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ABOUT ME - MY STORY

(Return to About Me - Introduction)

What happens in families it happens in countries; what happens in countries happens in the world.  I know what happened in my family it happens in most families around the world, even in bigger extremes; otherwise, I would not see it happen in the stage of the world in such an extreme.

I was born on March 11, 1959, in a tiny village in the Northeast of Portugal, the youngest of ten children.  My parents were very affected by their upbringing.  My father drank to deal with his pain and became an addict.  My grandfather abandoned my father.  My grandmother died when he was a little boy.  His mother's friend, a man addicted to alcohol, raised him.
 

My father married my mother when he was 24 years old, and my mother was 16 years old.  This was an arranged marriage.  My mother used to say, "My parents married me to this drunk."  The unhealthy patterns established early in my life nearly killed me.  I fantasized about death and eventually attempted suicide.  I never understood why I was always in abusive relationships and why nothing worked in my life until I moved to the United States and read Alice Miller’s books.

I have gained a lot of insight; and I feel a responsibility to share what I have learned with others - especially in Portugal, which remains a very closed and secretive culture where there is very little awareness and understanding of all forms of child abuse, the untreated professional and dyslexia.  I want to use my voice to help raise consciousness.  This is why I want to share my personal story with the public.  I am hoping to find an enlightened, talented writer to help me write my book.  Going public with my experiences is something I must do.  I know if I write a book about my life experiences and discoveries, I can help people break through ignorance and denial and can raise awareness in the world.

Let me start from the beginning.  Like I said, I was the youngest of ten; my sister Marisa is three years older than I.  All the other children are much older.  My oldest sister is 25 years older than I.  We had another sister closer to our age, but she died when she was seven years old.  At that time I was two years old, and Marisa was five.  The three of us were left with my brother Ricardo who was 17 years old.  My mother went to visit my brother Manuel in the hospital.  He had been badly injured in a traffic accident.  My brother left us alone to go help someone fix a machine that had broken down.  (My brother was born with an engineer's mind and every time a person in the village had mechanical problems they would come looking for him.)  While my brother was gone, my sister's clothes caught on fire at the fireplace.  Marisa and I ran after her screaming, but she ran from us so we would not catch on fire with her.  Nobody heard our screams because our house was one kilometer away from the village.  When my brother came home, he called for help and took my sister to the city hospital; but it was too late.  She died at the hospital a week later.  My family has never been able to talk about these painful events.

At the age of seven I started first grade.  I was so excited to start school and eager to learn.  Unfortunately, at the beginning of the year I contracted hepatitis, causing me to miss the entire school year.  At the age of eight I went back to the first grade.  Our country had a shortage of teachers for the smaller villages.  At that time in our country the mandatory grade level was the fourth grade.  Also, our government was a dictatorship.  The government attempted to solve the problem by giving a short, crash course to adults with only a fourth grade education themselves to teach first through fourth grades.  I guess in the crash course they forgot to teach my teacher that children couldn't learn if you hit them in the head with a stick while you teach them.  I lost my excitement for learning and I started to hate going to school.  Every chance I had I would skip school.

My two oldest sisters were nurses in the second largest city in Portugal (Porto).  When I was nine years old and Marisa was 12, they took us to live with them in the city, so we could get a better education.

 

It was still summertime, and we went to the beach for the first time.  I still remember very vividly when I got to see the ocean for the first time.  It was so awesome!

One evening we were left with two other nurses while my sisters worked.  One nurse asked me what grade I was in.  I said I was in the second grade.  They asked me if I knew how much three plus two was.  I remember feeling nervous and scared of giving them the wrong answer.  I looked at my sister Marisa for guidance, help, and support.  She had joined the nurses and told me to answer the question.  I said four instead of five.  They started laughing at me.  I felt so humiliated and hurt, but what hurt the most was that my sister Marisa laughed with them.  I felt so alone and abandoned by her.  That day I learned I was alone in the world.  Marisa was always pleasing all the adults and doing what was expected of her.  She would always get good grades in school.  She was admired and trusted by everyone.  I always had bad grades, was not able to behave to anyone's liking, and no one believed in me.  I was told I would never be good at anything, and that I was the shame of the family.  Marisa used to tell me that I was the zero on the left, and I did not count.

Now I understand that one of my problems was dyslexia.  I never heard about dyslexia until I enrolled in a community college in the United States, and I was told I was severely dyslexic.  Suddenly, all the years of struggling and suffering I had endured made sense.  Identifying the problem made a huge difference.  It allowed me to better understand myself, to deal with my condition, and start letting go of the shame I had taken on throughout my entire childhood.  I have come to see my learning disability as a gift in disguise.  It prevented me from falling into the same traps of my older brothers and sisters, and helped me face the unhealthy relationships, especially with my family.  I am thankful because this stopped me from spreading these unhealthy patterns with other people and future generations, and helped me to break the cycle of dysfunction in which I had lived.

When I was 13 years old, my brother Emanuel, who was 20 years old, died in a car accident in Spain after leaving a party.  I think he was intoxicated.  It took a week for the body to arrive in Portugal.  It was a very difficult time.  No one in my family has been able to talk about what caused the accident.  That year I ran away from home for the first time because my older sister was so mad at me for skipping school.  She told me that she never wanted to see me again and I ran away.  I lived in a railroad station and public bathrooms until the police found me and called my family.

On April 25, 1974 there was a revolution in my country to overthrow the fascist regime.  The classrooms became very chaotic, making learning even more difficult.  At 15 years old, I quit trying and dropped out of the seventh grade.  I felt so alone.  I fantasized about suicide.  Finding a job in Portugal at that time was like winning the lottery.  But after looking very hard, and with a little luck, I found work in a hospital taking care of newborn babies on the night shift.  I loved my job, and for the first time in my life I was happy.

 

My happiness was short lived.  Soon my older sisters found out I was going out on my days off.  They had my brother in Spain come to take me to live with him.  They told my brother they could not control me, and what I needed was a strong hand.  He used to resort to violence to force his will on me and his three young little children.  He locked me in a room so I could not go out and make friends with the local youth.   Once again I was feeling completely hopeless and not seeing a way out.  I had a small bottle full of tranquilizers that my older sisters had given to me to make me more controllable.  I took all the pills at once.  My sister-in-law found me lifeless in my room, and they took me to a hospital.  I was in a coma for a little while.  When I woke up, the authorities were coming to interview me.  My brother became scared, took me out of the hospital without the doctors' permission, and took me back to Portugal.

The jobs my family would find for me involved working all day without pay.  I remember at the age of 14, my older sister got me a live-in job for the summer.  I was cleaning in a private hospital, run by nuns, from 7am until 10pm.  I believe that my older sisters got me these jobs, working as a slave, so they would know where I was all the time and would not have to worry about me.  I could not take it and would run away from the jobs.  I used to use the patio rails on the roof of the fifth floor of the apartments where we lived as balance beams and run between apartments.  The neighbors were afraid that one day I would fall to my death.  I guess it was one of my ways of asking for help but no one knew how to help me.  I was always sneaking out of the house to hang out at local cafes with other lost young people like me.

At the age of 17, my older sister took me to see a young psychiatrist, Dr. Julio Machado Vaz, Today he is famous with a TV program, and he is a published author.  Of course, all he talks about is sex.  Sex is his addiction and he has managed to get a whole country to enable his addiction.  The first question he asked was if I had a boyfriend.  I said, no.  Then he asked if I ever had a boyfriend.  Once again I said no.  Then he told me that my sister brought me to see him because she was afraid that I was sexually active.  Then he started to explain to me that most people are sexually repressed.  He said that sex is normal, and what I needed was a boyfriend.  He told me to go see him in his private office where he started performing sexual acts on me.  One time he took me to his house while his wife was at the hospital having his second baby.  It went on for some months.  It is foggy to me how it ended.  I just remember he stopped calling.

Anne Katherine, M.A. in her book “Boundaries: Where You End And I Begin” says, “A therapist is entrusted with his or her clients’ deepest secrets.  A minister bestows sanctions from the highest power in the universe.  The potential for harm is overwhelming.  For a person in such a role, essentially that of a guardian, to cross sexual boundaries is a grave violation.  A child, a client, a patient, a follower, a worshiper---all are vulnerable and approaching authority out of need.  A sexual action by a guardian is very confusing even to a very strong and healthy individual.  For someone vulnerable and in need, such an action can be devastating.  When a parent is sexual toward a child, the violation reverberates for decades.  Trust is broken, the child takes on responsibility for the act, sexuality is affected, and the bond is damaged.  When a therapist, physician, attorney, or clergy person is sexual with a client or worshiper, it is also incest.  A trust is broken, a bond is perverted.  The person who sought care was used to meet the needs of the caregiver.”  Today I know what my needs were.  I did not need sex or a boyfriend.  What I needed was an enlightened witness to help me with my pain and to give me knowledge, information and tools on how to cope and deal with self-righteous, overbearing, domineering, invasive and authoritarian older sisters and brothers.

At the age of 20, I found myself pregnant.  I knew in my heart I could not bring a new life into the world I was in.  In Portugal abortion was illegal.  I was fortunate enough to find a midwife that performed illegal abortions.  I was also very lucky that my family did not find out.  If they had found out, they would have forced me to carry the pregnancy to term by locking me up.  I know my decision to have an abortion brought me closer to God or my higher consciousness.  I know if I had a child without freeing myself first from the vicious circle or karmic wheel I was in, it would have gotten me deeper in the vicious circle or karmic wheel, and I would have taken an innocent child with me.  I would have gotten further away from God or higher consciousness.  I would never have had the opportunity to leave Portugal, where I would never have gotten the information I needed to free myself.  I always knew in my heart in order for me to become free, I would have to leave home and Portugal.  I would like to share with you this answer Dr. Deepak Chopra gave to a questioner on his website:

Question:  What do you think God feels about abortion?

Answer:  God's feelings about abortion can only be known to us from the level of our own God responses.  If we are focused upon the Reactive Response, then God's view of abortion to us will be according to laws of judgment and righteousness.  When we have achieved unity with God in the seventh stage, we can know what God feels directly.  In this stage one knows the truth of life beyond the boundaries of time and physical body.  Action and behavior is not seen as good or bad, it is seen as various expressions of one unbounded field of consciousness, existence and bliss.  Any action or human choice is evaluated in terms of whether it brings you closer to this awakening of unity with God or not.  That can only be determined by looking within someone's heart, not by looking at their behavior.  I don't think God supports certain politics or other human beliefs and dislikes others.  Abortion, like any human action or decision can bring one closer to God or not.  It's not the category of activity that determines whether it brings you closer to God, it is the love in your heart.  If we need to specify what God's feelings are, we could say God feels joy and love for those actions which lead to closeness to the divine and compassion and tolerance for those actions that don't.  Love Deepak

If you would like to read more about the seven responses of God or the seven states of consciousness, you can read his book How To Know God:  The Soul's Journey Into The Mystery Of Mysteries.

Two years later, at the age of 22, I was still feeling hopeless of ever being independent.  My sister Marisa came home from teaching an English class at the local college and asked me if I knew anyone who was interested in going to London, as au pair, to help a family with two young children.  I looked at her and said, Yes I know someone, ME!  They did not want to let me go because they did not think I was right for the job, and I would let them down again.

 

I begged them to give me a chance and to London I went.  Once again I found myself in a slave situation where I was being taken advantage of, and I left them within a month.  I found another English family that treated me very well and stayed with them for a year.

After that, I got a job in a small hotel in London where a lot of Americans were staying.  One of them helped me get a visa to go to America.

Getting in the United States was really just the beginning of my journey.  My first job in the United States was in a nursing home as a nursing assistant.  I was barely making enough money to pay for my studio apartment.  That summer a friend from France that I met at the hotel in London came to visit me.  She looked through the paper for a job for some spending money and got a job dancing at a nightclub.  The ad said, " waitress, no experience necessary"; but when we got there they talked her into dancing and told her she would make more money.  She made more money in one night than I made in two weeks!  I decided I wanted to make that kind of money.  For the first time I had hopes of becoming financially independent.  I started saving money.  I also donated to my favorite charities that helped the most vulnerable in our society --- children and animals.  Then, for the first time in my life, I listened to my family, and allowed them to persuade me to give my money to my sister Marisa who had a college degree to invest.  My intuition told me not to, but I did it to get their approval.  For the first time I was getting their approval.

In 1990 because of the Gulf War, the business at the nightclub where I worked started to slow down.  Every year would get slower.  In 1994 my tips were dropping drastically.  I started asking my sister about my finances and she said everything was fine.  I went to Portugal, and I found out that she had embezzled money from me and the entire family to support her partner's addictive behaviors.  The money was all gone; and to make things worse, she had me sign an irrevocable power of attorney over to her.  At that time, I did not realize I was signing my life over to her.  I went back to the United States with my heart broken not knowing what to do next.

Once again I was fantasizing about suicide and feeling hopeless like when I used to live in Portugal.  I had no idea where to go for help.  One day I called the crisis number from the phone book; it was the most difficult call I ever made.  They gave me a phone number to a counselor.  I went to see him, but he did not have an explanation or answers to why my life was crumbling.  After a few times going to him, I decided he did not have answers and did not know how to help me.  He was just taking my money.  So I stopped seeing him.  I wanted to understand so badly why nothing was working for me again.

One day I was at my boyfriend's apartment.  He and his roommate were both drank and rude.  This was my third relationship.  In past relationships when I did not feel loved, I would leave right after visiting my family in Portugal.  Seeing all my brothers and sisters in very dysfunctional relationships, I would say to myself, "I will not be like them. I would rather be alone than be with someone that is not capable of loving me."  The moment I got back in the states I would break up with the present boyfriend.  After about a year of being alone I would meet someone new that looked like he had all the qualities to build a loving relationship; but after a while it would end up being like all past relationships.  The only difference in my last relationship was that I was not able to leave.  I was in a relationship I very much wanted to make work, but could not work.  I felt trapped, like a failure - unloved, unwanted and rejected; but this time I was not able to leave.

Even if I left, I always went back or let him come back.  I wanted to know why I kept attracting men who were emotionally unavailable.  I kept asking the questions I had been asking myself most of my life:  Why am I here?  How did we get here?  I heard a voice saying, Go to a bookstore.  So I got up.  My boyfriend asked me where I was going.  I told him I was going to a bookstore.  He looked surprised!  I was not much of a reader.  Growing up I never developed the love for books.  The few books that had reached my hands had not touched my soul.  When I got to the bookstore, I walked right to a book with the title Codependent No More by Melody Beattie.  At the time I did not know what the word "codependent" meant.  I started reading the book thinking it would be good for my sisters, especially for Marisa, because of the subtitle How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself.  But as I started reading, I realized how precious this book was to me.  I went home and stayed up all night reading.  This book had answers I had been looking for a very long time.  I realized I was exploring a part of me I had never entered before.  I began to sob as I read.  I couldn’t stop.  I had begun a personal journey into my past, and I had to continue this task.  It was difficult to recall the pain and trauma of my childhood and youth.  I cried for the entire year.

As Jean Jenson in her book Reclaiming your life:  Step by Step Using Regression Therapy to Overcome Effects of Childhood Abuse says, “The truth will make you free, but first will make you miserable.”  I grieved my family, my lost childhood and youth, my failed relationships, and all my financial losses. I used to repress that part of me.  It was embarrassing and shameful. John Bradshaw in his book Healing The Shame That Binds You says, “Toxic shame is like internal bleeding.  Exposure to oneself lies at the heart of toxic same.  A shame-based person will guard against exposing his inner self to others, but more significantly, he will guard against exposing himself to himself.”  But now I couldn’t repress and hide anymore.  Now I was beginning to understand.  When I first began to apply the principles I was learning in therapy, I could see I attracted men that would treat me like my family of origin did.  My childhood pain is of feeling lonely, isolated, less than, not as good as, not being acknowledged, unhappy, sad, vulnerable, hurt, knowing something is missing, wrong, unwanted, not belonging and fear.  It was scary, and felt unloved.  The worst part was that, when feeling that old pain, it felt like it was always going to be that way!  As I felt the sadness of an end of a relationship and saw how hopeless it would be to continue waiting and wanting to be with this person, I started recognizing how similar the situation was to those of my childhood where the same hopelessness and sadness existed.  Therapy has given me tools to live each day with, to recognize unhealthy situations, and to take better care of myself.

In reading the book Codependents’ Guide to the Twelve Steps, by Melody Beattie, she recommended reading the book Thou Shalt Not Be Aware:  Society's Betrayal of the Child by Alice Miller.  I became very interested in the book because of the subtitle Society's Betrayal of the Child because growing up in Portugal I felt so betrayed by everyone.  As I read her books the guilt I had carried around all these years was being lifted from me.  I no longer feel any of my family problems are my fault, and I no longer feel I deserved what happened to me.

I found my first enlightened witness when I was 36 years old (1995).  No one should have to wait this long to find an enlightened witness.  In the last eight years I have felt a lot of repressed painful emotions.  My ex-boyfriend was very good at awakening those emotions and leaving me alone with my painful emotions just like my family of origin did.  Of course, I understand now that he and no one can tolerate being in the presence of someone in pain if they have not learned to be and work through their own pain.  I am grateful that my enlightened witnesses came to me through books because understanding what was going on helped me get through it.  It has been a very lonely road; but at the same time, I am very grateful and feel very fortunate for the opportunity to have this time alone with my feelings and experience my repressed emotions, so I could heal without anyone interfering.  Solitude, books and my cats have been my best friends.  The only beings that have been with me through it all have been my cats.  Some days the love for my cats was the only thing carrying me through it.

I always hated when people in Al-Anon (a 12-Step meeting for friends and family of alcoholics) used to tell me that I would find the help I need when I was ready.  I feel I was ready for as long as I can remember.  I always will wonder what my life would have been like if I had found an enlightened witness much sooner.  I am so thankful that I did not have any children.  I feel grateful that I did not pass these wounds and shadow on to anyone else, as my brothers and sisters did; and now I see my nieces and nephews passing it on to their own children.  I cringe every time I see people having children without first acknowledging and taking responsibility for their own wounds and shadow.  I used to ask myself, why do people in painful vicious cycles bring children to a life of suffering?  Today I have the answer from Alice Miller’s book For Your Own Good:  Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence.  It is that "Parents have the unconscious need to pass on to others the humiliation one has undergone oneself and the need to find an outlet for repressed affect."  I have bought all her books.  Her books are very enlightening.  I have not seen anyone speak the truth like her. Most people tiptoe around the truth and are too afraid of facing these painful truths.  Our world needs more people with courage like hers.

I always felt so alone with my perceptions.  I needed very much to have an enlightened witness like her on my side.  It feels good that there are other people able to see and speak the truth.  I am so grateful for her books because I could not ever articulate and express the truth in words like she does.  These words from her book The Drama of the Gifted Child expressed exactly how I feel today, saying: "The world has not changed.  There is so much evil and meanness all around me, and I see it even more clearly than before.  However, for the first time, I find life really worth living.  Perhaps this is because, for the first time, I have the feeling that I am really living my own life.  And that is an exciting adventure.  On the other hand, I can understand my suicidal ideas better now, especially those I had in my youth---when it seemed pointless to carry on---because in a way I had always been living a life that wasn't mine, that I didn't want, and that I was ready to throw away."

As long as I can remember, I knew there was something very wrong with the people in my world.  Now I understand why, because they too were victims of their upbringing.  I realized I had been affected from being involved all my life with emotional ill people and that I too needed therapy.  I allowed my family to convince me they were superior, better, smarter and that they knew what was better.  Today I know we are all equals, and nobody knows what is better for us, but ourselves.  We all suffer from the same plight.  Today the only difference between my family and me is they are in denial of the affects of their upbringing, and I am not.  I have been reading ever since.  I know I will never stop reading until the day I die. Now I see my purpose in life very clearly.  I am so grateful.  The reason I went to America was to find Alice Miller’s books, because if I had stayed in Portugal I would never have learned English and I would never had the opportunity to read her books.  I feel In Portugal there is an unconscious conspiracy not to have Alice Miller’s books available to the public.  But you can be assured that Dr. Julio Machado Vaz’s books are exposed in every book store.  Lies spread like wild fire.  Even in America it’s not easy to find Alice Miller’s books, I have to order them.  I only find books with lies exposed in every book store.

On April 7th, 2000, I became an American citizen and changed my name in order to free myself from my sister Marisa and the family.

In the year 2003, I traveled to Portugal and tried to contact the media there.  I wanted to go public with my experiences, and to bring awareness about all forms of child abuse, dyslexia, and the untreated professional.  I never got a response.  Portugal is a very secretive country, and the media is afraid to talk about secrets, especially if it involves a famous doctor.  The media in Portugal protects people in power.  As Alice Miller in her book Breaking Down the Walls of Silence:  The Liberating Experience of Facing Painful Truth says, “At every attempt to share the new discoveries I made with the public, I ran up against the most determined resistance on the part of the media.  It is true I can go on publishing these discoveries in my books, because my publishers are already aware of the growing interest in this topic.  But there are other people who have important things to say, and they are dependent on the press.  They and their readers rely on essential information not being torpedoed.  All too often, however, the media buttress the wall of silence against which all those who have begun to confront their own childhood rebound.”

While living in Arizona I tried to help by volunteering at the Perryville Women's Prison in Goodyear, AZ, visiting inmates in prison for alcohol and drug violations.  As Alice Miller said in her book The Truth Will Set You Free:  Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self, “Every criminal was humiliated, neglected, or abused in childhood, but few of them can admit to it.”

I have also been a sponsor for a Twelve Step meeting for teens.  I was forced to quit because of the other sponsor, who was very controlling and domineering.  Being with this sponsor was just like being with my family of origin.  I was there really trying to be helpful to the teens.

The other sponsor had a hidden agenda, which seemed to be all about wanting to make herself look good.  She had also a teen daughter who went to these meetings.  She was there to see what her daughter had to say and what she would share at the meetings.  Interestingly enough, her daughter would only share in the meetings if her mother for some reason could not attend.  One of the reasons for two sponsors, was in case one sponsor couldn't attend, the teens would still have a meeting.

One day after I shared some of my experiences about being a teen, a teen in the group identified with me and started to open up.  The other sponsor interrupted him because he broke the rule that, we were supposed to go around and wait for our turn to share, I said, "It’s okay, let him share," but she insisted on following the rules.  I let it go.  Of course, when the turn came for him to be able to share, he passed.

After the meeting I talked to the other sponsor and let her know that by enforcing the rules by interrupting the teen when he was sharing, she blocked that teen’s expression of his feelings, only resulting in him being more repressed.  I explained that rules are created to help create order when there is chaos and that is important to know when it’s okay and even important to break the rules.  Otherwise, the rules created to help us will keep us prisoners.  I also told her that probably we should look for another sponsor to take her place because the Twelve Steps Program suggests that mother and daughter should not attend the same meeting.  She said that a Twelve Steps meeting is just a program of suggestions.

At this, I pointed out that when it's convenient to her, she says it’s a program of suggestions; but when she wants to be controlling, she calls it rules.  The next meeting she came with some of her friends from the program to give her support against me.  I felt alone like I used to feel in my family of origin.

The next meeting I let everyone know that because of personal reasons I no longer was going to be a Twelve Steps teen sponsor.  I also communicated that if any teen wanted to talk to me they could call me at home.  Some of them did call and told me the only reason they were going to our meeting was because of me and said they no longer were going to the meeting.  I heard soon after I left, the meeting died.

That’s the last time I went to Twelve Steps meetings.  The Twelve Steps refuse to look at the real causes, putting only focus in changing people behavior and what I have witness in Twelve Steps meetings is that People change one addiction for another.  Just as C.G. JUNG and ALICE MILLER says:

“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.” - C.G. JUNG

“Problems can not be solved with words, but only through experience, not merely corrective experience, but through a reliving of early fear (sadness, anger).” - ALICE MILLER

This article by Dr. Alice Miller "The Longest Journey" articulates very well the traps of Spirituality/Religion/Morality.  My experience it has been the same as Dr. Alice Miller's, it has been a very long Journey, it has taken me also all of my life to finely free myself of all the crutches and get two healthy legs to stand on.

If we want to free ourselves we have to face, acknowledge, articulate and feel our painful truth.

Sylvie Shene

Some of the names are not the actual names of the people involved.

Continue on to "After the Breakup"

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