Dyslexia

Dyslexia and Mental Health 

The article in the link above about dyslexia describes very well what i went through as a child and my daily struggles to a T. Yes, I was a pretty happy child until I started school.
"Finally, dyslexics’ performance varies from day to day. On some days, reading may come fairly easily. However, another day, they may be barely able to write their own name. This inconsistency is extremely confusing not only to the dyslexic but also to others in his environment." 
Totally! Some days I can't even spell my own name!!!

"The frustration of children with dyslexia often centers on their inability to meet expectations. Their parents and teachers see a bright, enthusiastic child who is not learning to read and write. Time and again, dyslexics and their parents hear, “He’s such a bright child; if only he would try harder.” Ironically, no one knows exactly how hard the dyslexic is trying."
Yes, as a child I constantly heard those exact words.

"Dyslexia often affects oral language functioning. Affected persons may have trouble finding the right words, may stammer, or may pause before answering direct questions. This puts them at a disadvantage as they enter adolescence when language becomes more central to their relationships with peers."

Yes, it's very frustrating that I never can find the word I want and I have problems remembering the sequence of letters and words AND difficulty pronouncing the words correctly. 
The words below articulates exactly my difficulties! I experience black holes all the time!!!

"My clinical observations lead me to believe that, just as dyslexics have difficulty remembering the sequence of letters or words, they may also have difficulty remembering the order of events. For example, let us look at a normal playground interaction between two children. A dyslexic child takes a toy that belongs to another child, who calls the dyslexic a name. The dyslexic then hits the other child. In relating the experience, the dyslexic child may reverse the sequence of events. He may remember that the other child called him a name, and he then took the toy and hit the other child.

This presents two major difficulties for the dyslexic child. First, it takes him longer to learn from his mistakes. Second, if an adult witnessed the events, and asks the dyslexic child what happened, the child seems to be lying.

Unfortunately, most interactions between children involve not three events, but 15 to 20. With his sequencing and memory problems, the dyslexic may relate a different sequence of events each time he tells the tale. Teachers, parents, and psychologists conclude that he is either psychotic or a pathological liar.

The inconsistencies of dyslexia produce serious challenges in a child’s life. There is a tremendous variability in the student’s individual abilities. Although everyone has strengths and weaknesses, the dyslexic’s are greatly exaggerated. Furthermore, the dyslexic’s strengths and weaknesses may be closely related.

I once worked with a young adult who received a perfect score on the Graduate Record Exam in mathematics. He could do anything with numbers except remember them. The graduate students he tutored in advanced statistics or calculus had great difficulty believing that he could not remember their telephone numbers.

These great variations produce a “roller coaster” effect for dyslexics. At times, they can accomplish tasks far beyond the abilities of their peers. At the next moment, they can be confronted with a task that they cannot accomplish. Many dyslexics call this “walking into black holes.” To deal with these kinds of problems, dyslexics need a thorough understanding of their learning disability. This will help them predict both success and failure. Dyslexics also perform erratically within tasks. That is, their errors are inconsistent. For example, I once asked a dyslexic adult to write a hundred word essay on television violence. As one might expect he misspelled the word “television” five times. However, he misspelled it a different way each time. This type of variation makes remediation more difficult.

Finally, dyslexics’ performance varies from day to day. On some days, reading may come fairly easily. However, another day, they may be barely able to write their own name. This inconsistency is extremely confusing not only to the dyslexic but also to others in his environment.

Few other handicapping conditions are intermittent in nature. A child in a wheelchair remains there; in fact, if on some days the child can walk, most professionals would consider it a hysterical condition. However, for the dyslexic, performance fluctuates. This makes it extremely difficult for the individual to learn to compensate because he or she cannot predict the intensity of the symptoms on a given day." 
If I had a physical handicapping I would be getting all kinds of sympathy from society, but because my handicap is invisible, all I got is misunderstanding, judgment, and contempt. The words above could not be truer.

"Dyslexia affects the family in a variety of ways. One of the most obvious is sibling rivalry. Non–dyslexic children often feel jealous of the dyslexic child, who gets the majority of the parents’ attention, time, and money. Ironically, the dyslexic child does not want this attention. This increases the chances that he or she will act negatively against the achieving children in the family." 
Totally! I didn't want the attention that I wished I could crawl into a hole and never come out! 

"Anxiety causes human beings to avoid whatever frightens them. The dyslexic is no exception. However, many teachers and parents misinterpret this avoidance behavior as laziness. In fact, the dyslexic’s hesitancy to participate in school activities such as homework is related more to anxiety and confusion than to apathy."
Yes, i was labeled as being lazy. 

Read the full article here 

Comments from the sharing of this article on Facebook:

John Wilwerding Thanks Sylvie Imelda Shene, my two daughters have this challenge.

Sylvie Imelda Shene John Wilwerding, I'm sorry to hear your daughters have this challenge. I hope their dyslexia is not as extreme as mine. Some days it's very hard for me to perform.

John Wilwerding As parents we understand the problem, and so we never force high performance. My wife has done some special reading therapy called Ortan-Gillingham with my youngest daughter, and now she is a good reader. We are working on helping her now learn to advocate for herself when she is challenged by asking and getting more help with studies.

Sylvie Imelda Shene They are lucky! As a child I never had anyone that understood my struggles and i was punished for it.

John Wilwerding Yes, that is a common story for those afflicted as children, I have siblings who suffered the same fate.

Sylvie Imelda Shene Unfortunately in this very ignorant world it's still the fate of many children.

Sylvie Shene Big Brother Audition Tapes

I thought going on Big Brother would be a great opportunity for people to see me, and see for themselves that I'm real and not that harsh because I think in my writings I come across as being a little too harsh.

I think is because I'm dyslexic and writing being one of the hardest things for me to do in life and it's the most time-consuming for me.

But now that I'm starting to get the hang of making videos and upload them on YouTube -- I think I will do and publish more videos soon.

The video above that I published on YouTube is the original one and the one below is the edited version that I submitted to Big Brother producers. 

Below is what I wrote on on their question Self Biography (Up to 70 words): "I’ve lived in many countries, including Portugal, Spain, England, France, and the U.S. In 1985 I moved to Phoenix, Arizona and worked for 18 years as an exotic dancer. In 2014, I wrote a book called A Dance to Freedom to help people break free from their emotional prisons. I love spending time with my cats, being in nature, hiking, bicycling, having meaningful discussions, laughing, and joking around."

“…Watched your vid. You are such a super cool and taking person, honestly!!!!! I loved to meet you this way. Wow...  not any kind of pretension or trying to be something.  Just 100% authentic, which is so rare... wow... why don't you do videos, where you read passages from your book, or give an interview about you and your life and your insights?  And put it on your blog??? Aside from the bb vid??? There is so much light and love and inspiration shining from you.  Sorry, this sounds esoteric, but I don't mean it like this... maybe this could be an add-on to your words. Really, your appearance and the way you talk, this is, I have to say that again, taking, in a good way... sorry, lacking a  bit of the right words in English... in German, I would say: du bist (you are)  mega sympathisch :-)))

Really, you are such a super person, which shines through so strongly, if one can see you live!”

[Thank you! But making the BB video was a little difficult for me because I would keep mispronouncing my words and I would have to start over. It was very tiring to shoot the video.  Remember I’m dyslexic! And it doesn’t only affect my writing. It also affects my speech.  But I think I’m going to take your suggestion and try to do more videos.  Below are my answers to some of the questions they have asked past contestants. I am trying to be prepared just in case they call me:
 

Occupation: Author, Gate attendant manager

Three adjectives that describe you: Persistent, understanding and generous.

Favorite activities: Relaxing at home with my cats, taking long walks in the park by my house and hiking. 

What do you think will be the most difficult part of living inside the Big Brother house? Being away from my cats and close friends. I like my own space and privacy, so not having any privacy and sharing space with strangers will be difficult for me.

What moment in your career do you think prepared you to live in the Big Brother house?

My whole life has been a preparation for the Big Brother house. I've been through many challenges in my life and always intuitively knew how to turn them into opportunities to move forward. I have to say that the turning point in my life was when I discovered the books of Alice Miller. Her insights literally saved my life, and I wrote a book called A Dance to Freedom to help others break free from their emotional prisons like I did. Writing the book gave me a lot of confidence, and I think I can help a lot of my housemates if they’ll listen to me.

Which past Big Brother cast member did you like most?

I like Shannon Elizabeth, but I don't particularly have a favorite.

What are you afraid of? I don’t let fears stop me or control me. I prepare the best I can and I hold my nose and jump. My motto is: face your fears or they will just keep biting you in the butt.

What is the accomplishment you are most proud of? Leaving Portugal and facing and resolving my own childhood repression, and of course, writing a book on how to resolve childhood repression, and finding peace and becoming free to really love and live my own life.

Do you have a strategy for winning the game?

I just plan to be myself. People always underestimate me, so I have a feeling I’ll be off everyone’s radar early on. That will give me time to learn about everyone in the house and get a sense of the repressed traumas in their lives that they take out on others unconsciously and compulsively. I’ve learned how to deal with malignant narcissists and sociopaths, so if there are any in the group I think I’ll surprise them.

My life's motto is... Keep it simple, love and have fun

What would you take into the house and why? One of my cats for company and comfort and my book that is my baby and my gift to the world so I like to share it with as many people as possible that might be in the same place I once was, and hopefully be a support to them and not feel alone like I once did.

Fun facts about yourself:  - I love cats 

                                               - I am a goofball 

                                               -I read people very well and I’m a great judge of character 

                                               -Outspoken and not afraid of controversy

What would you do if “Big Brother” made you famous?  If Big Brother made me famous, I would use it to raise awareness of the dangers of childhood repression in our society.

“I like your application. Again smoothly and nicely put, really, you do so well, expressing yourself!!!” [It’s hard for me to believe someone saying something to me like you wrote above! 1995 when I read for the first time one of Alice Miller’s books I barely could write a full sentence. And look where I’m now?! I wrote a book with a lot of help, but I wrote a book and I have a blog. It’s amazing how far I have come?! Thanks to Alice Miller I broke free from my autistic state and now no one can stop me from talking and writing.]

“In this context, I especially like the adjectives, which you chose to describe you, and your life’s motto, your life with your cats etc. :-))) it has the lightness, which the readers at BB might need to read/ hear?  Otherwise, they might be triggered, by mentioning childhood and Alice Miller and so on??? We know both, how fast people run if they are confronted with their pain and are not ready to face it... I am the best example for this...of course, this is how you are and what you think about life and there is no need to hide anyway.

Maybe you could mention, that you have learned to be a "public" person (on stage) at your time as a dancer, including the fact, that you managed to keep your boundaries even in this special situation... ??? but you mentioned that a little in your vid anyway...  is there a timeline, when you will be informed, if you are in the next round??? I keep my fingers crossed! Keep on rocking, H”

[Thank you! I'm glad you liked my BB application. I think tomorrow is the deadline so if I don’t get a call by tomorrow it means I didn’t make the cut. Maybe I don’t fit in with this year’s theme. I will try again next year, but if what Sarah Benitez wrote below on Facebook: 

“So I was listening to my local morning radio show today and one of the young, recent college graduate assistant producers came on the air to tell a story about how yesterday someone from CBS slid into her Instagram DM’s and asked if she’d be interested in going on Big Brother. They’re looking for young, competitive, fun, SINGLE contestants. So..that’s what they’re looking for. Casting isn’t going to change.” 

So if this is true I will be too old in their eyes and I will never fit in in their show. Or maybe like you wrote they are just too afraid of me because I trigger their own repressed fears.]

"WOW, I just reread your exposition for Big Brother... 

you did amazing work. this is super clear and has the perfect mix of ease and depth...

and what an astonishing idea to apply for big brother... here in Germany, they copied this show, so I know at least a little about it. 

of course, it would a be huge challenge to finally really be there

anyway, you application sound really great, and maybe, how unlikely this might seem, they give you a chance. 

that would be great, even concerning all the risks, such a exposition to public might bring.

but i trust 100% in your integrity :-))))

you wrote so many thoughtful things about the emotional life of cult members...

i can relate very much.. it is true, that I hadn't had the chance to gather... about who I am and what I want... I realized that ..."

[Not being able to make a decision might be a trigger for people, but leaving people hanging waiting for too long might be even a bigger trigger and is understandable that eventually they give up and feel disappointed and stop waiting for you to make a decision and move on. 

Another possible question is: did people leave you hanging as a child and would not give you an answer either way too?! And now you treat others the same way.

I remember you mentioning before about the cult leader you got involved with and this could explain a lot why you don’t trust yourself to make the right decision for yourself because you made such a bad judgment about a person before.

I have read that people that have been involved with gurus or cults leaders have a hard time making decisions for themselves. “Trust -- Former cult members find themselves feeling phobic in many social situations. They tend to withdraw and to stay away from crowds and gatherings of more than several people. Feeling badly ripped off by the cult experience, they don't trust their own judgment, and they don't trust other people. Additionally, they lack self-esteem and self-confidence; they feel incompetent, clumsy, and undesirable as a consequence of their cult training. Former members' inability to trust is one of their most frequent and vivid problems. Not only do they realize that they trusted too much, but also they often end up blaming themselves forever joining the cult and for feeling inadequate about their decision-making abilities and judgment.” https://culteducation.com/group/1273-recovery/17912-cults-in-our-midst-leaving-a-cult-and-recoverings.html  

I never joined a cult, but I don’t trust anyone much and I’m always waiting when they will let me down, because eventually everyone due to their own unresolved repression will eventually let me down, it’s always a matter of time,  but it does not stop me from taking a risk with people and give them a chance --- I trust myself that I will be able to handle it when and if they let me down and move on if necessary.

Like you said there is no life without risks and we have to learn to take risks in life. 

I’m ready to retire and let go of everything, but if something crosses my path that I see it might give me a chance at exposing the work of Alice Miller to the masses I will jump into it and take the risk. 

I don’t watch much T.V., but I watched for the first time The Big Brother show and I thought to myself: I’m going to audition for the show that would be a good opportunity for people to get to know me and expose the work of Alice Miller to the masses! 

I really don’t want to be locked up for three months in a house with a bunch of strangers and have a camera follow my every move and listening to every word I say!  

Most likely they will not call me, because my story and Alice Miller scares most people, but if they call me I will go because that would be a great opportunity for people to see me and introduce Alice Miller’s work to the masses.  I’m going to have a few days off in the second week of April and I’m going to make my audition tape and send it to them.

http://bigbrothercasting.tv/web/apply

Below is what I wrote for the Self Biography (Up to 70 words) question:

"I’ve lived in many countries, including Portugal, Spain, England, France, and the U.S. In 1985 I moved to Phoenix, Arizona and worked for 18 years as an exotic dancer. In 2014, I wrote a book called A Dance to Freedom to help people break free from their emotional prisons. I love spending time with my cats, being in nature, hiking, bicycling, having meaningful discussions, laughing, and joking around."

What do you think?!]

This guy AL made comments on my YouTube BB video offering to help me make more videos and help me promote my YouTube channel, but of course, like most people out there, he was not real and when I told him that reading my book was a prerequisite, he deleted all his comments with my replies, but today going through my old notes I found a few of my replies to him and one of his comments that I will share below.

I need to confess that when I said in the BB video audition tape I had become a big fan of the show I was trying to get on the good side of the producers because I thought was a great way for people to see I'm real and share with the world the truth that can set one free.

I used to think if people got the right information at the right time it could make all the difference, but now I don’t think it matters much, because most people rather be distracted than face and consciously feel their own painful truths.

Just like happened at my job of nine and half years that as long they thought or had the illusion I was inferior to them, they acted like very nice people, using me as a pawn to fool me and others into think, they are nice people with their illusion of love, but after they read my book they knew I knew and their illusion of love and kindness ended overnight and they started the very well psychological warfare to try to regress me into the state of the wounded child and hoping I would self-destruct, they wanted me dead, in jail or mental hospital. To them, my destruction was better than looking in the mirror to face their painful truths and feel the pain to become real. 

After I published my book I was treated like I had committed a crime! But exactly a year later we saw who was the true criminal, but now is a big cover-up by the FBI, US Marshals, and the Media.  

It took me almost a lifetime to liberate myself from all the lies and illusions of our society and now that I am 60 years old! I just want to be left alone to enjoy my freedom and not deal with phony people anymore.

I wanted to believe in people and thinking they were many people like me out there that really want the real truth no matter how painful. But thanks to publishing my memoir I came to see the real face of humanity and for that, I’m glad I went through all the trouble to publish my book! Because now really know the truth about most people that they rather kill you and be killed than face their own painful truth.

People love to talk about the importance of mental health and removing the stigma, but it’s all a lie. If it was true I would not had become the target of a mob of sociopaths after I published my memoir A Dance to Freedom, especially by those proclaiming to be in the mental health industry, that have tried so hard to regress me to the state of the wounded child and bring me back into an emotional prison. Most people are born, live and die in an emotional prison. 

I really feel for anyone that their childhood has left them so wounded that an enlightened witness in the book form is not enough and they literarily need to lean on someone or institution for help.

Because the chances of finding a true enlightened witness in the health care field are very slim. Most “helpers” are helping themselves looking for followers to endless stay depend or in the state of the child and are not one bit interested in encouraging your autonomy or your growth -- into a mature conscious adult. And if you cannot create a safe space for yourself and the strength and courage to stand alone to face your childhood repression to consciously face and feel the repressed feelings of the child you once were -- and allow old wounds to heal -- if you are dependent on others to help you -- you might wait all of your life and never able to break free and endless stay trapped in the emotional prison of your childhood.

What was I think that Big Brother producers would be interested in real liberated people like me for the show, they want repressed people unconsciously and compulsively reenacting their childhood dramas to exploit. People like me triggers their repressed fears and the fears of being exposed. It was interesting to see Julie Chen and Les Moonves this last season become the reality show themselves!

Al, thank you for your comment. It's constantly in my mind that I need to do at least one more video because I like to keep my promises -- so I will do at least one more video one of these days.

Making the BB video was a little difficult for me because I would keep mispronouncing my words and I would have to start over. It was very tiring to shoot the video.  I’m extremely dyslexic and it doesn’t only affect my writing. It also affects my speech. Sometimes I think about getting a teleprompter to help me with the making of videos. But to tell you the truth I think humanity has passed the point of no return and I have given up on humanity. I don't think it matters what anyone does -- it will not make much difference in our world.

These words by Leo Tolstoy could not be truer: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” This is the problem with our society. No one wants to look in the mirror and face themselves.

I would like to reach people that are in the same place I once was -- searching for the truth -- that can set us free - waiting to hear the naked truth from someone else -- and validate their perceptions that they are not crazy! No one should have to wait as long as I did to hear the truth from someone else.

Alice Miller was such a witness for me and now I have written a book sharing my journey of how I liberated myself with Alice Miller books as my enlightened witness and if people want to find the truth that can set us free, they need to dig hard for it as I did -- because the liars of this world will work very hard day and night to block the truth and keep in the dark the real state of affairs.

I'm glad Big Brother didn't call me because I didn't really want to be locked up in a house full of repressed people telling their true stories with their unconscious and compulsive reenactments. To tell you the truth NOW I'm at the point in my life that I just want to be left alone to enjoy my freedom. It has been a long journey! 

Yes, most therapists keep themselves and others stuck in an emotional prison -- the therapist playing the role of the parent and their patients endlessly stuck in the role of the child.

Most therapists have mastered the art of manipulation to perfection -- to regress people to the state of the defenseless child -- and keep them in an emotional prison to use and exploit for transference effect to temporally alleviate their own repression.

if he was real and really wanted to help me he would not have deleted his comments! And if he had read my book first -- he would never -- have written these words: "If I could take all the pain away I would, but if it makes you stronger"

He would know I'm no longer in pain and I don't agree with society's slogan: what doesn't kill you make you stronger, because those of us that have worked through our childhood repression knows what doesn't kill us make us weaker and until we have resolved our childhood repression --  we will be endlessly chuckled into the chains of compulsion repetition. 

just like I wrote in my book A Dance to Freedom: Your Guide to Liberation from Lies and Illusions page 107 and 108:

"The typical methods people use to search for answers — which are really ways to run away from the truth — are futile because our real, repressed story continues to attempt to make itself heard no matter what we do. Alice Miller believed that our true plight, the root cause of all our repeated problems, will keep trying to gain our attention in more extreme ways until we finally take notice. Alice Miller describes addiction, for example, as a way for someone in despair to get rid of his or her memory. But this method of self-medication is unsustainable. “This ‘solution’ is no longer needed if the goal is exactly the opposite, if you want to remember, if you want to feel your plight and to understand its reasons, if you slowly become aware of why you were so afraid of acknowledging the reasons,” she writes. “This can happen once you decide to stop running away, to stop betraying yourself, to allow the truth to enter your consciousness. You decide to do so because you finally understand that everything else is useless and because you no longer want to watch your life go by before having even begun to live. You decide to stop betraying yourself because you understand that only you can give yourself the love and care you never received and that you can’t do that as long as you deny the truth.”59 They say that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but I think they have it all wrong. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you weaker, more repressed and more vulnerable to illness and disease.”

AL: If I could take all the pain away I would, but if it makes you stronger then it's still a positive outcome and then as a friend, I'd offer a promise to share it with you so you don't have to face everything all alone. There is no law that says you have to struggle alone and definitely nothing that forces you to carry the weight on your shoulders, the real crime here is third parties (parasites and vultures) extorting money from people in need of this help and support in guise of caring and compassion when they clearly have none and no heart. So I'd create a bubble in my heart just for you to be safe and well... knowing I expect nothing in return and I do it here for you when/if you need it without any reservations. 💕 Sylvie: Thank you for writing. I don’t like to tell people to read my book, but it's a prerequisite…

Character Matters: Why Emotional Blindness Is More Dangerous Than Ignorance

We often assume that knowledge, intelligence, and education are the safeguards against cruelty, tyranny, and moral failure. But history—and our current moment—tell a different story. Some of the most articulate, highly educated people have been among the most enthusiastic followers of dictators. Some of the most gifted artists and intellectuals have remained willfully blind to suffering, even as they wielded brilliant minds.

Why? Because character is not forged by intellect. It is forged in the crucible of early emotional experience.

I recently watched a video of James O’Brien reacting to Trump’s latest flurry of faux pas, and I found myself thinking not about politics in the conventional sense, but about something deeper: what kind of emotional wiring allows a person—or a nation—to elect a malignant narcissist to the highest office? My own comment on the video tried to articulate this:

“I think Trump likely has a learning disability himself—but that’s not the real issue. The real issue is that he’s a dangerously repressed individual who has developed into a full-blown malignant narcissist and sociopath, utterly devoid of empathy. I’m extremely dyslexic, but I see myself and others clearly—so I know this isn’t about intelligence. The problem is emotional blindness. Trump and his supporters seem to lack it entirely; otherwise, they never would have voted him into the highest office and put the entire world in such a dangerous position. Sexism and racism come with a very high price. We’re all paying it.”

That comment brought to mind the work of Alice Miller, the Swiss psychologist who spent her career tracing the roots of violence, tyranny, and emotional deadness back to childhood. Miller understood something that our culture often refuses to see: the capacity for empathy, for ethical clarity, for resistance to authoritarianism—these are not gifts of IQ. They are gifts of emotional freedom.

The Formation of Character

As Miller writes:

“We do not arrive in this world as a clean slate. Every new baby comes with a history of its own, the history of the nine months between conception and birth. In addition, children have the genetic blueprint they inherit from their parents. These factors may help determine what kind of a temperament a child will have, what inclinations, gifts, and predispositions. But character depends crucially upon whether a person is given love, protection, tenderness, and understanding or exposed to rejection, coldness, indifference, and cruelty in the early formative years.”

The stimulus for empathy is the experience of being empathized with. In the absence of that—when a child is neglected, emotionally starved, or subjected to abuse—the innate capacity for empathy atrophies. Neurologist Dr. Bruce D. Perry has shown that traumatized and neglected children can display lesions affecting up to 30 percent of the brain regions that control emotion. Severe early trauma floods the developing brain with stress hormones that destroy newly formed neurons and their connections.

This is not merely a personal tragedy. It is a public danger.

Why Intelligence Is Not Enough

One of Miller’s most unsettling insights is that intelligence, without emotional freedom, does not protect us from corruption—it simply makes us better at rationalizing it. She writes:

“Our capacity to resist has nothing to do with our intelligence but with the degree of access to our true self. Indeed, intelligence is capable of innumerable rationalizations when it comes to the matter of adaptation.”

She cites the example of Martin Heidegger, one of the most brilliant philosophers of the 20th century, who was able to break with traditional philosophy but could not see the contradictions in Hitler’s ideology. His intellectual independence in one domain coexisted with infantile submissiveness in another—because the early pattern of obedience to tyrannical authority had never been consciously faced and resolved.

This is the danger of what Miller called “poisonous pedagogy” —the widespread practice of breaking a child’s will in the name of discipline, creating adults who will, as she puts it, “cooperate with the penal system” and “carry out any form of torture or persecution without having a guilty conscience.”

Creativity Does Not Resolve Trauma

One of the most persistent illusions in our culture is that creative expression is a form of healing. Miller is emphatic on this point:

“It is a great mistake to imagine that one can resolve traumas in a symbolic fashion. If that were possible, poets, painters, and other artists would be able to resolve their pain through creativity. This is not the case, however. Creativity helps us channel the pain of trauma into symbolic acts; it doesn’t help us resolve it.”

She uses dictators as her example: if symbolic revenge worked, they would eventually stop tormenting others. But because they deceive themselves about who their hatred truly belongs to—their own childhood perpetrators—they remain trapped in an insatiable hunger for revenge, endlessly acting it out on a global stage.

Seeing Clearly Requires Courage, Not Just Intelligence

This is why judging people by their character—by their emotional honesty, their capacity for self-reflection, their willingness to face painful truths—matters more than judging them by their credentials, their talents, or their public personas.

As I wrote in a blog post years ago, responding to the wave of revelations about men like Bill Cosby who hid behind fame and talent:

“Having special talents is wonderful and it’s okay to cash in your talents for a living, but when people hide behind their talents, fame and money to hide their own personal truth and keep themselves and others distracted from the truth and facts then you are misusing your talents and contributing for the lies to spread and silently or covertly you are part of all the violence and atrocities we are witnessing in our world.”

Miller once wrote to a reader who had survived horrific childhood abuse with her clarity and courage intact, expressing gratitude that “the lively, brave and bright little girl” had “remained sound to keep the full clarity and the unusual courage in order TO SEE and TO ACCUSE, without ‘buts,’ without illusions, without self-betrayal.”

That is the hallmark of genuine character: the refusal of “buts.” The refusal to excuse cruelty because the perpetrator is charismatic, or talented, or on “my side.” The refusal to look away.

The Price of Emotional Blindness

We are living through a time when the price of emotional blindness has become impossible to ignore. Sexism and racism, as I noted in my original comment, are not merely personal prejudices—they are the predictable outcomes of unresolved childhood repression, acted out on a collective scale. When a nation elevates a man devoid of empathy to its highest office, it is not a failure of education. It is a failure of emotional development, magnified millions of times over.

Miller’s insight is both sobering and, in its own way, hopeful: “The unconscious compulsion to revenge repressed injuries is more powerful than reason. That is the lesson that all tyrants teach us. One should not expect judiciousness from a mad person motivated by compulsive panic. One should, however, protect oneself from such a person.”

Protecting ourselves—and future generations—requires more than policy debates or intellectual arguments. It requires the courage to look at childhood honestly: our own, and the childhoods of those who now hold power. It requires recognizing that a person who cannot feel their own pain will inevitably inflict it on others. And it requires building a world where children are no longer broken in the name of obedience—because the character that results is the character that destroys us all.

Character matters. It always has. It always will.

Just like I wrote in my book A Dance to Freedom, pages 75, 76, and 173, “The extremes to which people go to avoid facing the pain of their own truth — even though such a confrontation would set them free — will never cease to amaze me. “To many people,” Alice Miller says, “it seems easier to take medication, to smoke, drink alcohol..., preach, educate or treat others, and prepare wars than expose themselves to their own painful truth. …Society is on the side of the status quo, so be prepared. As Alice Miller writes in Free from Lies, going against the parents “is a source of major alarm for others …They will sometimes mobilize all the forces at their command to discredit the former victim and thus keep their own repression intact.” 

This is why I keep getting targeted by dangerously repressed people after I published my book. My book is a mirror to the abusers and the enablers, and they don't like their own reflections, so they mobilize all their forces at their command to destroy me and discredit me; they would rather see me dead, in jail, or in a mental hospital than face their own repression, lies, and illusions.