I woke up early this morning with Alice Miller on my mind and decided to dedicate a post to her. I think of her regularly, especially since her death more than two years ago and I always end up feeling inadequate and ashamed. I know these are old programs, but until now I have not been able to deal with them. While laying in bed and thinking about her I realised with a shock that what had happened to her one year before her death was the work of a psychopath.
For years AM had a forum and later on mailing lists where people would gather and talk and work through their childhood. I was a member for about two years.
When our trusted and sensitive moderator became overwhelmed they looked for another solution. A member of our forum who had been quite active, responsive and seemingly empathic stepped up (or so it seemed) and took over the role of moderator. What happened was that the flow that you find on forums and on lists where all kinds of people contribute to a post dried up and only dialogues between she and a poster would develop (isolating victims?).
All kinds of people left the list because of her, including some internet friends of mine and myself. I wrote to the old moderator to explain why I was leaving, but he did not wish to hear.
We were contemplating whether we should write AM and explain how this new moderator really was, but we could also see that AM was still somewhat awe-struck by this woman, so we left it at that. At least this is how I remember it.
I kept visiting AM's website reading letters from readers and in 2009 AM had a fall-out with this moderator. I read about it on her website and visited Barbara Rogers' site to see what she had to say.
http://www.screamsfromchildhood.com/escape_admiration.html
However, it is such a sickening and lengthy post that I still find it hard to read everything. Isn't this also one of the characteristics of a psychopath? To produce lengthy discourses, playing the victim? BR also seems to have learnt all the tricks in the book about therapy, the impact of childhood and psychology. It seems to me that she is quite cunning. She is IMO using everything that she has learnt from AM. She used her to promote her book 'Screams from childhood' (I actually bought a copy), to further her aims in becoming a therapist, so she could claim that she had worked with AM and she seems to promote a certain therapy (IFS).
I responded to Alice's message about the issue and wrote to her about BR. She rung me afterwards and we had a long talk about the subject.
I told Alice how Barbara was always going on about the positive role of her nanny in her life, but the nanny turned out to be a physically abusive character (according to BR's own book, page 24, where she recounts the fact that her nanny used to beat her with a dresshanger). She didn't know. She couldn't see the truth?
I am mourning the fact that at the time that I spoke to AM in person I wasn't able to assist her. I did not have the knowledge about psychopathy. I knew something was really off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I still think that I let her down that day. :(
In AM's 'Paths of Life' she writes about this middle-aged widow (the scenario is called 'Gloria') that has been swindled out of her inheritance, because of her love for her daughter with Down. In that book the lady states that she will never again be taken over by wishful thinking. She can now recognize a predator (in this case it was a teacher of disabled kids that promised to look after the daughter after the mother's death). But AM was mistaken, just like I was mistaken, thinking that because I had already dealt with psychopaths before I would be able to spot them straight away. But that is not how it works.
Barbara Rogers viciously attacked a lady in her late eighties. She continues her attacks on AM even after her death. How utterly ... (I cannot find the words.)
And I know that I am speculating here, but I think that these vicious attacks contributed to her decline and ultimately to her death. She was dead within the year after our phone conversation. Her muscles gave up.
For years AM had a forum and later on mailing lists where people would gather and talk and work through their childhood. I was a member for about two years.
When our trusted and sensitive moderator became overwhelmed they looked for another solution. A member of our forum who had been quite active, responsive and seemingly empathic stepped up (or so it seemed) and took over the role of moderator. What happened was that the flow that you find on forums and on lists where all kinds of people contribute to a post dried up and only dialogues between she and a poster would develop (isolating victims?).
All kinds of people left the list because of her, including some internet friends of mine and myself. I wrote to the old moderator to explain why I was leaving, but he did not wish to hear.
We were contemplating whether we should write AM and explain how this new moderator really was, but we could also see that AM was still somewhat awe-struck by this woman, so we left it at that. At least this is how I remember it.
I kept visiting AM's website reading letters from readers and in 2009 AM had a fall-out with this moderator. I read about it on her website and visited Barbara Rogers' site to see what she had to say.
http://www.screamsfromchildhood.com/escape_admiration.html
However, it is such a sickening and lengthy post that I still find it hard to read everything. Isn't this also one of the characteristics of a psychopath? To produce lengthy discourses, playing the victim? BR also seems to have learnt all the tricks in the book about therapy, the impact of childhood and psychology. It seems to me that she is quite cunning. She is IMO using everything that she has learnt from AM. She used her to promote her book 'Screams from childhood' (I actually bought a copy), to further her aims in becoming a therapist, so she could claim that she had worked with AM and she seems to promote a certain therapy (IFS).
I responded to Alice's message about the issue and wrote to her about BR. She rung me afterwards and we had a long talk about the subject.
I told Alice how Barbara was always going on about the positive role of her nanny in her life, but the nanny turned out to be a physically abusive character (according to BR's own book, page 24, where she recounts the fact that her nanny used to beat her with a dresshanger). She didn't know. She couldn't see the truth?
I am mourning the fact that at the time that I spoke to AM in person I wasn't able to assist her. I did not have the knowledge about psychopathy. I knew something was really off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I still think that I let her down that day. :(
In AM's 'Paths of Life' she writes about this middle-aged widow (the scenario is called 'Gloria') that has been swindled out of her inheritance, because of her love for her daughter with Down. In that book the lady states that she will never again be taken over by wishful thinking. She can now recognize a predator (in this case it was a teacher of disabled kids that promised to look after the daughter after the mother's death). But AM was mistaken, just like I was mistaken, thinking that because I had already dealt with psychopaths before I would be able to spot them straight away. But that is not how it works.
Barbara Rogers viciously attacked a lady in her late eighties. She continues her attacks on AM even after her death. How utterly ... (I cannot find the words.)
And I know that I am speculating here, but I think that these vicious attacks contributed to her decline and ultimately to her death. She was dead within the year after our phone conversation. Her muscles gave up.