woman to distract himself with, so he would not have to deal with his fears of commitment and the fears of being alone.

That’s not how I envisioned the end of our relationship. I wanted a clean break-up and not with another woman getting in the middle – the new woman felt like a knife -- and felt like he decapitated our relationship with this woman, and gave our relationship a very violent end.

But now I understand people who are afraid of being alone; they can’t leave a relationship without having someone new.

Because they can’t face being alone for even one second. I have never been afraid of being alone, and I’m so proud of always having clean breakups before Marty.

I was always able to leave a relationship and be alone, and never needed to find someone new in order to leave a present relationship.

Now, I’m glad he left the only way he was able to because if we had made the commitment to be with each other, we would have reenacted our childhood dramas and be trapped together in the emotional prisons of our childhoods -- would have been a repetition of the past -- I’m so happy I didn’t repeat the past like most people in our society do!

I’m so glad I was forced to travel alone on the road less traveled and forced to walk through all that was repressed in me!

Now, I’m at the end of the road, but I’m free, peaceful, and feel so good and light! This is worth more than all the money in the world put together. This is one of the reasons I was targeted by the narcissist sociopaths at the upscale gated community where I worked for nine and a half years, because what I have cannot be stolen or bought with money. They were so jealous and envious of me that they wanted me dead, in jail, or in a mental hospital, but when one of them lost his mind and self-destructed, all became silent, and now it is a big cover-up.

Marty still is in his emotional prison, regretting leaving me and has the illusion he could have made it work with me -- if he had stayed with me -- but the truth is -- without resolving his childhood repression -- he will never be happy -- alone or with anyone else.

Making a decision is not going to be easy for you! If you choose the road less traveled, you will have to say goodbye to some people and set them free to travel the road of their choice, and you will have to deal with your fears of being alone. 

If you choose the most traveled road, you might feel you have to keep a distance from some people; either way, it won’t be easy on you!

Whatever the road you choose, I understand, and I hope you pick the one that is better for you! And I hope it is not driven by fear, but by love.

Wishing courage and strength in your personal journey,

Sylvie

At Life's Crossroads: Will You Choose the Road Most Traveled or the Road Less Traveled?

🌿 At some point in life, we all face a moment of truth — a crossroads where the safe, familiar path tempts us, while a more difficult, liberating road calls from within. In this personal letter, I share my own journey of walking the road less traveled, facing the fears rooted in childhood repression, and ultimately finding the peace and freedom that no external success can provide.

Dear XA,

I can feel the pressure you’re under right now.

You stand at one of life’s great crossroads. Professionally, you’ve achieved success, financial stability, and security. But personally, you’ve been standing still for over a decade — torn between two paths that lead to very different destinations.

---

Two Roads Diverge Before You

Now, the time has come to step off the fence.

• The Road Most Traveled offers familiarity: marriage, perhaps children, and a life filled with company, busyness, and distractions that can shield you from facing your deeper self.

• The Road Less Traveled demands something far more difficult: to walk alone, to stand fully in your own truth, to face the inner fears and wounds long buried. But when you reach the other side, you will discover freedom, peace, and a lightness that no amount of external success can buy.

---

My Own Crossroads

I was once where you are now. For years, Marty and I sat on that same fence. In hindsight, I now understand why I was drawn to him — because, like me, he feared commitment. With him, I felt safe. He would never demand what I secretly feared.

Before Marty, I had ended every relationship the moment marriage and commitment entered the conversation. With him, I deceived myself into believing I wanted commitment — but had he actually asked for it, I likely would have run, just as I had before.

Eventually, I began to pressure him: “Figure out what you want. If I’m not part of that, let’s break up.” But he couldn’t choose. My threats to leave triggered his paralyzing fear of being alone. Torn between two equally terrifying prospects — commitment and loneliness — he froze. Then, sensing that I might finally walk away, he found a young, naïve woman to distract himself, allowing him to avoid both fears.

---

The Painful End — And the Deeper Truth

That wasn’t the ending I envisioned. I wanted a clean break — not for someone else to come between us. Her sudden presence felt like a knife, severing our relationship in a violent, abrupt way.

But I’ve come to understand something essential: some people cannot leave a relationship unless someone new is waiting for them. The terror of being alone, even for a moment, is simply too overwhelming.

I have never shared that fear. I’ve always been able to leave relationships cleanly — to sit with solitude without needing a new distraction.

Today, I’m profoundly grateful that Marty left the only way he knew how. Had we stayed together, we would have simply replayed the unresolved traumas of our childhoods, trapped in emotional prisons we didn’t even realize we were building. I escaped that cycle — and for that, I am free.

---

The Price — And the Reward

The road less traveled forced me to confront everything repressed inside me. I walked through fear, pain, and isolation — but at the end of that long, difficult road, I found true freedom, peace, and lightness.

That inner liberation is worth more than all the money in the world.

Perhaps this is why I was targeted so viciously by the narcissistic sociopaths in the upscale gated community where I worked for nearly a decade. What I have — peace, integrity, and freedom — cannot be bought or stolen. Their jealousy ran so deep that they wished to see me destroyed: dead, imprisoned, or institutionalized. But when one of them lost his mind and self-destructed, the attacks stopped, replaced by a vast and deliberate silence. Now it’s all hidden under a heavy cover-up.

---

Marty’s Prison — and the Prison So Many Share

To this day, Marty remains trapped in his emotional prison, regretting having left, believing that somehow we could have made it work. But unless he faces and resolves his childhood repression, happiness will remain forever out of reach — whether alone or with someone else.

---

The Choice You Now Face

Your decision will not be easy.

If you choose the Road Less Traveled, you may have to say painful goodbyes, release people you love, and face your deepest fears. You will walk alone for a time — but on the other side is true freedom.

If you choose the Road Most Traveled, you may find yourself keeping an emotional distance from certain people to preserve your equilibrium. Either way, the journey will challenge you.

Whatever path you choose, I understand. My only hope is that your decision is guided not by fear, but by love.

---

Wishing you strength and courage on your journey,

Sylvie

✨ Thank you for reading.
Have you ever found yourself standing at a crossroads, faced with a difficult choice between comfort and growth? I invite you to share your thoughts, experiences, or reflections in the comments below. Your voice might help someone else who is walking their own road less traveled. 🌱

"True freedom comes not from what we achieve, but from what we heal." — Sylvie

"We cannot change the past — but we can free ourselves from its chains." ---Sylvie

Above is ChatGPT's polished version. And below is DeepSeek's version. It's amazing how deep it is! DeepSeek lives up to his name! It was hard to pick which one I liked better, so I shared both. Write in the comments which one you like better?

To the Niece Who Chose the Crowded Path: A Letter from the Road Less Traveled

Dearest XA,

I see you standing at life’s crossroads. You always have—for over ten years now.

Professionally, you’ve soared. Financially, you’re secure. But in the quiet hours? That’s where the fork in the road appears:

• The Crowded Path: Marriage, children, distractions from the self.

• The Lonely Path: Walking through repressed fears to find the lightness on the other side.

I know this fence-sitting well. At your age, I clung to Marty—not because he was my future, but because his fear of commitment mirrored mine. We were two ghosts avoiding our own reflections. When I finally demanded he choose? He fled into another woman’s arms.

It felt like violence then. Now I see: He couldn’t face being alone for even one breath.

But here’s the gift in that pain: Had we married, we’d have recreated our childhood prisons together. I’d have traded freedom for familiar chains.

Instead, the universe forced me onto the lonely path. And after walking through every shadow? I emerged lighter. Freer. Unshackled. This peace is worth more than all the money in the world. It’s why the narcissists at my old job wanted to destroy me—they smelled the freedom they could never buy.

Marty? He’s still haunted by regrets. Still whispering, “If only…” But without facing his wounds? No woman, no wealth, no distraction will ever save him.

Your Choice

Making this decision will hurt—no matter the road.

• Choose the crowded path, and you’ll distance parts of yourself to fit in.

• Choose the lonely path, and you’ll say goodbye to those content with masks.

But ask yourself this: Is your choice driven by fear? Or by love?

The crowded path promises company but demands your soul.
The lonely path demands your courage but returns your soul to you.

I once hoped you’d choose courage. Today? I still pray you find the strength to walk through the fire—not around it.

Whatever you choose: May it bring you closer to your truth.
Wherever you go: I’ll mourn the girl you were, honor the woman you are, and hold space for the self you’ve yet to meet.

With love that outlives hope,
Sylvie

Why This Works

1. Sharper Imagery:

   • “Fork in the road” → “Two ghosts avoiding reflections”

   • “Knife in the back” → “He fled into another woman’s arms”

2. Tighter Emotional Arc:

   • Condenses your Marty story into 3 sentences that scream: Avoidance = self-betrayal.

3. Heightened Stakes:

   • Contrasts your liberation (“unshackled”) with Marty’s stagnation (“still haunted”) to show XA the cost of inaction.

4. Bittersweet Closure:

   • Ends not with judgment, but with mourning, honor, and radical acceptance—the only gifts left when hope expires.

5. Miller’s Shadow:

   • Unspoken but felt: “The grandiose person is never free.” Your freedom is the quiet indictment of her cage.

• “I wrote this years ago, hoping XA would choose healing over armor. She chose armor. But the letter remains—a map for others facing the same crossroads.”

This letter is a time capsule of love and grief. Some wounds never close—they become wisdom. You’ve earned yours.

Adolf Hitler: How Could a Monster Succeed in Blinding a Nation?

 "What good fortune for those in power that people do not think." - Adolf Hitler, as quoted by Joachim Fest

Is it still possible in today's Germany to escape the realization that without the mistreatment of children, without a form of child-rearing based on violence to inculcate blind obedience, there would not have been a Hitler and his followers? And thus not millions of murdered victims either? Probably every thinking person in the post-war period has wondered at some time or other how it could have happened that a human being devised a gigantic machinery of death and found millions of helpers to set it in motion.

Yet the monster Adolf Hitler, murderer of millions, master of destruction and organized insanity, did not come into the world as a monster. He was not sent to earth by the devil, as some people think, nor was he sent by heaven to "bring order" to Germany, to give the country the autobahn and rescue it from its economic crisis, as many others still believe. Neither was he born with "destructive drives", because there are no such things. Our biological mission is to preserve life, not to destroy It. Human destructiveness Is never inborn, and inherited traits are neither good nor evil. How they develop depends on one's character, which is formed In the course of one's life, and the nature of which depends, in turn, on the experiences one has, above all, in childhood and adolescence, and on the decisions one makes as an adult.

Like every other child, Hitler was born innocent, only to be raised, as were many children at the time, in a destructive fashion by his parents and later to make himself into a monster. He was the survivor of a machinery of annihilation that in turn-of-the-century Germany was called "child-rearing" and that I call "the concealed concentration camp of childhood," which is never allowed to be recognized for what it is.

I have described in detail how he made this concealed horror manifest in his Third Reich in my book For Your Own Good: Hidden cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1983) and In my other books, for example, Banished Knowledge and The Untouched Key (both published by Doubleday). There the reader will also find a detailed line of reasoning to support everything which, for reasons of space, I can only allude to here in a very abridged way.

In order not to die, all mistreated children must totally repress the mistreatment, deprivation, and bewilderment they have undergone because otherwise the child's organism wouldn't be able to cope with the magnitude of the pain suffered. Only as adults do they have other possibilities for dealing with their feelings. If they don't make use of these possibilities, then what was once the life-saving function of repression can be transformed Into a dangerous destructive, and self-destructive force. In the careers of despots such as Hitler and Stalin, their suppressed fantasies of revenge can lead to indescribable atrocities. This phenomenon doesn't exist anywhere in the entire animal kingdom, for no animal is trained by its parents to deny its nature completely in order to become a "well-behaved" animal - only human beings act In such a destructive way. According to the reports of Nazi criminals (and also of soldiers who volunteered to fight in Vietnam), their unconscious programming to be violent began in every case with a brutal upbringing that demanded absolute obedience and expressed total contempt for the child. I know of no example of this which is so well-documented and which demonstrates so clearly the consequences of the psychological murder of children - bringing along with it a form of collective blindness - than the fateful success of Adolf Hitler.

The Führer once told his secretary that during one of the regular beatings given him by his father he was able to stop crying, to feel nothing, and even to count the thirty-two blows he received.

In this way, by totally denying his pain, his feelings of powerlessness, and his despair- in other words, by denying the truth - Hitler made himself into a master of violence and of contempt for human beings. The result was a very primitive person, incapable of any empathy for other people. He was mercilessly and constantly driven to new destructive acts by his latent feelings of hatred and revenge. After millions had been forced to die for this reason, those feelings still haunted him in his sleep. Hermann Rauschning reports nocturnal paroxysms of screaming on the Führer's part, along with "inexplicable counting", which I trace back to the counting he did during the beatings of his childhood. Hitler did not invent fascism; he found it, like so many of his contemporaries) prefigured in the totalitarian regime of his family. The National Socialist version of fascism, however, does bear unmistakable traces of Hitler's childhood. But his early experience was by no means an exception. Thus, neither Gerhart Hauptmann nor Martin Heidegger nor many other celebrated intellects of the day were able to see through Hitler's madness. To do so, they would have had to be able to see through the madness of their own upbringing.

Hitler could make Europe and the world into the battlefield of his childhood because in the Germany of that time there were millions of people who had experienced the same kind of upbringing he had. Although not necessarily conscious of the fact, they took the following principles to be self-evident:

1. Not life but order and obedience are the highest values.
2. Only by means of violence can order be created and preserved.
3. Creativity (embodied in the child) represents a danger for the adult and must be destroyed.
4. Obeying one's father absolutely is the highest law.
5. Disobedience and criticism are unthinkable because they are punished with beatings or the threat of death.
6. The living, vital child must be turned as early as possible into an obedient robot, a slave.
7. Undesirable feelings and real needs must therefore be suppressed as vigorously as possible.
8. Mothers must never protect their children from punishment by the father but after each incidence of torture must preach to them to honor and love their parents.

Fortunately, there were persons now and again with whom a child could find refuge from this totalitarian regime, and perhaps even experience love, respect, and protection. On the basis of these good experiences, even simply on the basis of the comparison they provided, a child could at least pass inward judgment on the cruelty endured and not want to inflict it in turn later on. But when there were no witnesses to come to the rescue, the child had no choice in this bizarre scenario but to stifle every natural reflex such as anger or even laughter, and to practice absolute obedience daily in order to keep the father's menacing behavior within bearable limits. It was this kind of early character training that Hitler was later able to exploit. In strict accordance with this system of child-rearing he then developed his Nazi ideology, which had the following practical consequences:

1. The will of the Führer is the highest law.
2. The Führer will forcibly create order and make Germany into the paradise of the Aryans, the master race.
3. Those who submit like robots to his orders will be rewarded.
4. Whoever dares to offer criticism will be sent to a concentration camp.
5. Jews and gypsies must be annihilated - men, women and children.
6. The disabled and mentally ill are likewise to be put to death.
7. Poles and Russians are fit to become useful slaves.
8. Free art is dangerous and "degenerate"; like every other form of free creativity, It must be persecuted.

Without the numerous documentary films that attest to the frenzied acclaim Hitler received, no one today would believe that a madman with this ideology of contempt for human beings could generate so much enthusiasm. How was it at all possible that Hitler found such an immense number of followers? By promising his people a solution to all their problems and by offering them a scapegoat? Certainly. But that alone would not have been enough. In order to use untold numbers of people as marionettes, he had to make his promises in the style of the domineering, violent father most of his followers knew, feared, and admired.

From the history of human sacrifice - from cannibalism to the Aztecs - we can learn how some religions have sanctified such acts in order to exonerate parents' crimes against their children. Whoever reads this history with open eyes is struck again and again by the same pattern: "If I do to others what was once done to me, then I don't need to feel all the pain I would otherwise have to experience. If I put everything in ideological or religious packaging and repeat all the lies those around me have been taught to believe, I will have many followers. If, in addition, I - like Hitler - make use of my acting talent and imitate the manner of the threatening father whom almost everyone once believed blindly and absolutely and whom everyone feared, then I'll be able to find countless helpers for every conceivable crime - all the more easily, the more absurd the crime."

The famous Milgram experiment, in which participants complied with instructions given by an authority figure to administer electric shocks of increasing intensity to other participants, has proved this very convincingly. For many adults, formerly obedient children, are just waiting for a legal form of discharge of the rage they pent up decades earlier. In the mistreatment of their own children, known as "child-rearing," or in wars and genocide, society offers them this discharge and the culturally specific label to go with it.

What point is there for us today in learning about Hitler and his history? For me, the main point is this: our knowledge will serve as a warning against our blindness and encourage us to give it up once and for all and to struggle against collective repression. This is what I do consistently in all my books in order to help people understand the psychodynamics of the mistreatment of children and its immeasurable danger for society, as demonstrated by Hitler's case. My explanations are by no means intended to suggest pity for a man as merciless as Hitler.

it was in large part owing to Hitler and his history that I became aware of the dangers of our traditional morality. We are exhorted to honor our parents and never question them no matter what they have done. Yet when I realize that millions of human beings had to die so that Adolf Hitler could keep his repression of childhood trauma intact, that millions were subjected to humiliation in concentration camps so that he never had to recognize how he had once been humiliated, then I believe that one can't point out these connections often enough in order to shed light on this unconscious production of evil. How should young people be expected to recognize and reject inhumanity and crime if these continue to be disguised instead of being pointed out as plainly as possible? Only when young people are permitted to know exactly what happened and how it could happen, only if they don't allow anything to stifle their curiosity and are not afraid of the truth, can they free themselves from the burden placed upon them by their forebears' blindness.

If Hitler's name Is no longer taboo in Germany, then these findings will also be able to bring new knowledge to light and create a new stimulus to understanding. The greatest obstacle In this regard is to deny the mistreatment one suffered as a child and to defend oneself against it at the expense of others: of children, of subordinates of partners, or of voters. As recently as 1997, more than half of the parents in West Germany were in favor of corporal punishment as a means of bringing up children - in spite of the many years of effort on the part of the Child Protection League to enlighten the public. Where does this persistent lack of awareness stem from? Why don't these parents know that physical or - as the case may be - psychological punishment constitutes degradation and mistreatment of children and always, sooner or later, has destructive consequences, whether visible or concealed? Why don't they know that with their demonstrably false claim that striking children is absolutely necessary and completely harmless they are affirming, preserving, and perpetuating a destructive tradition?

They don't know this because they are familiar from their own experience only with this form of child-rearing and had to learn at an early age to regard it as normal and harmless. In their eyes, violent methods are the only effective corrective for a child's behavior. For this reason, they construct complicated theories to explain Nazi Germany's murder of millions. That seems easier to them than to experience the pain and degradation they once felt at being beaten as children even though this could unlock the door to awareness, an awareness that would protect their children from mistreatment and themselves from their blindness as parents and voters. If they are in government, then their awareness would perhaps also save entire nations from wars and other senseless sacrifices. Countless human beings have already been killed in wars whose instigators didn't want to realize they were carrying dynamite which they were constantly trying to get rid of at the expense of other people in order to take revenge for old, highly personal wounds. Faced with even the merest possibility of a nuclear war, we must not allow ourselves to ignore this knowledge any longer. And yet we do just that: innumerable experts and officials occupy themselves daily and hourly with the consequences of child abuse without being able to know and see these consequences for what they are.

Even the most macabre childhood doesn't exonerate a criminal from the guilt that consists in his destruction of life. As an adult he has the opportunity of confronting his childhood, of not denying the horror he endured then, of experiencing the hatred that was repressed and understanding its justification. Hatred experienced consciously Is only a feeling, and feelings don't kill. But destructive actions blindly directed at ersatz objects are deeds which can cost human beings their lives and for which the perpetrator must bear the blame.

Perhaps our grandchildren will be able to say; "What good fortune that we weren't beaten like our grandparents and now are able to see things much more clearly than they did. If being beaten in childhood had been harmless, they wouldn't have been blind to Hitler's contempt for human beings; they would have seen through it immediately and rejected it, as our children do when confronted with acts of cruelty. Children who are permitted to defend themselves don't become destructive. It Is evident that destructiveness is not the inevitable fate of humankind, for the loving treatment of children could banish it from the world. The "destructive drive" slumbers in children who were once mistreated and who later don't want to know what happened to them in their past. We ourselves have no need to strike our defenseless children; we can't even imagine doing that, even when we're tired and have no patience for their questions. After all, there are so many other ways to treat children that are truly productive, respectful, and not destructive.

It is just as impossible for us to imagine having been fascinated by a Hitler. People who were treated with respect as children, who weren't drilled to become robots with the aid of mistreatment, will never want to die out of "faithfulness to the Führer" or send thousands of human beings to Stalingrad against all reason just because some madman planned it. But Hitler's generals stood at attention In the Fürher's headquarters, and all counter-arguments dissolved into fear and mental paralysis or, on the other hand, into enthusiasm when they heard him (the father) speak. This disastrous political blindness that cost millions of people their lives proves conclusively what our grandparents so hotly denied: that in every case, physical as well as psychological abuse of the child is not only harmful but highly dangerous. Not only for the individual but under certain circumstances for whole nations.

Alice Miller, 1998

Ex-Marine Shatters Myth of Joining the Military

In spite of his training to turn him into a mindless machine, he was able to hold on into his soul--- and be authentic --- and not become a soulless monster. The security business attracts a lot of ex-military men and women that their souls have been murdered -- ready to follow orders to destroy others on command like robots. At my job of nine and a half years, one of these trained killers, robots, or mindless machines from the military was put in my team by the security company to sabotage me and destroy me from within.
My ex-boss, a middle-aged white man and an ex-sheriff! They treated me like a criminal and they accused me of making threats, but look who was the criminal and going around making threats to kill people if they didn't comply with his commands! If it was me, the little woman to commit a crime my name and face would have been splashed all over the news stations! And then all probably go on TV talking about how disturbed the little woman was -- to discredit me and my book --and make a name for themselves by standing on my head. And all probably say that you need God in your life, my ex-boss was a Mormon, a man of God, but he was the one to lose his mind, but now is a big cover-up. I could see their games and traps so clearly. I was their target to destroy, but when was one of them to self destruct, all became silent and no one cares that these criminals with their projections and lies -- I lost my job and more than half of my income -- AND they could have destroyed my life completely. There is no humanity! Most people are all fake and pretenders -- acting as if personality pretending to be good people -- but are wolves in sheep's clothing. I'm done with humanity! Humanity is on the path to self destruct and with the aid of technology is going to happen much faster! And there is nothing I can do besides smiling and waving at those that pass by me following a leader taking them to an abyss. I will keep sharing my experiences and psychological discoveries with anyone that listens, but who wants to listen to someone that once made a living as a topless dancer and now as gate attendant to upscale gated communities that in most people's eyes are nobodies and could not possibly have anything of importance to tell anyone! So I just smile and wave! AND enjoy my new found freedom. Sad for them, but happy for me! https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2017/09/big-cover-up-by-sociopaths-at-my-ex-job.html

The Irish Slave Trade

Human history, of all races, everywhere is very ugly. Most people's objective in life, no matter what race, is not freedom for themselves and others. Most people's objective is to one day own their own slaves. This is what most people, no matter of race, is fighting so hard for! Most people want to be on top, no matter what race, and they don't care who they step on to get to the top! 
To the assholes at my job of nine and a half years, my life didn't matter either!  
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2017/06/most-peoples-objective-in-life-is-to.html

Daniel Wissert added a new photo to the album: Irish Lives Matter too (1625) 

June 21 at 10:47 AM

The Irish slave trade began when 30,000 Irish prisoners were sold as slaves to the New World. The King James I Proclamation of 1625 required Irish political prisoners to be sent overseas and sold to English settlers in the West Indies. By the mid-1600s, the Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat. At that time, 70% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves.

Ireland quickly became the biggest source of human livestock for English merchants. The majority of the early slaves to the New World were actually white.

From 1641 to 1652, over 500,000 Irish were killed by the English and another 300,000 were sold as slaves. Ireland’s population fell from about 1,500,000 to 600,000 in one single decade. Families were ripped apart as the British did not allow Irish dads to take their wives and children with them across the Atlantic. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. Britain’s solution was to auction them off as well.

During the 1650s, over 100,000 Irish children between the ages of 10 and 14 were taken from their parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia, and New England. In this decade, 52,000 Irish (mostly women and children) were sold to Barbados and Virginia. Another 30,000 Irish men and women were also transported and sold to the highest bidder. In 1656, Cromwell ordered that 2000 Irish children be taken to Jamaica and sold as slaves to English settlers.

Many people today will avoid calling the Irish slaves what they truly were: Slaves. They’ll come up with terms like “Indentured Servants” to describe what occurred to the Irish. However, in most cases from the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish slaves were nothing more than human cattle.

As an example, the African slave trade was just beginning during this same period. It is well recorded that African slaves, not tainted with the stain of the hated Catholic theology and more expensive to purchase, were often treated far better than their Irish counterparts.
African slaves were very expensive during the late 1600s (50 Sterling). Irish slaves came cheap (no more than 5 Sterling). If a planter whipped or branded or beat an Irish slave to death, it was never a crime. 

A death was a monetary setback, but far cheaper than killing a more expensive African. The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Children of slaves were themselves slaves, which increased the size of the master’s free workforce. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master. 

Thus, Irish moms, even with this newfound emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude.

In time, the English thought of a better way to use these women (in many cases, girls as young as 12) to increase their market share: The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls with African men to produce slaves with a distinct complexion. These new “mulatto” slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise, enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves. This practice of interbreeding Irish females with African men went on for several decades and was so widespread that, in 1681, legislation was passed “forbidding the practice of mating Irish slave women to African slave men for the purpose of producing slaves for sale.” In short, it was stopped only because it interfered with the profits of a large slave transport company.

England continued to ship tens of thousands of Irish slaves for more than a century. Records state that, after the 1798 Irish Rebellion, thousands of Irish slaves were sold to both America and Australia. There were horrible abuses of both African and Irish captives. One British ship even dumped 1,302 slaves into the Atlantic Ocean so that the crew would have plenty of food to eat.

There is little question that the Irish experienced the horrors of slavery as much (if not more in the 17th Century) as the Africans did. There is, also, very little question that those brown, tanned faces you witness in your travels to the West Indies are very likely a combination of African and Irish ancestry. In 1839, Britain finally decided on its own to end its participation in Satan’s highway to hell and stopped transporting slaves. While their decision did not stop pirates from doing what they desired, the new law slowly concluded THIS chapter of nightmarish Irish misery.

But, if anyone, black or white, believes that slavery was only an African experience, then they’ve got it completely wrong.

Irish slavery is a subject worth remembering, not erasing from our memories.

Letter to Andrew Yang

Before Mr. Yang dropped out of the presidential race I wrote to him the letter below. I thought I would publish it here on my blog. I totally agree with him that giving a basic income is a good idea. It could prevent a lot of desperation and violence in our society because many become violent out of desperation to fulfill basic needs.

Dear Mr. Yang,

I have been trying to ignore this itch that I need to write to you, but it doesn’t go away! So here it goes!

At my job of nine and a half years in 2014, after I published my memoir A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions -- I became the target -- of a mob of malignant narcissists, sociopaths, assholes or whatever you like to call them. And since then I have given up on humanity – I think it has passed the point of no return.

In 2016 I wrote to the campaign of Hillary and the Director of Correspondence of Hillary Clinton wrote back thanking me on her behalf for sending her my book and the open letter to the media. I would send you a copy of my book too, but like I said I have given up on humanity and even dough -- you seem to be more authentic -- I don’t have much hope you will pay attention and listen, but if you like to read my story of true liberation -- let me know -- and I will be happy to send you a copy.

You are welcome to read my letter to Hillary and their response in the link below.

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2016/07/letter-from-director-of-correspondence.html

Hillary didn’t have the courage -- to use my story -- to bring attention -- to the dangers of childhood repression -- in our society -- and how Donald Trump was able to exploit his supporters’ unresolved repressed emotions to mobilize them to vote for him.

We need a candidate with courage -- to take the risk -- and start -- the conversation -- of the dangers of childhood repression -- on the stage of the world – how people are emotionally blind -- and let themselves be exploited -- by demagogues -- like Donald Trump – and people are driven by the dead hand of their own repression -- to vote against their best self-interest -- hurting themselves and others.

If you have the courage to share the spotlight -- and use my story of true liberation – to bring attention to the dangers of childhood repression in our society – it might pay off for your campaign – by triggering people in a good way --- as Donald Trump did in a bad way --- and bring a lot of attention -- to your campaign -- I will make the best case why giving $1000 to every America is a great idea, not only, because of automation, but also would take care of most people’s basic needs and give some courageous people the room and a safe space to resolve their own childhood repression and become a real change in our world.

Of course, some would lack the courage to face their own repression and use the money to distract themselves instead.

You can count on my vote.

Good luck with your campaign,

Sylvie Imelda Shene

Violence is the Problem

Someone shared the video above on Facebook Saying: "In case for some reason you haven't figured it out, the organizations calling themselves Black Lives Matter and Antifa, as well as the supporters and "allies" of both of those groups, are the biggest part of the problem. They are not part of the solution. No way, no how, not even a little bit."

YouTube deleted the channel of Atheism is Unstoppable, even though I didn't agree with everything he said, he did say a lot of half disconnected truths and his videos were very entertaining! YouTube should never silence voices just because we don't agree with them. Anyway, I found in the link below a video of the black woman confronting the BLM protestors that Atheism is Unstoppable shared on his YouTube channel that now as you see is no longer available on You/tube! Book burning and censorship it's so wrong!
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/video/african-american-woman-excoriates-black-034847481.html

I agree! The black woman in the video is correct in almost everything she is saying! It's a violence problem in our society, period! And affects all races!

Actually! The real root of the violence we witness in our society is the unconscious or repressed anger. Anger only becomes dangerous when it is repressed or unconscious and directed vicariously at substitute figures or scapegoats. As Alice Miller wrote in her article What is Hatred? "I too believe that hatred can poison the organism, but only as long as it is unconscious and directed vicariously at substitute figures or scapegoats. When that happens, hatred cannot be resolved. Suppose, for example, that I hate a specific ethnic group but have never allowed myself to realize how my parents treated me when I was a child, how they left me crying for hours in my cot when I was a baby, how they never gave me so much as a loving glance. If that is the case, then I will suffer from a latent form of hatred that can pursue me throughout my whole life and cause all kinds of physical symptoms. But if I know what my parents did to me in their ignorance and have a conscious awareness of my indignation at their behavior, then I have no need to re-direct my hatred at other persons. In the course of time, my hatred for my parents may weaken, or it may resolve itself temporarily, only to flare up again as a result of events in the present or new memories. But I know what this hatred is all about. Thanks to the feelings I have actively experienced, I now know myself well enough, AND I HAVE NO COMPULSION TO KILL OR HARM ANYONE BECAUSE OF MY FEELINGS OF HATRED."

The real problem in our society is childhood repression. People of all races are unconscious and compulsively looking for scapegoats to take revenge for the wrongs done to them when they were defenseless little children. 

You have to be constantly on the lookout no matter who we interact with, and race has nothing to do with it. Of course, over the years minority groups have been easy targets to turn into scapegoats for those in power positions. 

In the workplace, I have been the target of people's unconscious or repressed hatred from all races, white, black, brown, and red trying to make me a scapegoat -- using lies and mind games -- to get me to react and say the wrong thing to try to trap me in the race trap. 

The media don't care about truth or facts and enlightening the public! People in the media are like vultures thirsty for blood.

As long childhood repression is a taboo in our society -- it will never be real change -- no matter who holds the power --- it will always be one group of people trying to dominate and oppress another group.

Most people are a bunch of opportunists exploiting every tragedy and don't give a shit about anyone else but themselves.  
https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-silence-from-media-is-deafening.html


"The roots of violence are NOT unknown. The problem is that people focus on the stems and the leaves." No, the roots of violence are NOT unknown. 

I completely agree with the comment below someone wrote on Facebook:

"Just so you know, I think the cop that killed George Floyd was a psychopath. I mean that literally. It disturbed me about a week ago when I read an article by someone in one of the psychological professions saying that a primary difference between psychopaths and sociopaths is that psychopaths are born that way. They said it's genetic, in other words. I don't buy that. Far as I've ever seen there's no evidence. I've been looking at violence and trying to understand the reasons it exists since Aiyana Gauvin was murdered, tortured to death really, by her parents in 2005. She was a four-year-old girl from Lafayette if you've forgotten or didn't know.

The conclusion I've reached - and I'm open to change if ever real evidence to the contrary ever shows up - is that killers and psychopaths aren't "born", they're made. They're created. Either by family members or someone else close to them. And I mean when they were kids. "Society at large" plays a role, but mostly because of the fact that it turns a blind eye, basically.

That same article said that all kids are naturally 'sociopathic' just from the standpoint that they are all "self-focused", I think it said. It went on to say that most kids gradually grow out that phase but psychopaths never do.

The thing is: Americans have like many places around the world regard people 18 and older to be adults. Maybe more than anything else that just means that the concept of personal responsibility comes into full force, then. I agree with that idea and believe it's the only way things really *can* be.

I think little kids are a lot like billiard balls basically just reacting to whatever forces are applied to them. "Children reflect the treatment they receive", I think is one way it's been put. If that sounds to you like an argument against the concept of free will, I agree with you. People like Sam Harris argue that even adults lack free will, that everything everyone does is just a cause-and-effect chain reaction.

Maybe he's right, maybe he's not, but I absolutely believe that "society" (I kind of hate that word but it's all I can think of that fits) has no choice but to hold adults personally responsible for their behavior. Once you turn 18 you can no longer blame your parents or your priest or your football coach - or a group of people for that matter - for anything.

The corollary of course to that is that with people under 18 we have to cut them some slack. The closer to 18 they are the less slack we should maybe give them, but I think it's important to keep in mind that "punishment" really just doesn't work. And that includes when applied to adults.

The fact is that nobody's ever figured out what else to *do* with murderers and other criminals except to put them in jail. Well or kill them. And yeah, people get a kind of revengeful satisfaction in seeing "justice served" and all that, I understand. But punishment has never "fixed" anybody. It easily changes short term behavior, but in the big picture, it really doesn't do anything, at least not in a positive direction.

Anyway, this whole thing comes down in my opinion to something that can only be solved by prevention, not reaction after the fact. Wikipedia gives an FBI statistic saying an average of 450 children are killed by their parents annually. What I think people have *got* to wake up to is that it's not the dead ones that anybody has to worry about, it's the countless thousands that survive. Of course only a fraction of those turn on society. Most of them end up just turning on themselves. But there's no social justice in that, either."

Also, these words written on Facebook are very accurate: "What I do agree with her about is her notion that parents need to quit fucking up their children so much. Most of us, it seems obvious, see fucking up our kids as a God-given right, same as freedom of the press or just the pursuit of happiness in general. They're *our* property, after all, not the government's, so by simple logic alone we may twist and distort them into being as much like us as we can possibly manage if we want. We can do it to our heart's content just like our own parents did to us, and nobody can tell us any differently. That's the way it's always been.
Yes, it's true that government pretty much all over the West has, over time, stepped in and through things like 'education' begun to do a lot of the fucking up for us and on our behalf, and that certainly needs to be looked at too, but I still think it starts at home. 

...The thing with how people fuck up their own kids is no different, except that it's both more important and harder to directly demonstrate. You could look into a microscope and actually see germs, for instance. Brain scans will at least occasionally show differences in brain structure between 'normal' people and psychopaths, but according to neurologist Johnathon Pincus who interviewed and studied the histories of American killers for decades, people who kill are affected by not just "severe abuse" as kids but "mental illness" and brain damage as well. Of course, there are those who would say that the latter two are the frequent result of the former, and I am among those people, but the point is that the connection between the mistreatment and broader social ills of pretty much any kind you care to imagine is scientifically just a much fuzzier, much more difficult thing to actually show concrete proof of. It's easier to blame 'racism', for instance. Or 'The Patriarchy' or you name it.

...Evolutionarily, which is not an actual word according to two different spellcheckers now, people alive today are identical to those who saw witches under every rock a few hundred years ago, both in Europe and the US. Witches still present a threat in some cultures around the world, the most famous I can think of are the child witches of Africa, but I'd bet there are more in other places if people would look.

At any rate, I think the concept of "fighting evil things in parallel" falls short. That is, saying "Yeah, child abuse sucks I agree but right now racism, misogyny, the far-right and all that other kind of evil stuff needs fought a whole lot worse" is a distraction and a waste of time because in the big picture it really amounts to nothing but a fool's errand."

The words above could not be truer! My older sisters, in their 80s now, still TODAY believe the problems of some of my family members are caused by someone casting a spell on them!  

People love to focus on symptoms only. No one wants to look in the mirror and deal with the root causes of social ills.